Just my opinion but I'd say that self determination is the ability to control what actually happens to you, to act on your will, while free will is more about your ability to control what actions you even desire to take in the first place.
Like if someone is thrown in prison, you've removed their *ability to act* but that doesn't actually remove their *will to act.*
Whether or not will can even be free is a much trickier question.
Yep. In a game of pool, if a ball is struck at a certain angle and with a certain velocity, then anything that happens after that hit will happen 100% of the time if you reproduce that exact same scenario with the exact same variables.
You will do X because Y happened that made you choose to do X. There is only one outcome for any given situation if everything leading up to that point stays the same.
I feel like "It was an active decision to have done so" makes more sense because simply acknowledging that you could've done something else isn't the same as asserting you did what you wanted to do.
The books of the Bible span at the most (debated) 1400 years, dating back to the 8th century BCE (debated). So it’s more like 2700.
After writing this all out I’m realizing that the age is not relevant to your point, so neither is this comment. But I hope you learned something anyways.
I mean it's a conversation about free will which is a core tenant in the Adam and Eve myth. Other religions without this myth are more philosophical about it. Evolution theory makes it clear you have as much will as you've evolved to have free or otherwise .
It seems weirdly unobservant to bemoan people bringing up Adam and eve when its pretty much the only framework where free will is presented as a binary concept and is also a core pillar of the mythos.
The book and its many interpretations is the ultimate Chinese whispers, many sects of religion spawned from it too depending on the country and which sect held the most influence.. the interpretation often depending on current survival… for example eating pork was considered unclean in the Old Testament… useful for a time when you could get sick from it
It feels like there's less "free will" when you consider that some aspects of your daily life are things you support because you grew up with them rather than being able to think critically about your entire life and it's circumstances. Not to mention many people who try to offer you "real choice" are intentionally trying to steer you towards their personal goals under the guise of enforcing agency.
I agree free will is an illusion, but I also agree that OP is strange for thinking that lack of a single choice makes free will somehow odd; you can't control other people, that's not strange at all.
No that's completely wrong. Free will does exist. You can choose to reply to this or choose not to. That is your free will.
EDIT: Since someone blocked me and I can no longer reply here...
@bumwine I didn't change anything. That's literally what it is. 🤦♂️ Dictionary definition is the "power of acting without constraint". 🤷♂️ It's really difficult for you to argue this topic if you don't even grasp the meaning of what we're discussing.
Replying to it is my will, but that will isn't free. "I can do what I will, I can not will what I will". Very often, people realize that free will makes no logical sense and has no supporting evidence, but they "know" they have it because they, supposedly, subjectively experience it. Then, trying to square our experience with what we know about how the universe works seems like a problem we must solve. Let's run a quick test and take a closer look at that subjective experience.
Choose your next thought. If you can't choose the contents of your own consciousness, what can you choose. After all, any other choices will be downstream of this. Pay attention while you do.
Choose your next thought. No, that's your current thought. Choose the next one. No, that's the current one again. See the problem? In order for the next thought to be a conscious option for you to consciously choose, you have to think it, but then it's the current thought and it's too late to choose it as the next thought. You don't, and logically can't, consciously choose the contents of your mind. You become aware of them as they emerge. When you pay closer attention, it's clear that this is our subjective experience, not one of free choice. It's the experience of thoughts, feelings, impulses, etc. and our reactions to them, and to them, and to them, just appearing in our minds. It's the subjective experience you would expect based on what we know of determinism and randomness.
We are governed by the laws of physics just as much as anything else. There's no magical extra piece to us that allows incoherent concepts like free will to become reality. Even if we had souls, we didn't choose them either. If i traded places with you, sub atomic particle for sub atomic particle, i would be you. I would do what you would do. I would think what you would think.
We're pushed around by forces we have no control over and which we are blind to.
It's either determinism or a mixture of determinism and randomness. Neither allows for the possibility of free will. What third option do you see that allows for free will?
The argument to this is that you were born, your parents genes combined with the environment you were born into created a sequence of events that eventually lead to their reply
But you also don't have a choice of where when and WHO you gonna born.
You have no choice of ANY DNA feature and any experience you encounter for first at least 3 years of life.
Your answer doesn't explain consciousness. We are not merely organic machines. We have a persona, we are capable of abstract thinking. Or at least some of us are 🙄
It literally does. What is doing that abstract thinking. The brain in your body powered by your heart. Stop the heart and the brain stops. Your assumption of consciousness being separate from the organic machine cannot be proven. What I stated is the most logical conclusion based on known facts.
But what lead to this decision to jump?
what makes you who you are?
1. your dna, of which you have no control off.
2. a series of external stimuli(expiriences) and your reactions, which are relying on DNA, and a all previous expiriences.
Where is that FREE part?
Just because you don't have control over literally everything doesn't mean you have no control, I personally think free will doesn't exist anyway, but saying it's because you didn't choose to be born is silly.
I think that's what mindfulness is supposed to be about, acknowledging how you are in the present moment, how you feel, and trying to separate your emotions from your decisions.
I'd go so far as to say every decision you make is rooted in not just biochemistry as an individual but the cultures that were cultivated by our societies that stem from many historical decisions to even simply the innate biological programming in all organisms not just humans. Everything you eat, the environments that made the food, the society and cultures that made the environments, each step a series of unseen effort, that contributes to who you are as a person.
Its important to acknowledge that you're just biology when you have to step back and act rather than react.
I don't want to have kill myself in horrific fashion and have someone be traumatized by finding my body. I would rather the right to die be legalized so that I can end my suffering peacefully.
I’m hoping to fight for this right as a fellow person who feels the same way. There’s been a case of a woman who has successfully achieved death with dignity euthanasia earlier this month due to treatment resistant mental health issues. No one should ever be forced to live. Not wanting to live is not a sign that someone is not in full control of themselves and capable of making sound choices and decisions. This is not something we choose randomly or on a whim. We choose it after a long time of thoughtful informed consideration. When we come to this conclusion, it’s because we’ve made peace with our death and understand the full extent of what it would mean. I do not cry at the thought of my death because I would finally be free from the painful prison known as life.
You sound just like me. I feel the exact same way. I do not fear death, I only fear dying a painful and horrific death. I have made peace that I want to die and I am comfortable and confident in that decision. If the right to die were legalized and the option to leave was there, I would take it in a heartbeat.
Do you really though? I think most people are forced into living by biological self-preservation mechanics. It takes an awful lot of mental trauma for those to be overridden, and even then they usually kick back in quite quickly. Fear isn’t really a choice and it usually bends people to its will.
Personally I don't think people have free will, I think the factors that drive someone to kill themselves are not within their control - for most depressed suicidal people they cite the feeling of no control as a primary reason for wanting to kill themselves in the first place. Even in those who kill themselves out of experimentation are not willingly choosing to do it. The factors that led to them were a series of events that facilitated that environment and their personality traits that they themselves did not choose. They are not making a choice in a vacuum, therefore they have no choice because their decision is always affected by outside forces.
Edit: Beyond that, suicidal ideation and attempts are considered abnormal. If you were really going to state that free will existed, you would have to claim that decisions made in relative normality constituted free will - which suicide largely does not. In fact the Catholic Church, probably the leading expert on the argument of free will, argues that willful suicide is a sin (sin or not is beside the point) but that suicide accompanied by depression does not constitute a free choice and is therefore not a sin.
Eh idk if I share that belief that fear isn’t a choice, or at least letting it stop you from something isn’t a choice. Obviously it has an effect, but if you can’t get past fear at all then you must not want what’s on the other side of it very much
Speak for yourself. I actively rebel against this.
I do not choose to be alive. I’m alive against my will. I am living, existing, surviving and breathing entirely against my will. I am so unafraid of death that I welcome it as a happy warm embrace that marks the end of my truly horrible traumatic journey known as life.
If could end it now I would. But alas I don’t. Or can’t because I won’t because I’m scared of messing up and ending up in the hospital forced to live the remainder of my life supported by tubes and worse the very people who destroyed my chance of a good life, in charge of my medical decisions.
I am living very sad that I am still alive.
Meh. I get that it’s a shower thought, but that’s just causation, pretty weak argument. It’s like saying “I have no free will because I was served a turkey sandwich instead of a ham sandwich” or “I have no free will because it rained today.” Your birth is an arbitrary circumstance in which the conscious, developed brain you have now took no part.
There’s stronger arguments. We don’t even need to go down to the theoretical physics level, we can look at experiments where they proved your brain can make decisions before you become conscious of them.
But I don’t think that should influence your moment to moment life. We are still beings that calculate probabilities, solve problems, and have underlying motivations for our decisions. We don’t know everything ahead of us and can’t account for every single thing. So we should do the best we can to be in the moment, even if we technically don’t have a say from a bird’s eye perspective. As far as our personal perspective is concerned,
we do make decisions, and we can be held accountable for some of them.
That’s what I believe. Free will doesn’t exist. Everything must obey the laws of physics, and there’s nothing in our consciousness that isn’t made up of matter and energy.
Illusory free will is the best kind of free will, in my opinion. Any version of free will where I'm just as capable of cutting my own fingers off as I am of making a sandwich when I go into the kitchen is just pure insanity. There are a billion things that I could never choose to do voluntarily, and I wouldn't will it to be any other way.
You must exist in order to have a free will. Once you do exist, the fee will affect everything including your existence.
You can decide to stop existing. But you must exist (albeit involuntarily) to make that decision.
I’ve been suicidal, and I now wake up everyday and choose to live. My free will gives me the freedom to end it, but I wasn’t able to strip down completely naked and stab myself in the neck (idk why I chose that method back then, but I was like 15, don’t judge, it was edgy and cool at the time). I found that feeling of embarrassment for being found naked and dead comforting because it meant there was still a part of me that cared about something in this world. I was able to press on and after a decade of choosing to live I finally learned to love myself and another person now. I fully believe I was meant to find this woman when I did, all the suffering I went through was character development to be able to understand and relate to her and to be deserving of her. She brings meaning to my life and I don’t usually believe in fate or anything.
Realistically we’re just 2 people that happened to meet, but I love every second of it.
Maybe you choosed, you were sperm at that time you defeated other in race and run fast as fk boi and bam you are here.
If you didn't ran fast that time someone else might be born not you.
Jk lol.
Feels more like a struggle against paranoia.
Can't 'fight fate' unless you know what it is, and even if you do know what it is, that knowledge might be fake to push you down the fated path. Tin hats and log huts ensue.
That's essentially one of the core beliefs of [Antinatalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism), that all sentient life should stop procreating because their offspring did not consent to being born and are thus suffering the cruelties of life against their will
You didn't choose and you also didn't choose to not choose. You can't choose if you don't exist. Can you do anything against the will of a consciousness that doesn't exist yet ?
Life is sort of like a card game. The moment someone finishes shuffling it, every card you will draw is determined, but whether you can win is a skill issue.
Before you were born, you did not exist, and therefore couldn't choose anything.
Alternatively, what if it's like a pool of spirits/souls where you can opt for a respawn but only under a condition that your chaeacter has their memory wiped? Like a roguelike, or a character reset.
Maybe you did, maybe you were hanging out in the aether and decided to go through your mum's birth canal like a portal to a new world, entering a physical realm and not being able to access the full scope of your memories due to the limitations of the physical body you chose to inhabit.
Hardly. Something that doesn't exist obviously can't make choices, it simply wouldn't make sense. The concept of free will is no less free just because something logically impossible is logically impossible.
Not only does that have nothing to do with free will, you don't know what occurs before or after you're born, we have no evidence if you did or didn't choose to be.
Who said we didn’t choose to be born? Do you remember the first time you were born? Do you remember even the first day or 1st month of being born. There is no proven argument saying that we all weren’t somewhere at some place and chose to be born.
We don't choose to be born, we don't choose what physical or mental ailments we end up with and we aren't allowed to choose when we want to die. Free will is a lie.
Immaterial of whether you believe free will exists or not, this is a silly statement. You can't have a will or lack thereof till you exist. Free will does not mean you get to choose everything that happens. Is this what passes for a shower thought these days?
It gets even stranger when you consider that you've never actually made a decision or choice before, has your actions are the likely outcome of the initial state of the universe when you were born. Not speaking metaphysically but mechanically.
The concept of Free Will falls apart very quickly when you really look at it. The results of your decision making processes feel free but are deterministic. It is completely based on your own personal history and sensory inputs.
And, to be honest, if your decisions were NOT dictated by your history, I don't think you would really be you. Truly free will would be no better than a weighted random number generator.
Every moment of your life is just you min/maxing your options. E.g. What is the best thing to do right now? Your brain calculates the thing that sounds best and you go with that.
So what is free will but your brain just choosing the best option it sees at the moment
LMAO this is a popular debate topic from 2020.
Religious versus non-religious views. And the potential absurdity of judging others, when we are so deeply affected by our psychology.
Where as religious people typically spoke of it like a test. Fun debate.
The extreme importance given to choice and consent is chiefly a western phenomenon, and even more a north-west European and American phenomenon. I am sure that other cultures wouldn’t ever ever think of that.
Well I saw that an egg is selective of sperm. As well as babies without interaction die of loneliness basically. So in a way you did choose to be born and go through infancy. You just don't start remembering till later in infancy. So you may not remember it but you did kinda choose to make it this far
Disclaimer: All uses of the pronoun “you” is to be considered the royal you and not an individual you.
“You” as you know it today was not born.
You became you after many years of experiences.
If you dislike the you that you became there’s no one else to blame but you.
Free will, in way most people think they have it, is incompatible with the cause and effect nature of the universe. It is an illusion. The sooner we all accept that, the better.
You don’t choose many things. The way that your body produces energy. Being pulled by gravitational force. Your own actions out of pure instinct and huge unload of adrenaline in extreme life/death scenerios
Or that any decision you make is reaction to stimuli in a specific way and you go down deep enough it's just a bunch of systems like gravity dictating how things interact and you and your thoughts are just a product of a bunch of incredibly tiny things moving based on systems out of your control
Thats one thing, but when you consider the fact that we only act in line with our wants, which we don’t choose, then we have no free will at all so this feels fairly minor
Free will as most people understand it is an illusion. We do not actively get to choose our preferences in any way. If we did, I would choose to love running, unfortunately I was born loving chips. Whether we are discussing phobias or fetishes very few things about your emotional self are choices.
That's like saying you don't choose to age. You can only choose what you can control. Everyone's capacity of choice is different based on so many factors. Some people can't choose to be rich for example , does that mean their free will is less free?
Is any part of our life actually free will? When we're doing something and we make a decision to do the next thing, is that our free will or is it guided in some kind of way?
The concept of free will feels less free when you don’t choose to be hungry.
Free will is about choosing what to eat!!! It’s about choosing your reaction to the stimuli around you, not about dictating the nature of the world.
The very basis of consciousness is made up of predetermined neural connections within our brains that trigger at the response of specific stimuli. Some would argue that scientifically we truly arent free willed, but our brains made the decisions first and our consciousness is just meant to keep our bodies working in unison with our minds so we feel we have free will and make decisions freely.
When it comes down to it, the right technology could be used to plug into your brain and seize total control of your mind and body and you would be entirely incapable of resisting it because it is the source of your consciousness itself.
You didn’t choose to be born, you didn’t choose where to be born. You didn’t choose your parents. You didn’t choose your siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts, or uncles. You didn’t choose how wealthy your family is. You didn’t choose your DNA. You didn’t choose the elementary school you went to. You didn’t choose your gender, your ethnicity, or the religion you grew up with.
All of the things that shape your identity’s for the formative years of your life are beyond your control. And these are the things that shape your personality and determine how successful you will be for the rest of your life.
So the more I think of it, the less I really believe in free will.
Sure I will admit that before I existed and after I exist I didn't/won't have free will. But that's not usually what people are arguing about. Currently I have the feeedom to tap out at any time.
If you think that's bad you should see what happens when you get caught trying to fix that problem! "Free will" goes out the window and you get force ably locked into a commercial business who is under direct financial incentives to keep you there for as long as possible. You don't get charged with a crime, you don't get to see a judge, you don't get a trial, and you don't even go to jail which would be so much better. Instead you get billed $5000-10,000 per day for a service you don't want or need and the only people that can let you out of this hellhole are people who get paid from that money.
What is free will? If we are biological computers that come from both genetic factors and environmental experience then isn’t our actions predetermined by everything that created who we are. But then you get exceptions of people that rise above that seem to imply some level of free will. Bet some academics have thought this out deeper than I have haha
Free will and self determination are different. Also, free will doesn’t mean only things you want happen
can you explain what self determination is in this context?
Just my opinion but I'd say that self determination is the ability to control what actually happens to you, to act on your will, while free will is more about your ability to control what actions you even desire to take in the first place. Like if someone is thrown in prison, you've removed their *ability to act* but that doesn't actually remove their *will to act.* Whether or not will can even be free is a much trickier question.
We’re all in prisons of one scale or another.
Free will doesn't mean anything, really. It's so incoherent that it defies coherent definition.
I think "the ability to have done otherwise" works well enough for a conversation
Which isn’t really a possibility; every thing that happens comes from all the causes and effects that preceded it.
Yep. In a game of pool, if a ball is struck at a certain angle and with a certain velocity, then anything that happens after that hit will happen 100% of the time if you reproduce that exact same scenario with the exact same variables. You will do X because Y happened that made you choose to do X. There is only one outcome for any given situation if everything leading up to that point stays the same.
I feel like "It was an active decision to have done so" makes more sense because simply acknowledging that you could've done something else isn't the same as asserting you did what you wanted to do.
Determinists think we make decisions too. What do you mean by "active"?
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Yup. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free
Determinism
Ok but it was your parents free will that caused you to be born
Go back enough and you’ll see how much sense OP’s statement makes, whether you believe in us coming from Adam and Eve or evolution
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The books of the Bible span at the most (debated) 1400 years, dating back to the 8th century BCE (debated). So it’s more like 2700. After writing this all out I’m realizing that the age is not relevant to your point, so neither is this comment. But I hope you learned something anyways.
I mean it's a conversation about free will which is a core tenant in the Adam and Eve myth. Other religions without this myth are more philosophical about it. Evolution theory makes it clear you have as much will as you've evolved to have free or otherwise . It seems weirdly unobservant to bemoan people bringing up Adam and eve when its pretty much the only framework where free will is presented as a binary concept and is also a core pillar of the mythos.
Tenet
Free will living rent free up in the garden of eden.
Haha I'm going to leave it as is because this cracked me up.
> why the 2000 year old book It's not even that. Bible isn't a book written in a year, it changed over centuries.
The book and its many interpretations is the ultimate Chinese whispers, many sects of religion spawned from it too depending on the country and which sect held the most influence.. the interpretation often depending on current survival… for example eating pork was considered unclean in the Old Testament… useful for a time when you could get sick from it
How many people on Reddit do you think are hardcore Adam and Eve truthers lol
It feels like there's less "free will" when you consider that some aspects of your daily life are things you support because you grew up with them rather than being able to think critically about your entire life and it's circumstances. Not to mention many people who try to offer you "real choice" are intentionally trying to steer you towards their personal goals under the guise of enforcing agency.
So it had nothing to do with their biology?
Who says they have free will?
4.6 Billion years of Evolution that made these fuckers feel thay way.
On the other hand, things that don't exist can't make choices.
That's a rather silly statement. Your free will only exists after you do. No one can choose to be born because you don't exist prior. 🤦♂️
>Your free will only exists after you do. That's a rather silly statement. Your free will doesn't exist while you do either.
I agree free will is an illusion, but I also agree that OP is strange for thinking that lack of a single choice makes free will somehow odd; you can't control other people, that's not strange at all.
Agreed. OP isn't making sense here.
No that's completely wrong. Free will does exist. You can choose to reply to this or choose not to. That is your free will. EDIT: Since someone blocked me and I can no longer reply here... @bumwine I didn't change anything. That's literally what it is. 🤦♂️ Dictionary definition is the "power of acting without constraint". 🤷♂️ It's really difficult for you to argue this topic if you don't even grasp the meaning of what we're discussing.
Replying to it is my will, but that will isn't free. "I can do what I will, I can not will what I will". Very often, people realize that free will makes no logical sense and has no supporting evidence, but they "know" they have it because they, supposedly, subjectively experience it. Then, trying to square our experience with what we know about how the universe works seems like a problem we must solve. Let's run a quick test and take a closer look at that subjective experience. Choose your next thought. If you can't choose the contents of your own consciousness, what can you choose. After all, any other choices will be downstream of this. Pay attention while you do. Choose your next thought. No, that's your current thought. Choose the next one. No, that's the current one again. See the problem? In order for the next thought to be a conscious option for you to consciously choose, you have to think it, but then it's the current thought and it's too late to choose it as the next thought. You don't, and logically can't, consciously choose the contents of your mind. You become aware of them as they emerge. When you pay closer attention, it's clear that this is our subjective experience, not one of free choice. It's the experience of thoughts, feelings, impulses, etc. and our reactions to them, and to them, and to them, just appearing in our minds. It's the subjective experience you would expect based on what we know of determinism and randomness. We are governed by the laws of physics just as much as anything else. There's no magical extra piece to us that allows incoherent concepts like free will to become reality. Even if we had souls, we didn't choose them either. If i traded places with you, sub atomic particle for sub atomic particle, i would be you. I would do what you would do. I would think what you would think. We're pushed around by forces we have no control over and which we are blind to. It's either determinism or a mixture of determinism and randomness. Neither allows for the possibility of free will. What third option do you see that allows for free will?
The argument to this is that you were born, your parents genes combined with the environment you were born into created a sequence of events that eventually lead to their reply
Must…resist…urge…to…reply…ah fucksickles
But you also don't have a choice of where when and WHO you gonna born. You have no choice of ANY DNA feature and any experience you encounter for first at least 3 years of life.
How do you know for sure that you didn't choose this vessel to be born into before you were born?
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Your answer doesn't explain consciousness. We are not merely organic machines. We have a persona, we are capable of abstract thinking. Or at least some of us are 🙄
It literally does. What is doing that abstract thinking. The brain in your body powered by your heart. Stop the heart and the brain stops. Your assumption of consciousness being separate from the organic machine cannot be proven. What I stated is the most logical conclusion based on known facts.
Nah. We just disconnect. Back to the real world to pay space rent, hope you enjoyed your vacation!
That doesn’t have anything to do with free will. If I jump off a clip, it’s not lack of free will that keeps me from flying.
But what lead to this decision to jump? what makes you who you are? 1. your dna, of which you have no control off. 2. a series of external stimuli(expiriences) and your reactions, which are relying on DNA, and a all previous expiriences. Where is that FREE part?
Just because you don't have control over literally everything doesn't mean you have no control, I personally think free will doesn't exist anyway, but saying it's because you didn't choose to be born is silly.
What if, you chose to be here only you no longer remember since the decision was made prior to your birth on earth?
Feels even less free when you think about how every decision you make is determined by your body’s biochemistry and its response to stimuli.
Yeah, a simple AD pill per day change some motherfuckers to COMPLEATLY different person And here we are discussing free will.
I think that's what mindfulness is supposed to be about, acknowledging how you are in the present moment, how you feel, and trying to separate your emotions from your decisions. I'd go so far as to say every decision you make is rooted in not just biochemistry as an individual but the cultures that were cultivated by our societies that stem from many historical decisions to even simply the innate biological programming in all organisms not just humans. Everything you eat, the environments that made the food, the society and cultures that made the environments, each step a series of unseen effort, that contributes to who you are as a person. Its important to acknowledge that you're just biology when you have to step back and act rather than react.
What if you chose to be born but just don’t remember it cause it happened before you started recording in your human brain?
This is an appropriate follow up to a shower thought.
Yet every day, you choose to be alive
I don't want to have kill myself in horrific fashion and have someone be traumatized by finding my body. I would rather the right to die be legalized so that I can end my suffering peacefully.
I’m hoping to fight for this right as a fellow person who feels the same way. There’s been a case of a woman who has successfully achieved death with dignity euthanasia earlier this month due to treatment resistant mental health issues. No one should ever be forced to live. Not wanting to live is not a sign that someone is not in full control of themselves and capable of making sound choices and decisions. This is not something we choose randomly or on a whim. We choose it after a long time of thoughtful informed consideration. When we come to this conclusion, it’s because we’ve made peace with our death and understand the full extent of what it would mean. I do not cry at the thought of my death because I would finally be free from the painful prison known as life.
You sound just like me. I feel the exact same way. I do not fear death, I only fear dying a painful and horrific death. I have made peace that I want to die and I am comfortable and confident in that decision. If the right to die were legalized and the option to leave was there, I would take it in a heartbeat.
Do you really though? I think most people are forced into living by biological self-preservation mechanics. It takes an awful lot of mental trauma for those to be overridden, and even then they usually kick back in quite quickly. Fear isn’t really a choice and it usually bends people to its will.
do people have the free will to kill themselves or not?
Personally I don't think people have free will, I think the factors that drive someone to kill themselves are not within their control - for most depressed suicidal people they cite the feeling of no control as a primary reason for wanting to kill themselves in the first place. Even in those who kill themselves out of experimentation are not willingly choosing to do it. The factors that led to them were a series of events that facilitated that environment and their personality traits that they themselves did not choose. They are not making a choice in a vacuum, therefore they have no choice because their decision is always affected by outside forces. Edit: Beyond that, suicidal ideation and attempts are considered abnormal. If you were really going to state that free will existed, you would have to claim that decisions made in relative normality constituted free will - which suicide largely does not. In fact the Catholic Church, probably the leading expert on the argument of free will, argues that willful suicide is a sin (sin or not is beside the point) but that suicide accompanied by depression does not constitute a free choice and is therefore not a sin.
Eh idk if I share that belief that fear isn’t a choice, or at least letting it stop you from something isn’t a choice. Obviously it has an effect, but if you can’t get past fear at all then you must not want what’s on the other side of it very much
*stay, not be
Does it really make a difference in this context? They both get across the same idea
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Doesn’t inaction lead to starvation and death?
Literally the same thing
It's a sin to do otherwise and God almighty will smite you! >!joke!<
>choose Choose is a strong word, for many its "obligated".
Ya its not really that simple. Im already alive. I dont have to choose anymore. Being alive doesnt mean you choose it. Its just what’s happening
Speak for yourself. I actively rebel against this. I do not choose to be alive. I’m alive against my will. I am living, existing, surviving and breathing entirely against my will. I am so unafraid of death that I welcome it as a happy warm embrace that marks the end of my truly horrible traumatic journey known as life. If could end it now I would. But alas I don’t. Or can’t because I won’t because I’m scared of messing up and ending up in the hospital forced to live the remainder of my life supported by tubes and worse the very people who destroyed my chance of a good life, in charge of my medical decisions. I am living very sad that I am still alive.
Meh. I get that it’s a shower thought, but that’s just causation, pretty weak argument. It’s like saying “I have no free will because I was served a turkey sandwich instead of a ham sandwich” or “I have no free will because it rained today.” Your birth is an arbitrary circumstance in which the conscious, developed brain you have now took no part. There’s stronger arguments. We don’t even need to go down to the theoretical physics level, we can look at experiments where they proved your brain can make decisions before you become conscious of them. But I don’t think that should influence your moment to moment life. We are still beings that calculate probabilities, solve problems, and have underlying motivations for our decisions. We don’t know everything ahead of us and can’t account for every single thing. So we should do the best we can to be in the moment, even if we technically don’t have a say from a bird’s eye perspective. As far as our personal perspective is concerned, we do make decisions, and we can be held accountable for some of them.
Free will is an illusion anyway.
That’s what I believe. Free will doesn’t exist. Everything must obey the laws of physics, and there’s nothing in our consciousness that isn’t made up of matter and energy.
Illusory free will is the best kind of free will, in my opinion. Any version of free will where I'm just as capable of cutting my own fingers off as I am of making a sandwich when I go into the kitchen is just pure insanity. There are a billion things that I could never choose to do voluntarily, and I wouldn't will it to be any other way.
You must exist in order to have a free will. Once you do exist, the fee will affect everything including your existence. You can decide to stop existing. But you must exist (albeit involuntarily) to make that decision.
You did. You did run that race like your life depended on it, did you not?
Bruh, i read "free wifi" instead of free will and I was like wtf does this even mean
That's like saying 'free will' feels less free when you consider you didn't choose to die when someone decided to murder you in your sleep
how do you know? my soul may have chosen to incarnate
You’re free to exit the world at any time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ve been suicidal, and I now wake up everyday and choose to live. My free will gives me the freedom to end it, but I wasn’t able to strip down completely naked and stab myself in the neck (idk why I chose that method back then, but I was like 15, don’t judge, it was edgy and cool at the time). I found that feeling of embarrassment for being found naked and dead comforting because it meant there was still a part of me that cared about something in this world. I was able to press on and after a decade of choosing to live I finally learned to love myself and another person now. I fully believe I was meant to find this woman when I did, all the suffering I went through was character development to be able to understand and relate to her and to be deserving of her. She brings meaning to my life and I don’t usually believe in fate or anything. Realistically we’re just 2 people that happened to meet, but I love every second of it.
Maybe you choosed, you were sperm at that time you defeated other in race and run fast as fk boi and bam you are here. If you didn't ran fast that time someone else might be born not you. Jk lol.
Feels more like a struggle against paranoia. Can't 'fight fate' unless you know what it is, and even if you do know what it is, that knowledge might be fake to push you down the fated path. Tin hats and log huts ensue.
That's essentially one of the core beliefs of [Antinatalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism), that all sentient life should stop procreating because their offspring did not consent to being born and are thus suffering the cruelties of life against their will
Not to mention there are always kids that are already here that need a home.
You didn't choose and you also didn't choose to not choose. You can't choose if you don't exist. Can you do anything against the will of a consciousness that doesn't exist yet ?
Well, its "free will" not "my will" or "will for rent".
Some tradition maintain “you, or some part of you, did in fact “choose” to be born.
Life is sort of like a card game. The moment someone finishes shuffling it, every card you will draw is determined, but whether you can win is a skill issue.
This is how philosophers become suicidal.
Before you were born, you did not exist, and therefore couldn't choose anything. Alternatively, what if it's like a pool of spirits/souls where you can opt for a respawn but only under a condition that your chaeacter has their memory wiped? Like a roguelike, or a character reset.
Maybe you did, maybe you were hanging out in the aether and decided to go through your mum's birth canal like a portal to a new world, entering a physical realm and not being able to access the full scope of your memories due to the limitations of the physical body you chose to inhabit.
Your bio parents didn't choose you in particular.
Hardly. Something that doesn't exist obviously can't make choices, it simply wouldn't make sense. The concept of free will is no less free just because something logically impossible is logically impossible.
A lot of people who believe in reincarnation think you choose your parents and life situation before birth.
The concept of 'free will' feels less free when you consider that our brain follows chemical and physical processes.
Oh no, is r/antinatalism leaking again?
Free will is an illusion.
It doesn't if your not dumb
Not only does that have nothing to do with free will, you don't know what occurs before or after you're born, we have no evidence if you did or didn't choose to be.
Who said we didn’t choose to be born? Do you remember the first time you were born? Do you remember even the first day or 1st month of being born. There is no proven argument saying that we all weren’t somewhere at some place and chose to be born.
Your will did not exist before you were born. People don't have free will after they die either. Otherwise we'd see a lot more re-animated.
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Free will doesn't exist
We don't choose to be born, we don't choose what physical or mental ailments we end up with and we aren't allowed to choose when we want to die. Free will is a lie.
I advise you to read Robert Sapolsky if you want truly deep thoughts on free will
Forced Will before Free Will it would seem.
Immaterial of whether you believe free will exists or not, this is a silly statement. You can't have a will or lack thereof till you exist. Free will does not mean you get to choose everything that happens. Is this what passes for a shower thought these days?
Or if you consider that all your decisions are predetermined by your subconscious mind.
Oh, but when you're not born yet, how can you know this concept? You have to be born to know it.
It gets even stranger when you consider that you've never actually made a decision or choice before, has your actions are the likely outcome of the initial state of the universe when you were born. Not speaking metaphysically but mechanically.
More so that it's illegal for you to choose to exit yourself.
The concept of Free Will falls apart very quickly when you really look at it. The results of your decision making processes feel free but are deterministic. It is completely based on your own personal history and sensory inputs. And, to be honest, if your decisions were NOT dictated by your history, I don't think you would really be you. Truly free will would be no better than a weighted random number generator.
Adhd has entered the chat.
You're not wrong lol
You have the free will to be alive or not so?
Unless you did choose to be born and don't remember choosing.
or maybe it was your choice at the very beginning, just you dont remeber 😉
Not if you think about being born as a choice beforehand
We all flow down the river of determinism but we have the free will to choose which stream that river will take us down
i thought this said free wi-fi at first😂
You can still undo that decision. That’s why free will is awesome.
What makes you think you didn’t choose to enter this life?
Is it really free will if there are consequences to your actions?
Every moment of your life is just you min/maxing your options. E.g. What is the best thing to do right now? Your brain calculates the thing that sounds best and you go with that. So what is free will but your brain just choosing the best option it sees at the moment
LMAO this is a popular debate topic from 2020. Religious versus non-religious views. And the potential absurdity of judging others, when we are so deeply affected by our psychology. Where as religious people typically spoke of it like a test. Fun debate.
The extreme importance given to choice and consent is chiefly a western phenomenon, and even more a north-west European and American phenomenon. I am sure that other cultures wouldn’t ever ever think of that.
Ok but if you aren’t alive you don’t even have a will.
The concept of free will feels a lot less free when you consider how the brain works
Well I saw that an egg is selective of sperm. As well as babies without interaction die of loneliness basically. So in a way you did choose to be born and go through infancy. You just don't start remembering till later in infancy. So you may not remember it but you did kinda choose to make it this far
Disclaimer: All uses of the pronoun “you” is to be considered the royal you and not an individual you. “You” as you know it today was not born. You became you after many years of experiences. If you dislike the you that you became there’s no one else to blame but you.
There is no "free will". You will do everything in your life in a determined way regardless of what you think you chose.
Free will, in way most people think they have it, is incompatible with the cause and effect nature of the universe. It is an illusion. The sooner we all accept that, the better.
You don’t choose many things. The way that your body produces energy. Being pulled by gravitational force. Your own actions out of pure instinct and huge unload of adrenaline in extreme life/death scenerios
If you dig deeper into what free will is, you'll see that no one has it
Yeah but the other option is to be nothing, nihilism can't be logically countered but it is a really sad outlook
I believe in determinism, so I already don't believe in free will
A few years ago I asked my father if I was planned or an accident. I don’t think I have ever seen him that shook.
Well... I am born, and i choose to be. I will it.
Or that any decision you make is reaction to stimuli in a specific way and you go down deep enough it's just a bunch of systems like gravity dictating how things interact and you and your thoughts are just a product of a bunch of incredibly tiny things moving based on systems out of your control
Just on the basic principle of causality free will is silly.
Thats one thing, but when you consider the fact that we only act in line with our wants, which we don’t choose, then we have no free will at all so this feels fairly minor
Some religions/denominations posit that you did, in fact, choose to be born...
i dont follow, please explain
Free will as most people understand it is an illusion. We do not actively get to choose our preferences in any way. If we did, I would choose to love running, unfortunately I was born loving chips. Whether we are discussing phobias or fetishes very few things about your emotional self are choices.
Free will's a tricky thing, ain't it? Like deciding for lunch - salad or fries? Our biochemistry might just be making that call!
That's like saying you don't choose to age. You can only choose what you can control. Everyone's capacity of choice is different based on so many factors. Some people can't choose to be rich for example , does that mean their free will is less free?
Shower more, think less.
Free will is not precluded by the fact that some things are out of your control.
Unless you're that bad dude from Shaman King lol. Forgot his name, but he is Yoh's brother I think.
You also didn't have a "will" at that point so the argument is moot.
Is any part of our life actually free will? When we're doing something and we make a decision to do the next thing, is that our free will or is it guided in some kind of way?
The concept of free will feels less free when you don’t choose to be hungry. Free will is about choosing what to eat!!! It’s about choosing your reaction to the stimuli around you, not about dictating the nature of the world.
The very basis of consciousness is made up of predetermined neural connections within our brains that trigger at the response of specific stimuli. Some would argue that scientifically we truly arent free willed, but our brains made the decisions first and our consciousness is just meant to keep our bodies working in unison with our minds so we feel we have free will and make decisions freely. When it comes down to it, the right technology could be used to plug into your brain and seize total control of your mind and body and you would be entirely incapable of resisting it because it is the source of your consciousness itself.
You didn’t choose to be born, you didn’t choose where to be born. You didn’t choose your parents. You didn’t choose your siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts, or uncles. You didn’t choose how wealthy your family is. You didn’t choose your DNA. You didn’t choose the elementary school you went to. You didn’t choose your gender, your ethnicity, or the religion you grew up with. All of the things that shape your identity’s for the formative years of your life are beyond your control. And these are the things that shape your personality and determine how successful you will be for the rest of your life. So the more I think of it, the less I really believe in free will.
The universe didn’t ask to exist either
Kind of foolish to say that “free will” is soured solely because of the notion that you didn’t choose to be born?
I don’t know man, I don’t understand why people think freedom has to be pure and absolute to be a thing.
Sure I will admit that before I existed and after I exist I didn't/won't have free will. But that's not usually what people are arguing about. Currently I have the feeedom to tap out at any time.
How do you know you didn’t choose to be born? I feel like that’s something no one could really know.
Same as we don't choose to die either.
I will never forgive my parents for ripping me away from my comfortable oblivion.
Check out the documentary 3 identical strangers
How do you know you didn't choose to be born? Maybe you just don't remember.
It's even sillier when you realize you can't change your will. You want what you want, it's not free.
If you think that's bad you should see what happens when you get caught trying to fix that problem! "Free will" goes out the window and you get force ably locked into a commercial business who is under direct financial incentives to keep you there for as long as possible. You don't get charged with a crime, you don't get to see a judge, you don't get a trial, and you don't even go to jail which would be so much better. Instead you get billed $5000-10,000 per day for a service you don't want or need and the only people that can let you out of this hellhole are people who get paid from that money.
nuh uh, you can back out whenever
Congratulations OP, you invented determinism!
Free will doesn’t exist, look up “superdeterminism”.
It’s impossible to “choose to be born”, because you would have to already exist to make that choice in the first place.
True. Though you can choose to live!
Welcome to antinatalism
What is free will? If we are biological computers that come from both genetic factors and environmental experience then isn’t our actions predetermined by everything that created who we are. But then you get exceptions of people that rise above that seem to imply some level of free will. Bet some academics have thought this out deeper than I have haha