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Free will as described in Wikipedia is as follows ‘ the ability of agents to make choices unimpeded by certain prevailing factors. Such prevailing factors that have been studied in the past have included metaphysical constraints, physical constraints, social constraints and mental constraints. the principal of free will has religious, legal, ethical and scientific implications”.
In fact no one has the power of free will, there will always be factors which we take into account, it is the law of nature, we have options and make the decision based on the most favourable outcome we see at that moment in time. In hindsight, we clearly see where we made wrong decisions, alas it is usually too late. It is all about probability and odds.
Descartes, of course would disagree with me. In his view, a person consists of two ingredients body and soul. He believed the soul was not subject to scientific law. He believed a tiny organ in the centre of the brain called the pineal gland, was the principal seat of the soul. The place where all our thoughts are formed, the seat of our free will.
If this was the case then every mammal, fish and insect would have free will no? As Hawking said, do blue-green algae or bacteria have free will, or is their behaviour automatic and within scientific law? How do we decide who and what has free will? Which would then mean every living thing has a soul too?
Christopher Hitchen’s was once asked “Do you believe in free will” to which he replied “Do I have a choice?”
Sam Harris also wrote a book on Free Will in which he said:-
A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality – as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement – without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion
Theists will argue that god gave them free will, however, the passages I found and there were 64 of them contradicts their idea. on the contrary in fact i found the opposite :-
ROMANS 9:16 – so then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on god, who has mercy
PHILIPPIANS 2:13 – for it is god who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure
EPHESIANS 1:5 – he predestined us for adoption as sons through jesus christ, according to the purpose of his will
JOHN 3:27 – John answered ” a person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven
EPHESIANS 1:11 – in him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will
Stephen Hawking covers free will in his “The Grand Design” he says :-
Do people have free will? Though we feel that we can choose what we do, our understanding of the molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets. Recent experiments in neuroscience support the view that it is our physical brain following the known laws of science, that determines our actions, and not some agency that exists outside of those laws. For example, a study of patients undergoing wake brain surgery found that by electrically stimulating the appropriate regions of the brain, one could create in the patient the desire to move the hand, arm or foot, or to move the lips and talk. It is hard to imagine how free will can operate if our behaviour is determined by physical law, so it seems that we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion.
Saying man has free will is in actual fact the get out clause for religion. Tell me, do you think for example, a woman who kills her children because she heard god tell her to do it, had free will? No, she was indoctrinated and brain washed into believing her faith so much , she was hearing voices in her head, telling her to kill her children….
Do we think the gunmen who committed those atrocities on the Charlie Hebdo offices , were using free will. No they were brainwashed and indoctrinated, into believing that drawing a cartoon picture was worth murdering , men and women for.
Religion will use the excuse of free will to disassociate themselves from the evils done in the name of religion.
Find out more about SON and the shows that make upmthe network at Secular Outreach.com
SECULAR SCARLET 
Free will is just one of the functions of our evolved brain. And just like autonomic reflexes and basic ‘housekeeping’ tasks the brain carries out, is merely the result of a series of binary outcome chemical and electrical reactions.
I suggest that the brain takes into account an immeasurable number of variables at each stage, based on internal conditions and external stimuli.
However, I don’t really analyse it all that much, but simply live my life and let my brain do what it does. Besides, does it really matter what we call it? Free will or programmed responses by an organic learning computer. It amounts to much the same in my opinion.
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Simply put a biological computer…. Is it logical Spock? 😉
In my opinion we have neither free will or a soul. Neither can we prove either with 100% certainty. but in all probability neither exist. The catholic theory is only human beings have them… I guess they plucked that out of the air… As they have no studies for their conclusion….
I will keep you posted on my findings 😊☺️
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It starts with a few preprogrammed instructions that allow the organism to function at a basic level.
Over time, further programming takes place due to instruction from parents, teachers, peers and environment.
Biological computer? What else can you call it? 😉
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Don’t know about the biology of it all sis!!! Free will for me is knowing that my choice to do something is mine, by using my ability to determine right from wrong!! I have to say that it’s a bit harsh to surmise that if a woman kills her children because she was “told to by voices from God” is brainwashed by religion, as opposed to being mentally disturbed!!
Again a great read and how much hard work and time goes into each blog! Little wonder you’ve no time for talking shite on Twitter!!
Makes me wish I’d paid more attention in class!! Will know for the next time round!! Fx 💋👣👣
Ps..be gentle!!
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So you’re a Buddhist now, Frankie? 😉
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You just answered your own question frankie ☺️You dont know it is your choice😉
If we programmed a computer with a certain scenario and gave it the same options as you… Chances are you would come up with the same conclusion ….. Just sayin
Your belief is u have free will, your beleif is you have a soul, your belief is a god exists…..
Unsupportable evidence… As always sis 😜😜
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Watch the science fiction film, Dark Star. Especially the end, where an intelligent bomb comes to the conclusion that it is God, due to a logically progressive argument.
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Interesting perspective. I’ve debated this topic many times, and it is one of the few areas I disagree with Harris. Yes, we are predisposed to make certain decisions, but this only changes the probabilities, not the actual decision or action. Hawking argued that if we knew ALL of the variables, we could predict every aspect of a person or society. That assumes the variables are identifiable, and I don’t believe they are. As much as I’m a pragmatist who believes in evidence, I still believe there are factors of consciousness that are beyond our ability to quantify (ever). The combined forces of IQ, Social Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence and environmental influences create infinite options.
All that said, as a degenerate gambler, I will attest firsthand that I enjoy the ability to predict others behaviors based on known history. And as that degenerate gambler, I can acknowledge that I’m wrong more often than I’d like to be 🙂
Great writing, as always.
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I agree with your comment ‘I still believe there are factors of consciousness that are beyond our ability to quantify (ever)
However i would add (yet) … Rather than (ever)
Science in the end has all the answers….
simply put ‘determinism’
However we will wait and see..☺️☺️
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No, we will INVESTIGATE and see 😉
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The problem you have in learning from ‘known history’ is that your opponents do to, and can learn to change or hide their tells. It’s an intellectual arms race.
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I have freewill, and I choose to use it. There’s no pre-determined destiny.
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We shall agree to disagree then M… We find something you beleive in with no proof huh? 😉
I will be interested at some future point to discuss your feelings on whether we have a soul?
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The soul, as all other imaginary spiritual BS do not exist. We only attained consciousness, courtesy of advanced brains.
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You are an enigma M .
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A “soul” makes no difference. Whether the rational process happens in the physical universe or in something less substantial, it will still involve a deliberative process where the reasons for choosing this over that ultimately determine the choice. Not even God can escape the judging and making the call based upon considering the outcomes of one choice versus another.
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There is no conflict between freewill and deterministic inevitability. We all have two wills. There is the innate biological will to survive and there is the conscious process of deliberating the relative benefits and harms of two or more options and making a choice (which expresses our “will” in the matter). Both the biological causes and the rational causes (our reasons) determine our choices. So we may accurately say that our choices will in fact be determined by causes and therefore inevitable. But they are never inevitable without our active participation and our reasoned (or not so reasoned) choices.
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I agree there is no conflict… There is no free will….
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Did someone force you to say that? Or did you post that of your own free will?
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Hahaha… Touche…. 😊😊
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There is no ‘innate will to survive’ otherwise there could never be a suicide.
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There is a biological drive to survive. I don’t know of anyone who can successfully commit suicide by holding their breath. As soon as they lose consciousness they will start breathing again. Suicide would be a decision of the conscious will rather than the biological will. But I agree with your point that the biological will to survive can be trumped by the conscious decision.
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Determinism is nothing more than the belief in cause and effect. Every change, every event, every action, every phenomenon in the real world can, at least in theory, be accounted for in terms of one or more specific causes that made it happen. And each of these specific causes is itself a change, event, action, or phenomena in the real world, with its own specific causes. These chains of causes reach back to the beginning of time and will reach forward to its end.
Everything that happens is, in theory, inevitable. This was never a big deal until some dumb philosopher suggested that, if everything is inevitable, then (1) everything is beyond our control, and, (2) we cannot be held responsible for anything we do.
Both assumptions are false.
The first assumption is false because, although many things are beyond our control, we are actually the relevant causes of a great deal of what happens in this world. And these events are only inevitable because of choices we deliberately made.
Are our choices also inevitable? Of course. When we make a deliberate choice, we consider alternatives, we estimate the outcomes of one option over another, and then we choose what we think or feel would be best. Given sufficient knowledge of the decider and the situation, even the amateur could predict the outcome with reasonable reliability. But the decider himself will not know for sure until he has actually made the decision. Knowledge that the decision is theoretically inevitable and predictable is completely useless to the decider.
The second assumption is false because it misrepresents the meaning of “holding responsible”. In all practical matters, to “hold” someone or something “responsible” actually means to identify who or what needs to be corrected.
Suppose a person decides that he can “hold his liquor” and drive safely home after a party. He may do this successfully many times. But then his inebriation causes him to lose attention and hit a pedestrian crossing the street.
His conscious decision to drink and drive caused a fatal accident. And it also was the relevant cause of his arrest, conviction, and punishment.
He cannot claim exemption from punishment due to the “inevitability” of his choice to drink and drive. There is nothing we can do to rewrite the offender’s personal history. The practical problem at this point is how we might influence his future behavior. Therefore, the person as he is now is the “point of correction” rather than his past, and it is the person as he is now that is “held responsible” for the pedestrian’s death.
So, determinism does nothing to release anyone from being held responsible for their choices. We may, though, by studying those early influences, design educational programs to reduce the likelihood that others will make the same bad choice.
There is nothing in determinism that diminishes personal responsibility or the impact of the decisions we make of our own free will. And free will itself exists quite comfortably within the context of a deterministic universe.
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Many thanks for your comments and point of view.
The problem is we have to take a string of events too far back to see the origin of it … To find conclusive prove lack of free will or otherwise.
Dennett agreed with your point of view but has slightly changed track now… I wonder if you have read any of his works?
For me the pointers lead to no free will at all… I see it as a two stage model of limited determinism and limited indeterminism.
Hopefully a study with prove one of us wrong.
Firstly, Do you then believe all living things have free will and if not do you then believe something caused the evolution of such in us?
Secondly, do you then believe in a living things having a soul
Thirdly, do you agree that the origin of humans thoughts on free will come from the bible… (Although i found no such writings in the religious texts)
D😊
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We can bring religion into this later, if you wish. But the “silly paradox” can be expressed totally in secular terms. Keeping or disposing of religion has absolutely no impact upon the “problem” or its resolution. Let’s just set religion aside for a minute to see what it is really about.
In the secular world we have people. These people make choices to behave in ways that affect other people. They may choose to behave well, in ways that benefit others. They may choose to behave badly, in ways that unnecessarily harm other people or that “injure” the rights of others as defined by laws that the society has created by consensus.
When one person chooses to ignore the rights of another (perhaps by stealing his car), the rest of us, who have agreed to respect and protect that right (to own a car) for each other, will arrest him, bring him to court, determine guilt or innocence, and if guilty we will impose a penalty designed to (a) repair the damage if possible, (b) correct the offender’s behavior, and (c) until corrected, restrain the offender in a correctional facility.
So, where do we find determinism in this scenario? It is totally infused in every aspect of every scenario! For any event, we can, at least in theory (but not always in practice), trace each relevant cause to previous events and conditions. In theory, we can totally determine why the offender made the decision to choose to steal that particular car at that particular time from that particular owner.
One of the events would be a conscious decision by the offender that it was a good idea to steal a car. If he has been stealing cars for a long time, then the decision to steal this particular car may have been made unconsciously, simply by habit. But, at least the first time, he would have gone through a mental process of choosing to steal. In theory, we could trace the chain of relevant causes far enough to demonstrate that for this person, with his particular history, that this mental process would result in the decision to steal.
Now the rest of us also have a history, so our arresting the offender and putting him in jail may also involve habits rather than thinking things through. But at some point in our past, due most likely to events where our own property was stolen, we thought it over and decided that we would respect and protect a right to property for each other. And so we constituted a government, passed laws against stealing, raised taxes to pay for police, courts, jails, etc.
One of the reasons for placing the offender in jail is to give him something new to think about the next time he is confronted with the choice to steal or not to steal. We are relying upon determinism to alter his behavior. And if we cannot alter his behavior, we will alter ours, and keep him in prison much longer the next time.
Both the offender and the public are acting reasonably upon the influences of their respective causes. And both are causal agents of the events that will follow. Within determinism, rational thought is not merely an effect, but also a cause that determines what the future will inevitably become.
There is no conflict between determinism and the mental process of considering our options deliberately and making the choices that govern what happens next. This mental process is what we refer to as our “free will”. The “free” means only that it is our own will and not the will of another coercing us that is allowed to determine our action. For example, if a child wants to go out without his jacket but his mother insists he wear it or he won’t go out at all, then he is wearing the jacket against his will, and it is said that he has no free will in this matter. Or, if the guy who stole the car was forced to do so because someone else held a gun to his head, then he is stealing, but it is against his will.
So, that is the nature of determinism and free will in secular terms. They do not conflict, but appear to work harmoniously together. So it is only the “conflict” that is an illusion or misunderstanding. And it is only misunderstanding that leads to paradoxes.
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I do find it interesting when discussing free will, your examples are to do with breaking the law? Your response detailing what a perfectly normal society would do, and to bring in laws for a society to live by. This is in no way explaining proof of free will, and infact confirms my thoughts on determinism , causal effect, scientific and natural laws which are taken into account.
To say there are two types of will also defeats your purpose. However, wouldn’t the world be sad if we all agreed on everything and as I said in an earlier response, science will inevitably find the proof we seek, and one of us will be wrong.
Until that day…. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week, and it has been a pleasure reading your thoughts
Many thanks
Deana
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The purpose is to correctly define “free will”. If you choose to define it in a silly, illogical way, then it will not exist. But if you choose to define it in a meaningful way, then it does exist. The question is why anyone would choose a silly, illogical definition rather than a meaningful definition?
How can rational thought be immune to reasons? And are not reasons the causes of deliberate choices? Therefore it is silly and illogical to suggest that free will is immune to causation.
And, no. Science will not enlighten a discussion of meaning. That’s a matter for philosophy, specifically semantics.
I assume that rational thought is a product of the biological nervous system. I require nothing supernatural to call a choice of my own will, that is free of another person’s coercion, to be a choice of my own free will. That is all that free will has ever been or ever can be.
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The big religious question is whether God is the responsible cause of every bad human choice, such that God cannot condemn anyone else before condemning himself. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, then he could theoretically create a world where everything worked out for the best for everyone, everyone chose good over evil, and everyone escapes Hell.
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No gods exist so the religious question isnt what he/she is responsible for. The answer no gods therefore no responsibility exists….
Imaginary friends ultimately mean each theist is creating his own world no? There is no heaven/ hell. Life as we live it is all there is… No soul in reality a myth to help explain the fear of death
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Again, gods are irrelevant to the issue. Responsibility is a secular concept. It is part of the law and the ethics we use to make life better. For example, suppose a car goes through a stop light and kills a pedestrian. If we do nothing, then whatever caused this accident is likely to cause another accident in the future. And in the future it may be us or someone we love that gets killed. So we want to find the cause and correct the problem before someone else gets killed.
If the driver was drunk, we “hold him responsible” and apply a corrective penalty, such as spending some time in a “correctional facility” (jail). And this will cause him to think twice before choosing to drive drunk again.
Or, we may find there was no driver in the car, but that the parking brakes failed and the car simply rolled down the hill driverless. In that case we may want to hold the car manufacturer “responsible” for the bad brakes.
Or, we may find that the stop light was malfunctioning and the red light was out.
Etc.
The point of “holding someone or something responsible” is to identify who or what needs to be corrected to prevent further harm to others.
But wait a minute. Suppose the drunk driver invokes a “determinism” defense? Suppose he says that it was inevitable that he would choose to have 5 beers before driving home? Well, that will get him nowhere. Because the court judge will point out that it was also inevitable that she would hold the driver responsible and put him in jail.
And, one more thing, the point of a penalty is not to change the past, after all that is impossible. The point of a penalty is to add a new factor to be considered before the driver chooses, of his own free will, to drive drunk again.
Please note that causation is behind everything that happens in this example. Please note that the mental process of choosing what one will do (wills to do) is also present in the original crime and presumed in the corrective action.
Oh … and gods have nothing to do with any of this.
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You have completely gone off track of the whole conversation on free will and now are using this for your own agenda…
May i suggest you use a platform for your own blog 😉. Take care 😊
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A car does not just go through a red light. Either an intelligence makes to decision to ignore the legal signal, or an error occurred somewhere in the chain from design of the mechanical and electronic devices involved.
Any and ALL errors are down to HUMAN ERROR, without exception. Therefore a human brain (even if only at the chemical level) made a decision based on learned knowledge or by using fuzzy logic to extrapolate a solution based on limited knowledge.
I still don’t see free will at work, merely imperfect programming.
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I agree totally that the mental processes we experience are wholly rooted in the material, deterministic universe. I hope no one has the wrong impression about that. Many living organisms have evolved a nervous system capable not just of supporting sensory input, but also the areas of the brain that store memories, interpret internal and external sensation, imagine alternatives, choose a plan of action, and carry it out.
Choosing is not just about moral decisions, but also the amount of energy to precisely jump from one river rock to another, without jumping too far or falling short and getting soaked. We learn to cope with our environment through trial and error, which means making some bad decisions as well as the good ones. And we store these in memories, sometimes in words, sometimes in pictures, and sometimes unconsciously in our muscles.
Many of these decisions are forgotten as we store them in our habits. Many other decisions may have been made for us by others — as in the brainwashing examples that Scarlet described in her post. Or they may have been learned in school or in a church or from our peers.
But decisions and choosing are real, even when they are inevitable (and all are inevitable, of course).
And our experience of hearing our own reasoning as we consciously deliberate, and our feeling good or bad due to our unconscious evaluation of this option versus that option, are also real. After all, they are rooted in the real, physical, deterministic universe. Therefore they do really exist.
Therefore we cannot dismiss the mental processes as some kind of illusion. Thinking is as real as walking. And thinking about more than one option leads to choosing. And that choosing must be happening within our physical minds, because where else could the mind be?
The process of choosing determines our will. Our will determines our action. And our actions determines what inevitably comes next. And what comes next may be having chocolate rather than vanilla, or it may be raising the temperature of the planet or destroying species.
But when people hear that they have no free will, or that they are not responsible for anything, it can lead to a sense of fatalism and apathy.
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Pingback: Free Will – The Rebuttal | My Biased Opinion
I agree. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing! 🙂
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This is brilliant. We are all influenced, not just by events in our own lives, but also by everything that happened to those we interact with. Of course, I believe humans are nothing more than particularly arrogant apes, so the very concept of “free will” by its definition seems ridiculous.
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