If there’s someone else controlling this will, they’re pretty random and all over the place.

But to answer the question directly, yes, I believe I have free will because it’s mine, it’s not always right and it’s influenced by things that affect me and me alone. It’s not some divine design following a pattern, it’s just me.

Willy’s already been freed.

I used to think I was supposed to have free will and therefore if things didn’t work out
it was my fault. Of course this also meant that if anything good happened, I got all
the credit.
What a dork.

Yes, but it’s very expensive.

I think I have free will. I know right from wrong. I can choose to do either. If I succeed in what I am doing, then I reap the benefits. If I fail or am punished for doing something wrong, then I am the one who pays for it.

We all have chosen the paths we are leading. That’s just my feeling.

I guess like everything else, it depends. Free from control by an intelligent, superior being? Yes, I absolutely believe I am free from that. But am I free from control by my genes and/or environment? Only to a very small degree…if any.

I’m curious, anyone who does not believe they have free will…..who do you refer to when people want to give feedback on decisions you’ve made? Personally, I think it’s just irresponsible to think anyone else controls your decisions and choices.

feels like playing devil’s advocate

wildflower: why does it have to be a “someone?” What about something: the laws of nature and environment?

TennesseeTeacake: until they decide to make Free Willy 4 (direct to DVD!)

susanc : what do you believe now?

MrKnowItAll: expensive how?

mzgator: how do you know that it is you making the decision and not merely an illusion? e.g. a combination of brain chemistry and environment following natural laws and that you in fact don’t have control?

Well, the flying spaghetti monster could be a “he” or “it” really….

@wildflower: But what if you don’t think someone else controls them? What if you think your decisions and choices are the consequence of circumstance? Let me elaborate:

Let’s say that I have to make Decision X. (Whatever decision you want to stick in there.) I am going to make that decision based on the available information I’ve been able to acquire or been exposed to (environment) as well as my ability to process that information and predict possible outcomes (combination of genes and environment).

Now let’s say that you are asked to make Decision X, but we have a special machine that’s not limited by the laws of physics, so you are able to, for a moment, have the exact same combination of genes and experiences that I have had.

Do you think that there is any chance that you and I would arrive at different conclusions?

@phoenyx: This is a philosophical questions that great thinkers have been arguing about for centuries. I just got over 1,630,000 hits when I googled Free Will vs. Determinism

Have you ever taken a Philosophy course?

I have not. I had a long discussion with a friend recently where he was of one opinion and I was of the other. Thought I’d explore it a little more.

@nikipedia
So, you’re saying, would I make the same choices as you if my will was the same as yours? I probably would, in fact, this is why most (at least those functioning to programming) calculators will decide that 1+1 = 2 – but I dare you to show me two humans with the exact same will (if they’re free thinkers, not following a script or something).

But I see what you’re saying about your surroundings influencing you, but it’s still you applying it and making the judgement call – not your surroundings. You’re accountable for them, no-one else.

@wildflower: No, I’m asking if you think there’s another source (beyond genes or environment) that determines our will. If those two factors are equivalent, will something else will two entities to diverge?

One such factor could be your mood…..you could be applying a decision-making bias, such as problem-framing (i.e. are you proned to view things as positive or negative).

So yes, I believe there’s more than genetic disposition, applied knowledge and experience involved…...there’s emotion too. Try as we may, we’re just not vulcan.

Also, if you had (and this would be an interesting identical twin experiment) two people with identical genetic disposition (is that even possible?), experience and knowledge, experiencing similar moods, but presented with the decision they have to make in different ways, would they arrive at the same conclusion? Quite possibly not, because whichever way the choices were presented to them, could well add to the influences of their decision making.

None of this changes the fact that it is them making that decision and if you wish to hold someone responsible for it – it is the decision-maker.

@wildflower: But aren’t moods and emotions products of gene/environment interactions as well?

And as far as the “is this possible” part: you can have two identical twins with identical genes, but unfortunately due to epigenetic factors their genes would be expressed somewhat differently. So the question I’m asking is (as far as current technology goes) completely theoretical.

And it’s an interesting theoretic question. Doesn’t change my belief that you make your decisions (whatever you use to justify them), not God, not your parents or other influential people in your life, just you. Therefore I believe your will to be your own.

But what constitutes “you”? Are “you” exclusively a product of your genes and environment, or do you believe that your consciousness is some other thing? What kind of thing? Is it a process or a physical item?

Me? I’m just a babbling mess most of the time…...and no I don’t believe in some higher level of consciousness. I don’t have your expertise in neuroscience so I can’t even begin to explain what makes up my sense of ‘me’.

I know if I am presented with a choice I will make it and you can hold me responsible for it. I will not say that it’s my parents fault for giving me these genes. I will not say I was guided by a higher power and I will not say it’s society’s fault for conditioning me this way. I am able to think and I’ve noticed I’m able to take on new information and adapt my views so I’m not restricted in what I can consider. I choose what decision to make, I also may choose which supporting arguments to apply (how I do that, you can probably explain to me).

Well, I am asking you about a very hard problem! (Please pardon the pun.)

I completely agree with you that people need to be held responsible for their actions—but I do think in some situations that’s easier said than done. Imagine for a moment that you were born a racial minority in a poor neighborhood to a single mother with a very limited education. Imagine further that you have a genetic predisposition toward addiction, violence and low intelligence so that it’s very hard for you to control angry outbursts and you really struggle to be able to understand the outcomes of your actions.

I have a lot more sympathy if that person turns to drugs or crime than a (hypothetical) rich Caucasian person who went to private school, whose parents are doctors or lawyers, who is innately intelligent and has little genetic predisposition toward mental illness.

Both of these people are capable of making good decisions—but I think for one it is much, much harder than the other. And I wonder if there is any set of circumstances so extreme that we would have to say, “Well, of course that person made bad decisions—who wouldn’t in that situation?”

And I’m really not the right person to pose that question to :) Although that wiki article is interesting and just made me think of another question (since wiki is not a recognised source at my college, I wonder if it is for others)

I agree you can sympathise and rationalise other people’s choices that you view as bad. You’ll still think they’re bad, but how you choose to respond to them may be influenced by that sympathy.

At the end of the day, I believe you always have a choice, it may be a “lesser-of-two-evils” choice (such as: do I starve or do I rob a petrol station for food and money) and there’s nothing controlling you or steering you towards that choice, except yourself (including all your components and influences).

I think people should own and embrace who they are – regardless of what shaped them – and admit that they made the choices they made, rather than blaming other ‘entities’.

@TennesseeTeacake
Damn….

@phoenyx: I believe it’s all completely up for grabs. I try to be a decent
example of personhood; but I look back and see that I JUST DIDN’T GET what was
going on most of the time.

Suppose you lifted up a rock and dropped it. Would it fall to the ground? Suppose you did it hundreds of times or even millions of times. Would there ever be an instance when the rock stayed suspended in the air? Or flew upward instead of dropping?

Suppose you fell out of a plane without a parachute or anything item prevent free fall. Could you use your will to prevent you from falling?

thats called gravity. its a physical property of our planet. i think this question was focused more on thinking for yourself and controlling you own decisions as opposed to life already being planned or predestined and you just walking the path.

Remember that butterfly in Brazil?

The point is that if natural laws are immutable, how do you have free will? If you had comprehension of all natural laws and knew the exact state of a given system, couldn’t you predict with certainty what the next state would be? (and the next and so on and so on). Couldn’t you predict the life of any given person? Even if nobody has that knowledge wouldn’t that life follow the exact same course?

Phoenyx, I am inclined to agree with you. But this is where the problem of consciousness comes in. We can predict what will happen in a closed system where we know all the variables, but so far we are unable to predict human behavior with any kind of reliability.

Is this because consciousness is a unique property that imbues a system with a unique level of unpredictability?

Or is consciousness an artifact of the physical processes in our brain, and we only imagine ourselves to be in control of our behavior?

No.
As I don’t like witting a lot here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SthbQdrxeLw&feature=channel_page

I’m completely inline with everything that nikipedia has expressed thus far. I have basically decided that “free will” is the sensation your brain experiences when it executes an action based on previous experience and outside or internal stimulus (although the terms outside and internal are relative—internal IMO would be within the brain).

Free will appears to be true from within the system. However, when viewing the actions of the brain objectively we find that the actions one takes are dictated by the current orientation of the brain’s neuronal pathways and neurotransmitters, and the stimuli experienced.