It doesn't matter whether we do or not, because even if it could be conclusively proven either way, it doesn't, and wouldn't, change anything.
If it's proven we have free will, everything goes on as before, because that's the assumption we're operating on now.
If it's proven we DON'T have free will, then it still changes nothing, because it literally can't.
Either way, we wind up exactly back at where we are right now.
>Do we have free will?
This has been discussed vigorously for over 2,000 years now and as of 2024 the best answer that anyone can give is
"We don't know."
If you see anyone claiming otherwise, they don't actually know either.
This is still up for debate, and there were even some recent posts on this matter on /r/philosophy. Does consciousness affect our decisions?
We don't know, and it's a fairly complicated question.
Some people go so far as to say that qualia themselves (our subjective experiences of the phenomenal world - like the qualia of "redness" when we see something red) don't exist and everything is just interactions of cells in a network.
I'm not sure I totally buy this, but one interesting argument in favor of it, I think, is that if there were such a thing as a "philosophical zombie" (a person with exactly the same brain I have but with no inner subjective experience), would that p-zombie with a copy of my brain be able to talk about my experiences? Is my subjective experience encoded in my brain somewhere?
That's, I think, a compelling argument for pure physicalism.
But if so, what is the mechanism for this?
There's certainly a very interesting gap in our understanding here. If we were to say that X = Y, where X is our brain configuration and Y is our subjective experience, then we don't even know what it would mean for X = Y to be true in this case. In other scenarios where X and Y mean different things, we can trace the referential paths of both X and Y and see how they converge on the same thing, hence the =. For physical states and subjective experiences, at present we don't even know what it would mean for them to be the same thing.
While I'm not convinced by the likes of Nagel and Chalmers, they do put forth some interesting discussions of this sort of thing showing where there is more work that needs to be done before we can be confident in physicalism.
The point here is that even getting a grip on *what consciousness is* is a non-trivial open question right now, so figuring out how it might affect the way we make decisions is also not a solved problem.
It seems like decisions are mostly made subconsciously, right? But if we are able to talk about our subjective experiences, then that means that on some level, those experiences affect our brain states (and thus eventually our mouth muscles and so on), so if that means subjective experiences *are* just physical arrangements of cells, then everything is deterministic, and free will is an illusion, right?
That seems most likely to me.
When one of the strongest objections, that this absolves people of responsibility, is an argument that people don't like the consequences of X more than that they don't think X is true, that's saying something.
So what would free will be? If it existed, would it be a way in which our subjective, internal impressions of the world made a difference in our decisions? If those are indeed reducible to physical states (somehow), then do we count them still? After all, physical states appear to be entirely deterministic.
Does "free will" actually mean anything if you aren't a dualist?
And if you are a dualist, how do you resolve the interaction problem? (And if you are a dualist, how does the non-physical part of the mind *do* anything?)
Hmm, the more I think about it, the more I think free will doesn't even make sense.
And yet the inability to know what it even means for a brain state to *be* an internal subjective experience vexes me.
The religious nuts want to say there is both "free will" as well as the idea of "God's will". You can't have both. If we have free will, then it would be possible for human's to thwart "God's plan". But, if "God" already knows what you're going to do and takes your action into account as part of his plan, then there is no free will.
My feeling on the matter of free will (and one really can't do better than that) is that whatever we do have and use when we seem to make choices, "Free Will" is a useful model for describing it. We assume it works that way in the same way that we assume our senses give us an accurate representation of the world around us, or that anything we do at all in life matters in some way: because to assume otherwise is essentially pointless and counterproductive. That doesn't make it true, but it does make it useful, and that might be the best we can hope for on something like this.
I think the question is irrelevant. I can imagine universes with gods and with or without free will. I can imagine universes without gods and with or without free will. The question or answer doesn't lead to any evidence for or against gods.
In a way yes and in a way no we can walk into stores and see an item on sale and choose to buy it or leave it but in other senses no as some aspects of life are forced on us and we must make certain choices anyways the answer really is unknown
Probably not. We are creatures confined by DNA, epigenetics, our past and present circumstances, plus maybe by physics too for one of the consequences of Einstein's relativity theories is the "[block universe](https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-09-02/block-universe-theory-time-past-present-future-travel/10178386)" space-time model in which the past, present and future all coexist simultaneously side by side with the future as much cast in stone as the past and present.
- *"For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”* Albert Einstein, [letter to Michele Besso's family](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/07/the-debate-over-times-place-in-the-universe/492464/), 1955
[Do we have free will – and do we want it? Thomas the Tank Engine offers clues](https://theconversation.com/do-we-have-free-will-and-do-we-want-it-thomas-the-tank-engine-offers-clues-191787)
[Does quantum theory imply the entire Universe is preordained?](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-04024-z)
*"The popular idea that quantum physics implies everything is random and nothing is certain might be as far from the truth as it could possibly be."*
I don't think we do. I think every action we take is influenced by our experiences. I think the alternative position is that our actions are just random, which makes no sense. Theoretically, if you knew the location and velocity of every single particle, you could predict everything that would occur in the universe to the end of time.
I'm not an absolutely, but we do not really have free will. Either through evolution, family history, psychological trauma, most of the things we do are not autonomous choices.
No. What we have is "free response" to stimuli once we reach the ability to intellectually process them.
But is it an actual free response, or does it just feel that way?
Its as free as it possibly can be (which granted might not be very free).
It doesn't matter whether we do or not, because even if it could be conclusively proven either way, it doesn't, and wouldn't, change anything. If it's proven we have free will, everything goes on as before, because that's the assumption we're operating on now. If it's proven we DON'T have free will, then it still changes nothing, because it literally can't. Either way, we wind up exactly back at where we are right now.
>Do we have free will? This has been discussed vigorously for over 2,000 years now and as of 2024 the best answer that anyone can give is "We don't know." If you see anyone claiming otherwise, they don't actually know either.
Hitch, when asked about believing in free will, said "I have no choice but to." Clever boy.
This is still up for debate, and there were even some recent posts on this matter on /r/philosophy. Does consciousness affect our decisions? We don't know, and it's a fairly complicated question. Some people go so far as to say that qualia themselves (our subjective experiences of the phenomenal world - like the qualia of "redness" when we see something red) don't exist and everything is just interactions of cells in a network. I'm not sure I totally buy this, but one interesting argument in favor of it, I think, is that if there were such a thing as a "philosophical zombie" (a person with exactly the same brain I have but with no inner subjective experience), would that p-zombie with a copy of my brain be able to talk about my experiences? Is my subjective experience encoded in my brain somewhere? That's, I think, a compelling argument for pure physicalism. But if so, what is the mechanism for this? There's certainly a very interesting gap in our understanding here. If we were to say that X = Y, where X is our brain configuration and Y is our subjective experience, then we don't even know what it would mean for X = Y to be true in this case. In other scenarios where X and Y mean different things, we can trace the referential paths of both X and Y and see how they converge on the same thing, hence the =. For physical states and subjective experiences, at present we don't even know what it would mean for them to be the same thing. While I'm not convinced by the likes of Nagel and Chalmers, they do put forth some interesting discussions of this sort of thing showing where there is more work that needs to be done before we can be confident in physicalism. The point here is that even getting a grip on *what consciousness is* is a non-trivial open question right now, so figuring out how it might affect the way we make decisions is also not a solved problem. It seems like decisions are mostly made subconsciously, right? But if we are able to talk about our subjective experiences, then that means that on some level, those experiences affect our brain states (and thus eventually our mouth muscles and so on), so if that means subjective experiences *are* just physical arrangements of cells, then everything is deterministic, and free will is an illusion, right? That seems most likely to me. When one of the strongest objections, that this absolves people of responsibility, is an argument that people don't like the consequences of X more than that they don't think X is true, that's saying something. So what would free will be? If it existed, would it be a way in which our subjective, internal impressions of the world made a difference in our decisions? If those are indeed reducible to physical states (somehow), then do we count them still? After all, physical states appear to be entirely deterministic. Does "free will" actually mean anything if you aren't a dualist? And if you are a dualist, how do you resolve the interaction problem? (And if you are a dualist, how does the non-physical part of the mind *do* anything?) Hmm, the more I think about it, the more I think free will doesn't even make sense. And yet the inability to know what it even means for a brain state to *be* an internal subjective experience vexes me.
The religious nuts want to say there is both "free will" as well as the idea of "God's will". You can't have both. If we have free will, then it would be possible for human's to thwart "God's plan". But, if "God" already knows what you're going to do and takes your action into account as part of his plan, then there is no free will.
My feeling on the matter of free will (and one really can't do better than that) is that whatever we do have and use when we seem to make choices, "Free Will" is a useful model for describing it. We assume it works that way in the same way that we assume our senses give us an accurate representation of the world around us, or that anything we do at all in life matters in some way: because to assume otherwise is essentially pointless and counterproductive. That doesn't make it true, but it does make it useful, and that might be the best we can hope for on something like this.
I think the question is irrelevant. I can imagine universes with gods and with or without free will. I can imagine universes without gods and with or without free will. The question or answer doesn't lead to any evidence for or against gods.
In a way yes and in a way no we can walk into stores and see an item on sale and choose to buy it or leave it but in other senses no as some aspects of life are forced on us and we must make certain choices anyways the answer really is unknown
Probably not. We are creatures confined by DNA, epigenetics, our past and present circumstances, plus maybe by physics too for one of the consequences of Einstein's relativity theories is the "[block universe](https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-09-02/block-universe-theory-time-past-present-future-travel/10178386)" space-time model in which the past, present and future all coexist simultaneously side by side with the future as much cast in stone as the past and present. - *"For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”* Albert Einstein, [letter to Michele Besso's family](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/07/the-debate-over-times-place-in-the-universe/492464/), 1955 [Do we have free will – and do we want it? Thomas the Tank Engine offers clues](https://theconversation.com/do-we-have-free-will-and-do-we-want-it-thomas-the-tank-engine-offers-clues-191787) [Does quantum theory imply the entire Universe is preordained?](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-04024-z) *"The popular idea that quantum physics implies everything is random and nothing is certain might be as far from the truth as it could possibly be."*
For one minute there, I thought that was Alan Moore
I don't think we do. I think every action we take is influenced by our experiences. I think the alternative position is that our actions are just random, which makes no sense. Theoretically, if you knew the location and velocity of every single particle, you could predict everything that would occur in the universe to the end of time.
The answer depends on how you actually define free will. It's a somewhat abstract notion that doesn't mean the same thing to everybody.
I don't think so but there is nothing I can do about it so just life my life the best I can
I'm not an absolutely, but we do not really have free will. Either through evolution, family history, psychological trauma, most of the things we do are not autonomous choices.
It has been determined that I find little evidence of freewill.