What Is "Free Will" Anyway...?

[nineteeneightysix]

1) No one chooses to come in this world...A man and woman have sex, and another human being is conceived...

2) Science, tells us you get half your genes from mom and the other half from dad (and they get theirs from their moms and dads and so on)...Therefore, from the start, you are genetically predisposed to behaviours that have been encoded in humanity for millennia...

3) Then there is the environment in which one is born, and has no control over...Whatever your mother chooses to eat, drink and etcetera, influences your development in the womb...So, by the time one is born, one already has already had genetic and environmental variables that have put one's brain in certain developmental path, that one has no control over, and this will forever influence the way one thinks and behave...

4) Then there are all the social rules, laws and norms that one is indoctrinated into, before one is even aware of oneself...These will also affect the way the brain develops, and influence thought and behaviour...

So, at exactly what point does "free will" come into effect...?

By the time one is ready to start making choices, the genetic, environmental and psychosocial mechanisms that dictate how one makes choices have already been put in place, without one's explicit awareness of this..

Does anybody really have choice...?

 

[Cory MBA]

You do not have a choice to be born but you have the ability and freedom, right now, to make decisions that will affect your life.

As far as societal rules, you also have the choice to reject laws and principles but you have to also face any consequences that will arise as a result.

You do not have to go to work or school. You do not have to eat. You can run that stop sign or break any law that you want today. But will you? Why won't you?

You do have the power to think, make changes and choices.

 

[nineteeneightysix]

You do not have a choice to be born but you have the ability and freedom, right now, to make decisions that will affect your life.

That's what many Westerners think, but is that the truth...? It's a very powerful believe to have, and even necessary...But is it the truth...? The choices you make are already enhanced/limited by your genes and upbringing...Basically, for any given scenario, the choice you make is the only one you, as an individual, could have made given your nature and nurture...

As far as societal rules, you also have the choice to reject laws and principles but you have to also face any consequences that will arise as a result.
You do not have to go to work or school. You do not have to eat. You can run that stop sign or break any law that you want today. But will you? Why won't you?
You do have the power to think, make changes and choices.

The point I am trying to make is that choosing is a cognitive function of the brain, and since the development of the brain is a result of genetics and a social construct that we have no control over, at least in the crucial stages of our development, then how can we truly say that we have "free will"...?

For example, women today think they have "free will" to vote, but that was not the case many years ago, when most women did not even entertain the thought...There are many more example of "choices we freely make today" that were not choices many years ago...

 

[intilectual recipricol]

I dont doubt free will, but I also recognize that my choices are influenced by those variables you mention. I think the issue is where some believe they were "given" free will as if there was a possibility that we wouldnt be able to choose. Thats beyond silly.

 

[doct3rdr3]

The modern arguments against free will take your inquiry a step further, drawing upon insights from the neuroscience regarding the neural activity in the brain. (NYT1, NYT2, DailyBeast, Atlantic) The basic point being, if specific parts of your brain (e.g. prefrontal cortex) are damaged by injury or birth defect, you will behave differently. Therefore it isn't "you" who controls your behavior, but rather very specific body parts, awash in a predictable sea of neurochemical impulses.

Some philosophers think of free will on a cosmic scale. You might pose a thought experiment like: suppose you're walking on a path to visit your friend and there's a fork in the road. One path leads to your friend's house and the other leads to some dreadful pit of fire and brimstone. Naturally, you take the path to your friend's house every time. But could you have taken the other path? If there's no alternative universe in which you would have taken the other path, did you really have a choice?

But like Cory MBA pointed out, there's no reason that any of these findings or thought experiments can't be compatible with a notion of free will. It all rests on how free will is defined. As long as you define free will as the capacity to rationally consider alternatives and act on the basis of this consideration, you're describing a capacity that all mentally healthy adult humans have. That doesn't mean that our free will can't be impaired by drugs/brain injury, or constrained by genes/socioeconomic circumstances/laws, but that basic capacity remains.

 

[Fervid]

Read this. It's a short read.

 

[Brown_Pride]

The modern arguments against free will take your inquiry a step further, drawing upon insights from the neuroscience regarding the neural activity in the brain. (NYT1, NYT2, DailyBeast, Atlantic) The basic point being, if specific parts of your brain (e.g. prefrontal cortex) are damaged by injury or birth defect, you will behave differently. Therefore it isn't "you" who controls your behavior, but rather very specific body parts, awash in a predictable sea of neurochemical impulses.

Yeah but isn't that "You"?

I think it depends on how you define a person.

If for instance you ask 100 people a question with 100 equally reasonable possible answers we'd assume there'd be more than one option selected.

If those people weren't forced to make a choice i'd call that "free will"; the cognitively made a choice one way or the other.

Now the OP argument is that you are limited in your scope of cognitive variation based on your environment, genetics and experience (NATURE AND NURTURE); to me that's at the very heart of what a person is. We are the culmination of NATURE AND NURTURE. That's to say we are genetically predisposed to certain things (Nature), then experience the world around us (Nurture) and GROW because of that in an independently thinking, free will-willing creature...limited by our summation of Nature+Nurture.

We have free will, the option to choose.
Yet we are also limited by our experience and how our minds mold those experiences into choices.

 

[doct3rdr3]

Yeah Brown_Pride, I agree your brain more or less "is you". I was sort of caricaturing the other perspective in my first two paragraphs.

 

[Kritic]

in short... free will is an illusion.

the person "exercising their free will" is heavily influences by his surroundings. our society is similar to ants. we're a social being and we all need each other and work together. them ants aren't free. they all have to play their part to function in that society.
we have to go to work. have to go to school. have to abide by laws. have to do this. do that. if we don't we won't be "free" no more. we'll be in the slammer or dead.

 

[Slang]

in short... free will is an illusion.

the person "exercising their free will" is heavily influences by his surroundings. our society is similar to ants. we're a social being and we all need each other and work together. them ants aren't free. they all have to play their part to function in that society.
we have to go to work. have to go to school. have to abide by laws. have to do this. do that. if we don't we won't be "free" no more. we'll be in the slammer or dead.

What a belief you got there.