Free will exists. How could it not?

I hear a lot of people claiming there is no free will in this universe. They might say it's an excuse to believe in god because it can be used to justify the ''abscence'' of god's mercy towards injustice and terrible pain. Personnaly I believe in something much higher and powerful than human consciousness which can hardly be understood with this mind of ours. I also think god (the ultimate energy of the universe) can and will help us in time of need. However, and unfortunately, life works in a way we have to completely face the consequences of our actions. This is known as the law of cause and effect. We could simply call it Karma.
But that's not my main point.

I can't stop wondering to myself why do we think free will doesn't exist when in fact it's all around us?

Every time we decide to hurt somebody or ourself, that's free will.
Every time we decide to pollute the environment, that's free will.
Every time we decide to smile instead of cry, that's free will.
Every time we decide to stop beside a person in need or just walk away, that's free will.

I mean, we have been given the right to choose for ourselves of what we really wish to accomplish with our lifes. Every decisions (or almost) is established with free will. We have so much free will that we have the power to determine of the destiny of an entire planet and all the animals living among it. We even have a choice to make in how we want to influence the whole universe. That's gigantic free will in my book.

Now of course there are others factors that will direct how a person will think and react, but in the end we are always in power. Only the blindness of the ego can make us loose this awesome faculty.

So I'm wondering ATS, if we can shape the world we live in to our desire every second of every minute, how can that not be free will?

In the end, maybe the answer lies just in that: we are so ashamed to have created such an absurd and injust society, where no respect whatsoever is shown towards nature and the animals species living in it. Maybe we don't want and can't believe we are the only guilty. Maybe it is the exact reason why so many people refuse to believe in free will in the modern era... or even god for that matter.

Sometimes we should look back in time to our ancient brothers and take into perspective the way they understood life and its mysteries for thousand of years before all this crazyness of science came into play. We could learn a thing or two.

That would make the end of my point.
Peace.

sometimes i like to make a point in the difference between free will and choices. choices are limited, whereas free will isn't.

reply to post by St0rD


What about Divine Intervention??

Divine Intervention changes the Law of Cause and Effect by a Divine Influence and thereby negates Free Will by changing the intended outcome by a Free Will Agent. Religion want's everyone to believe in Free Will because without it there can be no Judgement. You cannot be judged honestly if your actions are not your own after all. However, at the same time they want you to believe in Miracles and God's ability to intervene in reality at the same time. I don't see how you can have it both ways.

I think anyone who has to think about free will is obviously not free.
Beware the paradoxes

reply to post by St0rD


Those who act upon their free will AND accept the responsibilities of their actions go un-noticed. Free will and its value has become taboo. Organized religion drives this. No man, or woman is free of humanity's obsession with imperfection and unworthiness before their creator. Over Billions and Billions served. Humans have taken ownership of sin, like pigs in mud, content with blemishes, for the excuse of inevitable sin provides humanity justification for self serving desires. The gift of free will is the gift of consciousness, which oddly enough, according to some scriptures, was granted from sin, or more accurately, sin was born of consciousness. Good morals, practiced brotherhood, and many other godly acts are not considered inherent, but they are. If we could only truly grasp that, and accept our being, without acting as if we are great for doing what we were designed to do...humble ourselves before consciousness and use this most wonderful, equality of being, then we can lay this debate to rest.

reply to post by St0rD


Cause and effect would seem to suggest that there is no longer any free will, if it ever existed, or they are independent of one another.

The big question is, how free is free will?

Are we free to be born as, or become, space elephants who can breath death upon all other creations? Can we, at will, manifest in a reality which doesn't exist until we make it? Can we control our past?

Are we only free to choose between choices we are given? Is that free?

I think we are free to choose between being just or unjust for the next life, but at the moment, we are not so completely free.

Being just would prohibit all the crazy # I said above. It is a catch all.

reply to post by TheDualityExperience


I think only those who think about this are free.

Really, I just want to ask about bewaring the paradoxes. I was just thinking about them earlier... they're like a thorn in this reality. You know anything interesting about them?

think about this enough and you realize that none of us are free.

read my signature, we're all slaves to something.

reply to post by St0rD



Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. I used to b e sure it did, but then I started to question it. What if what we think is free will is actually a programmed response and we think we are choosing to do something when in fact we are actually being compelled to to something?

St0rD
I hear a lot of people claiming there is no free will in this universe. They might say it's an excuse to believe in god because it can be used to justify the ''abscence'' of god's mercy towards injustice and terrible pain. Personnaly I believe in something much higher and powerful than human consciousness which can hardly be understood with this mind of ours. I also think god (the ultimate energy of the universe) can and will help us in time of need. However, and unfortunately, life works in a way we have to completely face the consequences of our actions. This is known as the law of cause and effect. We could simply call it Karma.
But that's not my main point.

The absence of free will is the proof of God, a cosmic muffin, the spaghetti monster, pick the name of your creator of this virtual reality... The lack of free will indicates a program is in place, one that is incredible in scope and size, but none-the-less a program, one that appears to operate this virtual reality/holographic universe/movie.

I can't stop wondering to myself why do we think free will doesn't exist when in fact it's all around us?

Every time we decide to hurt somebody or ourself, that's free will.

No, hurting someone, which might even be an extension of ourselves, is simply part of the program.

Every time we decide to pollute the environment, that's free will.

No, creating pollution is simply part of the program.

Every time we decide to smile instead of cry, that's free will.

No, it is simply part of the program.

Every time we decide to stop beside a person in need or just walk away, that's free will.

No, it is simply part of the program.

I mean, we have been given the right to choose for ourselves of what we really wish to accomplish with our lifes. Every decisions (or almost) is established with free will. We have so much free will that we have the power to determine of the destiny of an entire planet and all the animals living among it. We even have a choice to make in how we want to influence the whole universe. That's gigantic free will in my book.

Well, prove it, prove we have free will, I'll bet you can't. Your hypothesis seems to work on blind faith, but in reality, it is simply programming in regards to this virtual reality and we are getting closer to proving this is a virtual reality, with empirical data. We are simply "riders on a bus," we don't control the speed, the direction, the in-transit meal or what we see/hear/experience, that is left up to our character profile in regards to the movie/programming. Our problems with proof are similar to the problem of measuring gravity waves, they are like ripples on the water and the amoeba riding the wave does not experience change because its local environment changes with the amoeba. With gravity waves, space and time are proportionally distorted in our local space where we are trying to measure the gravity waves, so our "rulers" change with the wave thereby producing no measurable effect. So measurement requires one of two things, either a causal proxy or to be able to measure the wave from a position outside the effected local space or outside the system of the universe.

Now of course there are others factors that will direct how a person will think and react, but in the end we are always in power. Only the blindness of the ego can make us loose this awesome faculty.

Again, prove it, that as you call it the "blindness of the ego" causes us to lose free will, which is something we don't have (meaning free will) and since we don't have free will, power is illusory.

So I'm wondering ATS, if we can shape the world we live in to our desire every second of every minute, how can that not be free will?

If I hire a bunch of actors to follow a script and create a virtual reality that changes second by second, who's show are they putting on? Mine or theirs? If I created that visual reality, doesn't that virtual reality belong to me and not the actors?

In the end, maybe the answer lies just in that: we are so ashamed to have created such an absurd and injust society, where no respect whatsoever is shown towards nature and the animals species living in it. Maybe we don't want and can't believe we are the only guilty. Maybe it is the exact reason why so many people refuse to believe in free will in the modern era... or even god for that matter.

No, society is supposed to be absurd and corrupt, it is the nature of the program/movie ;-)

Sometimes we should look back in time to our ancient brothers and take into perspective the way they understood life and its mysteries for thousand of years before all this crazyness of science came into play. We could learn a thing or two.

That would make the end of my point.
Peace.

Back in time, you mean history right? How do you know our collective history is even correct? Were you there watching for the last say ~10,000+ years? How do you know reality is even real or that history or our individual "past" isn't programmed a plank length (C/Plank length) of time before it's implanted in our brains? We are inhabiting what we possibly can perceive as meat puppets or an avatar, if you like that term better. Our minds are someplace else and we are tethered, to what we think are these biological robots, through the brain. I imagine it somewhat like a train rolling down hill with a bunch of sensors on it and the data acquisition system is somewhere else. Our bodies are simply actors collecting information for our minds from this virtual reality/four dimensional movie. Doesn't the "brain" operate on electrochemical stimuli, couldn't "reality" even be induced to produce a collective "almost" dream state?

Let me explain a little about free will, a rational set of requirements for same;

It means being able to say NO and that no one or thing can force you to agree or say yes and;
It means having explicit control over EVERY aspect of your being at a sub-atomic level, but specifically within the brain, meaning that stray gamma rays or other interacting subatomic particles cannot alter decision making processes in neurons in your brain and;
It means having the ability to come and go from this virtual reality whenever you "feel" like doing so and still retain your memories of past lives/experiences.

Here's is a simple thought experiment;

You have water inside of a sealed jar (call it matter and the universe). With a large enough computer, enough sensors and advanced technology you could monitor the positions/energy/spin/velocity/etc. of all of the subatomic particles in real time. If you are sufficiently advanced you could write a monitoring program if you knew the basis of all of the laws of physics within this jar of water. This would mean that you would have the ability to track all particle interactions. Again, this means that with sufficient knowledge, you could write a computer program that predicted where all of the particles would be in an infinite number of years in the future or would have been in the past, with 100% accuracy. Now, if this is the case, then everything in that jar of water is predictable, so expand the jar of water to the size of the universe and presume the programmer is the creator. If everything is predictable, there can be no free will.

Free will does not exist. The idea of free will is a fairy tale and part of the programming.

Cheers - Dave

I read a book about this, by schopenhauer. He basically said we had no free will at all.
And actually it makes sense to me.

What he said is, evertyhing that happens has a necessary cause. Even though one action may be determined by many causes, it still has at least one necessary cause.
Therefore everything we do is determined by things that happened in the past. Its the only choice we have really, because its determined by who we are, and who we are is determined by the things that happened to us or by the way god made us.
Made sense at the time.

Heres a quote

The ultimate Author of all our volitions is the Creator of the world, who first bestowed motion on this immense machine and placed all beings in that particular position whence every subsequent event by an inevitable necessity must result.‎

And heres a link to the book

soulpowertothendegree
reply to post by St0rD

 

Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. I used to b e sure it did, but then I started to question it. What if what we think is free will is actually a programmed response and we think we are choosing to do something when in fact we are actually being compelled to to something?

I understand your reasonning.

Free will might not be as absolute as I stated in the OP. The reason for this is the fact that there are multiple factors which will influence us one way or another everytime we face a situation. There is also cause and effect law and ego that greatly determine the way we choose to behave.

But then, let's suppose we have a soul and that in the beginning it was pure and not yet uninfluenced by these factors above. That would mean this is the time when free will is at its full potential, when we can easily shape the future of our life. And slowly, depending on the choices we make, it would be possible to slowly loose this faculty and be more and more driven by ego and zomboic-like behaving.

Alhough I'm saying this, I still believe free will is a reality even at our present state. There are opportunities when we will have to choose between A and B and the choice we make will have a powerful impact on the future of our lifes. That's when free will might be the most significative, when a choice will greatly impact Karma.

reply to post by St0rD


If I might propose a question for you. Would it be safe to assume that your thread creation is due to clear up a misconception you feel because "I hear a lot of people claiming there is no free will in this universe"?

If the above is true to some extent would it also not be safe to make the assertion that your choice to create the thread was caused by you hearing there is no free will and you feel differently? So in reality although you made a choice to create a thread there was cause for it that influenced the decision. This actually would (were you actually able to track it) be traceable imo as far back as you want to go. You are who you are today because of the choices you have made, those choices all influenced by interactions throughout your life pushing your decisions in a particular direction. So in reality "free" will isn't exactly "free". The ability to choose is based on so many past and present influences that I believe there would be no other decision you could make in any given circumstance.

Basically if everything you have gone through in your life before this moment hadn't happened you would not be sitting there pondering about free will and if it existed. Your choices are the effect end of cause.

About as free to choose what your told to do, or choose to not and go to jail, accept a penalty, be fined, go to hell, etc, and so forth. Yep a lot of freedom. About as much freedom perhaps as a cow on a dairy farm, surrounded by fencing, with the farmer-ole mighty one, punching the clock

reply to post by Bleeeeep

Really, I just want to ask about bewaring the paradoxes. I was just thinking about them earlier... they're like a thorn in this reality. You know anything interesting about them?

Paradoxes do not exist in reality per say, they only exist in our descriptions of reality. They are only a thorn where our language is concerned. But they are more a boon, as they let us know where our reason has led us astray.

reply to post by St0rD


There is no free or unfree wills. There are only strong and weak wills.

reply to post by Aphorism


Where did will come from?

Is it its own effect?

You have to think deeply to understand the paradox in that.



If will was caused then it is, in effect, a continuation of that original cause, as will continues to effect things because of the original causation, and subsequent causes.

If what you say is true, that there is no paradoxes, then either there is only cause and effect and no will, or there is only will and cause and effect is the illusion.

That is, will does not have to obey any cause or effect besides will itself.

Freewill is a reason use to justify the existence of god but also justify his inability to act.


something like...

A: God exist.

B: Why doesn't it do something to people that suffer?

A: Freewill. They deserved the suffering.

reply to post by drivers1492


I'm not basing my thoughts on this mere assumption. This is what I truly believe and there is a reason for that.

After reading the posts in this thread, I wanted to thank you guys for taking the time to answer to my original OP. Each one of you deserved a star, heh.

I just realized just how subjective this whole concept of free will is. I find it very intriguing to see most of the answers and explanations in this thread are completely different, even if they could be saying the same thing in the end. I guess it might be one of the greatest mystery and concept of life, which will hardly ever be fully answered.

For my part, even if I already stated that there are multiple factors influencing an individual towards the choices he make, I still continue to believe free will is something that can still go hand in hand with this idea without completely interfering with one another. The reason for this is that I refer my beliefs to the concept of ego and its power to alter true consciousness. In this instance, if somebody is fully driven by his ego (half of people nowadays) then yes, he is only acting by the rules of the program. Everything he does or thinks is based on past experiences or on the way he anticipate or project his future. We could say he has no free will, or almost.
However, when a person begins to work on his ego and learn how to be fully conscious and in the moment of now, he suddenly realize it is possible to be free of the old mental barriers he has made for himself. It then becomes easier to stop doing the same mistakes over and over, to stop acting like he always did, to be free.

Now I understand this whole concept of beginning and end already written in the program, but I think it could be possible that free will alter the in-between of these two opposits. An infinite ocean of possibilities and potentials while on the ride towards the end goal.

For those of you who believe in Karma, how could this universal law exist if there was no free will? Karma is based on the assumption that if you are a good person doing good things you are going to collect the same outcome. So, if free will is non-existent, what would be the necessity of such law and concept?

reply to post by St0rD


Your beliefs on the subject make perfect sense to me. I simply hold a different view. I would like to counter this part though and point something out.

However, when a person begins to work on his ego and learn how to be fully conscious and in the moment of now, he suddenly realize it is possible to be free of the old mental barriers he has made for himself. It then becomes easier to stop doing the same mistakes over and over, to stop acting like he always did, to be free.

This choice your bringing up here would be exactly what I was describing and no different than someone that lives by their ego. Again, the choice to change your ways and break down barriers is due to a cause. The effect is to change, but the resulting change will still be effected by all interactions in the future that will alter and push an individual to be a certain way and to make certain decision.
But, like you this is only my belief or opinion and I could be drastically wrong.

For those of you who believe in Karma, how could this universal law exist if there was no free will? Karma is based on the assumption that if you are a good person doing good things you are going to collect the same outcome. So, if free will is non-existent, what would be the necessity of such law and concept?

I think karma is a crock personally. Just my 2 cents on it.