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"Free Will"
Clarence Darrow: "Every one knows that the heavenly bodies move in certain paths in relation to each other with seeming consistency and regularity which we call [physical] law. ... No one attributes freewill or motive to the material world. Is the conduct of man or the other animals any more subject to whim or choice than the action of the planets? ... We know that man's every act is induced by motives that led or urged him here or there; that the sequence of cause and effect runs through the whole universe, and is nowhere more compelling than with man." Quoted in Lecture Notes on Free Will and Determinism by Norman Swartz.
True
Baron D’Holbach: “The inward persuasion that we are free to do, or not to do a thing, is but a mere illusion. If we trace the true principle of our actions, we shall find, that they are always necessary consequences of our volitions and desires, which are never in our power. You think yourself free, because you do what you will; but are you free to will, or not to will; to desire, or not to desire? Are not your volitions and desires necessarily excited by objects or qualities totally independent of you?” From Good Sense Without God.
Abraham Lincoln: “The human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control.”
Power
Locke3 and Hume4 have extended Hobbes's "freedom to do without restriction" to "the power to do or not as one wills." This meaning makes freedom strictly a power, an ability, restricted to the person, and not a freedom of the will. The will may be fully determined by psychological or biological forces and conditions; yet an individual may be externally free to act out this determined course. For Locke, the will is as I have defined it, a power to choose.
Another hitch
We are free insofar as we alone determine our behavior. We are not free when others dictate or hamper our decisions or for reasons of illness or incapacity we cannot determine our actions. This meaning carries the question from the external empirical realm to the inner psychological domain of will or subjective determination.
Originally posted by WEOPPOSEDECEPTION
I agree that free will is an illusion. A very persistent one however. Try choosing what your next 10 thoughts will be.
If you ponder this deep enough, you might question what exactly the "self" is. It's like a camera that takes credit/ownership for what it sees.
Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Originally posted by WEOPPOSEDECEPTION
I agree that free will is an illusion. A very persistent one however. Try choosing what your next 10 thoughts will be.
If you ponder this deep enough, you might question what exactly the "self" is. It's like a camera that takes credit/ownership for what it sees.
Very true. Also, some will say, "Well, you can choose to be good or bad."Yeah, but we are predispostioned towards one or the other. If not through upbringing, experience. So, again, how is that "free wil."
[edit on 11-8-2008 by SpeakerofTruth]
Originally posted by eNumbra
[What of those who overcame such adversities? or were they just preconditioned too?
Counter
The behaviorist, however, has a quite plausible counter‑ argument to this. The reason why we deliberate is that there exists certain sets of conditioning which are of equal “strength.”
Originally posted by Johnmike
Well...you have the power to choose. But the choice you make is determined by your circumstances. So you can pick whatever you want, but what you pick is basically determined by everything in the universe, including how your mind works.
If that makes any sense.
But you have to understand that while free will isn't absolute throughout time, it does exist in every instance of the present, so you may actually choose what you do. It is important to understand this, else you fall into a sort of nihilism.
Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Originally posted by Johnmike
Well...you have the power to choose. But the choice you make is determined by your circumstances. So you can pick whatever you want, but what you pick is basically determined by everything in the universe, including how your mind works.
If that makes any sense.
But you have to understand that while free will isn't absolute throughout time, it does exist in every instance of the present, so you may actually choose what you do. It is important to understand this, else you fall into a sort of nihilism.
WEll, yeah, we can choose what we do. However, what makes us make that choice? Is it really "free will," or programming. If you take someone who has been ina sensory deprivation tank, guess what. They are indifferent. Do they CHOOSE to be indifferent, or is it more of a by-product of them not being exposed to anything? If it is the latter rather than the former, which it is, then "free will" has absolutely nothing to do with their indifference.
[edit on 11-8-2008 by SpeakerofTruth]
[edit on 11-8-2008 by SpeakerofTruth]
Originally posted by WEOPPOSEDECEPTION
It is always "now". The only thing you can change is the future, which doesn't exist. The now cannot be changed.
Originally posted by eNumbra
Why must something make us make the choice? Why is it not simply choice?
How does that not allow it to be free will? I could choose where I worked, but i'd have a reason for moving wouldn't I... hrm, perplexing.
Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Originally posted by eNumbra
Why must something make us make the choice? Why is it not simply choice?
Honestly, how many times have you made a decision to do anything that wasn't determined by exterior circumstances. You work,right? Why? Because if you don't, you don't eat and have a substantial living.
Lol. Really?! If I could choose not to sleep I would, I can't however, because it's linked to an internal biological function.
You sleep, right? Why? Because if you don't, you run your physical shell down. Follow me?