Why does the idea of no Free Will bother some people?

gamerprinter · Nov 14, 2012

To Buddhism, free will is a sin and places your spirit or state of mind to be stuck in the human realm (one of the six hells of Wheel of Life).

KarinsDad · Nov 14, 2012

Janx said:
What usually bugs me the most on the topic of choice (which does bind back to lack of free will) is that when something bad happens, folks will point and say "you chose to do that" as if the person could have chosen differently. Yet, when you look at the situation, and the psychological make-up of the person, it's a foregone conclusion on the path that person would take with the information the person had at hand.

Actually, people can choose differently. Take obesity as an example. Some major portion of obesity is genetics, environment, experience, etc., but as a general rule, nearly every person can choose to be less obese than they are and can do actions that achieve that result. Many of us (myself included) do not put in the extra effort to be less obese (at least in my case, on a continuing basis). We cannot use the "lack of free will" excuse to excuse our behavior. The medical and other problems that result from obesity still have to be shouldered by the people that are obese, regardless of the underlying reasons. One does the behavior, one has to shoulder the consequences.

The same applies to criminal behavior. However, there is a problem with using the "lack of free will" as an excuse for any behaviors. The problem is that behaviors are often repeatable. So in the case of crime, many criminals are likely to perform the same or other crimes over and over again. So, the incarceration of criminals for a society where science illustrates that "actual free will" is an illusion still has to be done in order to protect other members of society. Granted, rehabilitation might work in some cases, but the bottom line is that society just cannot roll the dice and give criminal offenders too many opportunities to repeatedly commit crime.

Thought of a different way, if we are all meat computers, then some of the meat computers have programming conflicts with other meat computers which results in some meat computers being restricted in activities.

jonesy · Nov 14, 2012

gamerprinter said:
To Buddhism, free will is a sin and places your spirit or state of mind to be stuck in the human realm (one of the six hells of Wheel of Life).

The conversation wasn't about what Buddhism thinks about it (which gets the thread into a religious discussion, which we should not do here), but whether it exists.

gamerprinter · Nov 14, 2012

jonesy said:
The conversation wasn't about what Buddhism thinks about it (which gets the thread into a religious discussion, which we should not do here), but whether it exists.

Various world religions were mentioned in the front page, I was not going into religious discussion, so much reflecting other people's thinking regarding free will. I am not religious - not a Christian, not a Buddhist, but understanding what/how other cultures treat the concept of free should be part of the conversation.

Free will cannot exceed physics and biology, but does it need to to defy the absence of free will?

jonesy · Nov 14, 2012

gamerprinter said:
Free will cannot exceed physics and biology, but does it need to to defy the absence of free will?

Huh? That went over my head by a couple of parsecs.

gamerprinter · Nov 14, 2012

Cor Azer said:
I more or less agree with you:
I have free will in the sense that nobody can perfectly predict what I'll do, nor control what I do.
I don't have free will in the sense that I can't act outside of what my biology and anatomy allow.

People who have an issue with "no free will" tend to use the first definition, while those without an issue tend towards the second.

jonesy said:
Huh? That went over my head by a couple of parsecs.

Reread the first and second post of this thread, then read my post - it can't be over half a parsec.

jonesy · Nov 14, 2012

gamerprinter said:
Reread the first and second post of this thread, then read my post..

Those do not talk about what confused me, which is specifically this:

gamerprinter said:
Free will cannot exceed physics and biology, but does it need to to defy the absence of free will?

What does that refer to?

gamerprinter · Nov 14, 2012

jonesy said:
Those do not talk about what confused me, which is specifically this:

What does that refer to?

The premise that one's physical limitations prevents us from having truly free will is somehow proof that free will cannot exist.

I believe free will can concern us within the capability of reality. I have the free will to respond to this thread/your post. I could chose not to respond, as I have the free will to do so. I have freely chosen to respond, does this not mean I do have free will.

Sorry for the confusion, the first part of that post referred to your point on religion, however, the rest of the post had to do with the thread and the first posts of this thread - and not to anything you were saying (I could see it seemed confusing.) I was returning to my points on the previous post, with regards to posts on page 1 of this thread.

jonesy · Nov 14, 2012

If I flip a coin to determine whether to reply to a post or not, is the coin constrained by reality? Was the action-reaction chain that preceded and created the conditions surrounding the coin toss inevitable, or is there such a thing as a truly random event? If the result of the coin toss was the result of everything preceding it and surrounding it, does that mean that everything else is as well? And if it does, are you really acting as a result of free will, or as a result of the action-reaction chains of your thought processess? Can that be called free will and does it really matter if it can't? You would still perceive an action you decided to do as an action that you had a choice of regardless of whether every action-reaction led to there being a you who ended up doing that action and perceiving that action to have been free will, even if it technically wasn't.

Umbran · Nov 14, 2012

KarinsDad said:
Yes. As per my second paragraph that you did not quote.

Well, your second paragraph refers to "refusal" and that (at least to me) implies choice. I didn't want to approach what looked like a muddled message there.

I think we are actually in agreement: If you have no free will, whether you study or not, whether that study will change your reaction or not - they happen, or they do not, depending on the programming. The result was determined the time the event occurred. Really, if you're going full determinism, it was determined day the Universe was created.

If you don't have free will, the reason you don't like the idea of not having it is that *you are made that way*.

jonesy said:
Ah, but usually these sort of thought experiments assume a meat computer that does what the program tells it to do, and so stays within parameters. What if we are actually glitchy and new strings of code keep appearing in the loop everytime it is run? What if our sentience in this dirt poor analogy is a virus?

That just means that I, in my ignorance, cannot predict the outcome with the information I have.

That virus is still itself code. The code isn't actually "glitchy", in that it is still doing *exactly* what it is told to do. You perceive it as a glitch because it isn't what you intended or expected it to do - but computers are not bound by your intent, but by your exact statement. Digital computers are still entirely deterministic in their action.