I've asked this question before, but most people tend to avoid it. So, I've decided to make my own thread on it so people HAVE to answer it or else they would be off topic.

Okay, I'm going to jump right into the scenario.

Imagine yourself today. Now imagine another person, call this person "Joe". Now imagine that I went back in time to when you were both newborns (like fresh-out-the-womb newborns). Imagine that I mixed your brains & souls. So, I took your brain and soul (if you believe in such a thing) and placed it with Joe.

Your brain and soul stays the same. But you grow up in Joe's body. You see everything Joe saw. You feel what Joe felt. You have the same family as Joe. You grow up in the same house. As a baby, you're raised in the same crib that Joe was in. Your first sight is the same sight as Joe's first sight. Same height, weight, eye color, everything.

As a baby, you'll be held as long as Joe was held, you'll be ignored the same amount. Your parents will enroll you in the same school as Joe. You'll have the same teachers. Same schoolmates, etc.

My question is this. Would you grow up as the exact same person as Joe? Will there ever be a point in life where you steer off and lead to a different personality than Joe?. Will it happen as a baby? Will you be a more aggressive baby than Joe was? Or maybe you'll steer off when you're in school? Maybe you will pick up different friends. Or will you simply live the same life as Joe?

If yes, then you must agree that a person's environment decides everything about that person. In which case, you agree that free will doesn't exist.

If no, then my next question is this. What is the factor(s) that made you have a different personality than Joe? Was it your different brain & soul? This is a possibility. But you must remember that your brain & soul were established before you were born. So ANY innate differences in your brain/soul is out of your control. In this case, free will also doesn't exist.

Maybe you answered no, but you have a different reason for living a different life, then please explain below.

Will you be Joe? If no, then when will the changes in personality come? At birth? As a toddler? In grade school? When you're an adult?

There seems to be a common misunderstanding of what having free will means. For example, someone here put forward the idea that if I know you well enough to know what restaurant you will choose, you must therefore not have free will. But free will doesn't mean that genetic or environmental factors don't play a huge role in who you are, and therefore what choices you will make, and it certainly doesn't mean making completely random decisions based on nothing (which would mean you are much more of a nonentity than a creature without free will). It simply means that, in contrast to an animal which is driven entirely by its instinct or a computer which only can do what its programming tells it to, a human is a higher form of being with a mind that enables him to introspective and contemplate his actions before taking them - and in so doing, he can overcome his environmental influences by actually reprogramming his own mechanistic brain.

I assume by switching brains/souls you don't mean literally switching the organs, since part of your behavior comes from your brain makeup and chemistry, not just from your experiences...etc

If that's the case and you just switched "souls", then I think everything would be exactly the same as it is now... I guess I don't believe in free will after all.

I remember a thread that talked about something along these lines, about how your actions depend on you past experiences, and those depend on other peoples actions/experiences...etc all the way back to the beginning of time. I agree with this view, that the universe is deterministic.

Badgenome with the one punch knockout.

@ Badgenome

I'm not just saying genetic & environmental factors play a large role in deciding who we are. I'm saying they are the ONLY factors that determine who we are.

As for the last sentence. I'd say a person will only want to do such a thing if his environmen pressures him to do so. If a person does try to overcome some environmental influences, it's only because some other environmental influence encouraged him to do so.

For example, most kids that grow up in the projects won't be very successful at adulthood. Because they've grown believing that being 'cool' is better than being smart in school. And these are genuine deep beliefs. They don't choose to believe these things. Their brains have just determined that way of life to 'best' using the best of its ability. Of course, some kids do graduate college, and be successful. Why? Because of other environmental influences.

b..b..but...where's the punch line?

Exactly this.

If we assume that the brains looked the very same then there literally would be no differences.

Unless quantum effects plays a part, of course. But then we wouldn't even be certain that Joe would be the same Joe if we remade the exact same scenario several times. So in this case randomness affects the free will, and you can't be certain that you'll choose what you actually want to choose each time, suggesting a random will rather than free.

Well, I think determinism and free will are both true (compatablism). Environmental and cultural factors have incredibly profound effects on people, no doubt, and it's true that most people won't ultimately deviate much from the norm. But they can, and some do, and the reason they can and do is because of what we call free will.

When someone thinks about their actions before doing them, their brain makes decisions based its own compostition and chemistry, as well as on past experiences and prior knowledge. This means that your actions aren't your choice at all, but the consequence of all of your past experiences being run through your brain and judged.

Your computer argument may be true for simple computer programs and applications, but a computer program that is sophisticated enough could emulate what humans do with great accuracy, it could reprogram itself based on its experience...etc (see neural networks in computers). Does that mean a computer like that has free will?

Not to mention animals are also capable of this to a certain degree. Say you put an animal's favorite food behind an electricuted fence, after a few tries the animal will give up on trying to get the food even though its instincts tell that "food is good". The animal chooses not to try again based on its past experiences of pain.

Well, the animal will keep trying (and if smart enough, will figure out a way past the fence) if there is no other food available and the only other option is starvation. Animals are capable of learning, and some higher animals can learn a great deal, but it's all based on the instinctive imperative to survive. They are not capable of real introspection, though.

As for the theoretical self-programming computer, yes, it would have free will. Didn't you play Mass Effect 3?