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Forums - General Discussion - Do humans have free will?

 

What do you think?

Yes 67 70.53%
 
No 28 29.47%
 
Total:95
Dr.Grass on 23 October 2011
spurgeonryan said:
I had a funny reason that I wanted to add, but it would make Jay mad about recent things. By the way I have a thread about that if you want to share with all of us!

Humans do have free will. I just ate a carmel apple , did not have to, in fact something inside me (arteries) told me not to, but because of my free will I decided to eat it. Just like I decided to post here instead of the latest JoelCool7 thread, or one of my own.


That's not an argument at all. Just because things happened in a certain way and you feel you were the cause does not mean you are the cause - that's the whole point of this debate.



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snakenobi on 23 October 2011

debating on this topic is worthless

destiny even if it were to be true would be worthless as life is about feeling the moment not about thinking whether that moment is true or not true

also i think of karma and options,even if destiny is their we have control over what path we choose



ishiki on 23 October 2011

who cares, you either do or you don't no matter arguing about it.

The outcome only matters if you have free will.

But then again, if you dont have free will you couldn't really control making this thread.



ChristianTheAtheist on 23 October 2011
Dr.Grass said:
spurgeonryan said:
I had a funny reason that I wanted to add, but it would make Jay mad about recent things. By the way I have a thread about that if you want to share with all of us!

Humans do have free will. I just ate a carmel apple , did not have to, in fact something inside me (arteries) told me not to, but because of my free will I decided to eat it. Just like I decided to post here instead of the latest JoelCool7 thread, or one of my own.


That's not an argument at all. Just because things happened in a certain way and you feel you were the cause does not mean you are the cause - that's the whole point of this debate.


So...... your arteries told you no to eat a caramel?

Your decision to eat the caramel (and decision making in general) was the result of a phisiological process inside your brain which is ruled the laws of physics.



Dr.Grass on 23 October 2011
ChristianTheAtheist said:
Dr.Grass said:
spurgeonryan said:
I had a funny reason that I wanted to add, but it would make Jay mad about recent things. By the way I have a thread about that if you want to share with all of us!

Humans do have free will. I just ate a carmel apple , did not have to, in fact something inside me (arteries) told me not to, but because of my free will I decided to eat it. Just like I decided to post here instead of the latest JoelCool7 thread, or one of my own.


That's not an argument at all. Just because things happened in a certain way and you feel you were the cause does not mean you are the cause - that's the whole point of this debate.


So...... your arteries told you no to eat a caramel?

Your decision to eat the caramel (and decision making in general) was the result of a phisiological process inside your brain which is ruled the laws of physics.


Firstly, you quoted the wrong person.

Secondly, the laws of physics are not deterministic at the fundamental level. We know 'what to expect' out of a certain configuration, but the possibility exists that an event might occur that defies common sense.

The cause of this indeterminism is thought to be part of nature, but ultimately it is unknown.

So you really don't have a point there either.



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Netyaroze on 23 October 2011
Dr.Grass said:
The philosophy I ascribe to says the following:

We have free will, but only very, very little in our current (human) state. MOSTLY we are pulled around like a puppet by the strings of material nature. Yet, there still is this small indeterminism which we can influence and over the course of time it can (significantly) change the outcome of events. (think the butterfly causing the tornado effect)


Can only agree thats my exact position to the topic.

Kantor on 23 October 2011
Level1Death said:
Jay520 said:
I personally don't think humans have free will. I believe humans actually lack the ability to 'decide' their actions. Sure, humans appear to make their decisions, but one has to realise that every 'decision' we make is based upon our experience of the world, which is based upon external factors which we have no control over.

One person's brain is composed of the same atoms as any other person. Barring any genetic mutations, which are uncontrollable anyway, humans are more or less born with the same state of mind. The difference in each individual is caused by the unique 'experience' that each individual goes through.

We make decisions based on what we know. Our knowledge originates from external stimuli. Our brains are clouded by our limited perspective of the world. We don't choose what we percieve. We just percieve what we come across. These perceptions are then combined with other perceptions & innate instincts and our brains uses those [external] factors to form what we call 'decisions'.

With all that said, I can confidently say that every choice/decision is absolutely determined by factors out of our control. If if we have do have some control over our decisions, which we don't, one cannot deny the presence external stimuli as a large factor in affecting our choices in life, thus, affecting our personality.

Thoughts?

So if I wanted to kill some one, I could just blame it on factors out of my control?

Not really, because the jury has no free will to decide whether or not you're guilty, and the judge has no free will to sentence you. Hell, I have no free will to say this.

It all sounds far too complicated to really work. It implies that you could travel forward in time, because anything that anyone will ever do is already set.

I think the big decisions in life - when you marry, whether you commit any crimes, where you work - will be largely decided by upbringing, genetics and other exposure, but little things like whether to eat corn flakes or coco pops and whether or not to scratch your back are pretty much entirely down to free will.



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Dr.Grass on 23 October 2011
Kantor said:
Level1Death said:
Jay520 said:
I personally don't think humans have free will. I believe humans actually lack the ability to 'decide' their actions. Sure, humans appear to make their decisions, but one has to realise that every 'decision' we make is based upon our experience of the world, which is based upon external factors which we have no control over.

One person's brain is composed of the same atoms as any other person. Barring any genetic mutations, which are uncontrollable anyway, humans are more or less born with the same state of mind. The difference in each individual is caused by the unique 'experience' that each individual goes through.

We make decisions based on what we know. Our knowledge originates from external stimuli. Our brains are clouded by our limited perspective of the world. We don't choose what we percieve. We just percieve what we come across. These perceptions are then combined with other perceptions & innate instincts and our brains uses those [external] factors to form what we call 'decisions'.

With all that said, I can confidently say that every choice/decision is absolutely determined by factors out of our control. If if we have do have some control over our decisions, which we don't, one cannot deny the presence external stimuli as a large factor in affecting our choices in life, thus, affecting our personality.

Thoughts?

So if I wanted to kill some one, I could just blame it on factors out of my control?

Not really, because the jury has no free will to decide whether or not you're guilty, and the judge has no free will to sentence you. Hell, I have no free will to say this.

It all sounds far too complicated to really work. It implies that you could travel forward in time, because anything that anyone will ever do is already set.

I think the big decisions in life - when you marry, whether you commit any crimes, where you work - will be largely decided by upbringing, genetics and other exposure, but little things like whether to eat corn flakes or coco pops and whether or not to scratch your back are pretty much entirely down to free will.


Excuse me, but;

a) You can travel forward in time

b) This is not dependent on 'everything already being set'



ChristianTheAtheist on 23 October 2011
Dr.Grass said:
ChristianTheAtheist said:
Dr.Grass said:
spurgeonryan said:
I had a funny reason that I wanted to add, but it would make Jay mad about recent things. By the way I have a thread about that if you want to share with all of us!

Humans do have free will. I just ate a carmel apple , did not have to, in fact something inside me (arteries) told me not to, but because of my free will I decided to eat it. Just like I decided to post here instead of the latest JoelCool7 thread, or one of my own.


That's not an argument at all. Just because things happened in a certain way and you feel you were the cause does not mean you are the cause - that's the whole point of this debate.


So...... your arteries told you no to eat a caramel?

Your decision to eat the caramel (and decision making in general) was the result of a phisiological process inside your brain which is ruled the laws of physics.


Firstly, you quoted the wrong person.

Secondly, the laws of physics are not deterministic at the fundamental level. We know 'what to expect' out of a certain configuration, but the possibility exists that an event might occur that defies common sense.

The cause of this indeterminism is thought to be part of nature, but ultimately it is unknown.

So you really don't have a point there either.

I was just lazy to find his original comment, i think I could just have deleted your part.



miz1q2w3e on 23 October 2011

I believe humans have free will but that's a pretty neat way to look at it

hmmm...