Free will is the notion that a person has the ability to act by one’s own accord without the impediment of necessity or fate.
.jpg)
Though the idea that we humans have free will at first seems obvious, many philosophers argue that we are not free, but rather, everything that we think and do is determined by causes that exist outside of the realm of free will. This concept is fittingly known as determinism and it suggests that all events, including human behavior and moral choice, are determined by previous causes. The theory relates largely to causality, which suggests that the current state of any object or event is determined by prior events and states.
The argument for determinism demonstrates that the notion of free will is not as obvious as it may first appear.
Though I personally agree with the notion of determinism, I believe that there is more to the story and that free will can coexists alongside determinism.
To begin, I would like to point out that the argument for determinism does not distinguish between conscious and unconscious states of thought which in my mind are pertinent to the notion of free will. I argue that although individuals often function by means of reaction which is deterministic in nature, this does not necessarily disprove free will.
Furthermore, the notion of determinism does not address the role of self-awareness and intention, and how such a concepts relate to free will. Therefore, despite the notion of determinism and the fact that humans often make decisions based on their reactions to current event, I argue that humans do in fact have free will when they are in a state of conscious self-awareness and when their decisions are intentional.
As such, I argue that intention interrupts our natural deterministic nature and creates a moment of free will within the individual.
The Law of Causality
Source
A strong argument for determinism is that actions do not occur without a cause and that every action is a product of the law of causality. As such, each thought within a person’s mind and every behaviour that they engage in, takes place as a result of biological, sensorial, experiential, or situational causes.
Every thought or behavior exists because of necessity.
To demonstrate this concept we could use the example of a monkey choosing between two ripe bananas. In this example, the act of the monkey turning its head toward one banana over another is based on internal and external causes that pre-exist within and around the monkey. For instance, hunger and sensory input as well as the distance and position of the monkey in relation to each of the bananas, determines what banana the monkey will reach for.
This example demonstrates the law of causality in that it shows that the monkey, and organisms in general, often behave by means of reaction to their environment and that every cause creates a reactionary response within an organism’s brain (ie hunger within the monkey, sensory appeal of the banana and distance between the banana and the monkey, cause the monkey to react and reach for one of the pieces of fruit).
Source
This example of determinism demonstrates that the monkey’s behavior, and probably much of human and animal behavior in general, is reactionary in nature, in that organisms react to cues from their internal and external perceptions. As such, most behavior is determined because it largely follows the law of causality.
However, I personally believe that there is something missing in this example, which in my opinion plays a large role in free will. That is intention. The monkey lacks intention as well as self-awareness of its motives and behavior.
Since the monkey is simply responding in a reactionary way to its surroundings and its internal states, its decisions lack conscious thought and intentionality which suggests that the monkey is making an unconscious decision and its behavior is being determined by prior events and states. However, I argue that if the monkey had intention in its actions, it would be aware of its behavior and its motivations and it would be making a conscious decision and exercising free will.
This idea will be explained further in part II of the article.
Source
End of Part I
In order to keep this article short I will conclude part one at this point. In part two I will discuss the idea of conscious and unconscious thought and behaviors and how they relate to freewill.
I caught this post late. The concept of free will is one of the most debated philosophical concepts. In my mind, the arguments are divided between highly respected philosophers and metaphysicians. Metaphysicians like Alleister Crowley and George Gurdjieff confirm your arguments, i.e, intention and self awareness are the keys to self direction and freewill but they go further to say it's difficult to reach the state of our "true will" where our thoughts have no influence on our actions. They have laid down systems to help men cognize their true will by taking control of the thinking mind. I also believe freewill exists only to men that have total control of their minds.
I read and followed Gurdjieff's fourth way in my late teenage years. It was really tedious and I could only quit. Even a simple mindfulness exercise will show us how much we are not in control of our mind. In most cases, it's an automated system running societal, parental and a few personal thought patterns.
I haven't read anything by Gurdieff. But I agree that most of our cognitions are automated. Mindfulness is quite difficult but gets easier with practice. I agree that, the difficulty of mindfulness demonstrates how much we lack control over our mind
Yes, the automation can only be stopped by mindfulness which is difficult at the beginning but easier with practice. By the way, I don't think you want to read Gurdjieff's, I tried it years after my initial introduction and it was boring to read. The summary of his work is that we are automatons and he gave a series of exercises in mindfulness to help break the automatic thinking mechanism . I prefer the metaphysicians because they are practical, philosophers mostly just discuss.
I see. Yeah philosophy can be very hard to read. I have only read a little and it took me several times of re-reading it over and over in order to understand it.
Lol. It's also believe it's usually that way. I prefer anything practical, books with exercises I can get to right away.
That's interesting. I agree that there needs to be a level of control of the mind in order to be "free."
Care to share your system for taking control of your mind? maybe that should be a steemit post :)
Maybe I will do a more comprehensive post soon :) but I think it's simple, the system I use requires holding my attention to a spot for a predetermined number of minutes. Depending on where I am, it is usually the breath, an object or a mental image. At the beginning the mind strays a lot but it becomes steady with time and you can hold the attention for longer periods. The major benefit noticeable after a month or close is the ease of controlling impulsive habits and becoming less reactionary. It gets better with time as people's motives or subtle body language during discussions become clearer e.g you can sense when they want to change topic, or quit the discussion or leave but are unwilling to tell you. And it becomes easier to focus on better thoughts.
I meditate in a similar way actually. I wish I practiced more often. Its pretty sporadic for me. But I agree that it gets easier the more you practice. I find that sometimes the body enters a pretty cool state, like it falls asleep while the mind stays active, or I see a very intense bright light in my minds eye. Those events tend to be exceptionally rare for me though.
Sometimes I also skip practicing for days depending on schedule but I always come back to it. I think maybe you should just do at least 20minutes on busy days. I'm familiar with the body asleep and mind active part but I've not experienced the lights part, I have heard about it in other people's experience.
I really should do 20 minutes. It seems like a small amount in relation to a 14-16 hour wakeful day but yet I still have a hard time making that time for myself. I need to work on that
Yeah, some do an hour and above but 20 is good for a busy person. It will be great if you try work on that.
Free will is definitely a fascinating concept. I like your point about intention, I think that really does change things. There's a movie about an AI intelligence that I'm not going to say in order to not be a spoiler, but basically the AI ends up transcending its program and leaving the confines of its software. I'm curious if intentional thought could have the same impact...
How To Fuel Flirtation And Ignite Irresistible InteractionsGreat post here @leaky20! I'd love to hear your thoughts about my recent post:
The movie sounds interesting. Whats the title? I love sci-fi and AI concepts
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/
oh yes. I have seen the movie and loved it. It was so good
Upvoted and resteemed. Do you want to know why? Visit @pf-coin. ;-)
Thanks for the support!
Freewill doesn't undo fate, destiny, the future. Freewill is about the choices you have and not the choices beyond your control. We can only decide to do whatever cards we have in our hands. But life has cards as well.
I think what @leaky is saying is that even those choices you think you have, the final selection, the final decision made is somehow still influenced by certain determinants
Right, and I disagree with that. I believe that there is some influence but that the ultimate responsibility and the actual choice is made by the individual at least to some extent or that the potential is there to make choices regardless of the influences and everything. I believe that we all can break bad habits and addictions and lifestyles regardless of the nature versus nurture debates and the environments we may be in and everything.
those final choices you are talking about can't be considered exclusive of previous influences. When an individual faces options, the choice he makes has to be somehow influenced by an occurrence of the past, or a specific knowledge or some other influence he/she has come across at some given point in time. So in essence freewill is more like influenced will that looks like freewill just simply because it is not being directly imposed on the individual. If we consider all indirect, passive influences, we'd realise that all will is influence at some level in various ways. If an individual Can be said to be a sum total of his influences like environment, knowledge base, etc and all that contributes in shaping his psyche how then can we say his choices could be void of influences? I think not
@babysteve you have a good grasp on the idea of determinism. Very well said.
You both raise some good points though. I've posted part II of this article, if you are interested. I would like to hear more of your thoughts on the subject :)
I also believe that 'Fate' and the future are truly dynamic eventualities and they are informed by choices. Say, there's an infinite range of possibilities and each choice or decision stirs the eventual 'fate' towards a Particular possibility of the set. My thought is still a derivative of the theory of causality. I don't think there is a 'future' or 'fate' cast in stone.
I believe that you can foretell and predict future choices. That is what the future is. The future can be set in stone in the sense that what will happen will happen. But the choices people make tomorrow are still choices they will make tomorrow. If you know what they will do, that does not violate or destroy their freewill, their choices. If I tell you that I will kill you tomorrow, that does not destroy your freewill to try to not die tomorrow. Whether or not I'm able to kill you tomorrow or not is another matter all together. But knowing the future does not mean you lose your choices. You can know that you will sleep tomorrow but that doesn't mean you won't choose when to go to bed tomorrow, unless if you fall asleep accidentally or something. Fate may be real. Destiny may be out there. Is the future cast in stone? I think it is but that does not mean we will know what will happen in the future. But that does not mean we cannot know or that nobody knows what will happen.
I enjoyed reading the conversations that you both had.@joeyarnoldvn regarding what you said about sleep - determinism would suggest that you do not have free will over the choice of when to go to sleep but rather, that other states and events will determine your choice. For instance, you getting tired or lacking energy is the causal event that leads you to decide when to go to sleep. Therefore, your choice of when to go to sleep is determined. Just something to ponder :)
When we sleep can be predictive. What we eat and what we do predicts or determines when we sleep, possibly. Normal people can go to sleep when they feel tired. For me, I have went to bed when I felt tired. At other times, I did not go to bed even when I was very tired. There were times when I was not tired and I was still sleeping. There are times I try to sleep. There are times I choose to sleep and not sleep. People are predictable. But that doesn't mean they don't have choice. It just means they fail to choose or that their choices are predictable.
I do not believe in absolute determinism. I believe that your choices are your choices. If I kill you, then you don't have the choice to sleep or not to sleep. In other words, sleeping would no longer be one of your choices if you are dead. That is a clear example of what I believe. You can only do what you can do. And there are some choices others make. There are things that happens that may take from the possible and potential choices we may want to or could have made later on in life but can't if those choices are no longer there. If we had a time machine, we could see what will happen in the future, but knowing the future may not destroy the future from happening through at least some bit of freewill, as in choices, decisions, via people, the universe, and everything.
Some things are beyond our control, perhaps. What others does may affect us, too. So, if I give you sleeping pills, then you will probably go to sleep soon. I would be able to determine when you sleep. Fire can kill you. In other words, the fire may determine your death, perhaps, or maybe to an extent it may seem. So, in life, it may seem that everything or that some things are determined by not me, not you, not by individuals, but by maybe other people, maybe God, maybe Buddha, maybe Allah, maybe Zeus, maybe Ra, maybe the universe, maybe Mother Earth, and everything, or whatever. But I would say that we still have some choices.
We may not have all of the choices and we may not be able to do anything, maybe, but we can probably do much more than we may think, regardless of whether what we do is predictive or not. I believed that what happens is determined by us and by not us.