# Free will -- How and when do you make your first choice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 29, 2016, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244 "2016-09-29T22:23:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lucid-nonsense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/2acd7d/32.png) [@lucid-nonsense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucid-nonsense)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/1 "2016-09-29T22:23:05Z")
So, I’ve got a question concerning free will. It’s pretty simple: How and when do you make your first choice out of free will? Are you born with free will? If so, does in appear in utero or at conception? Both seem impossible. That would mean fetuses have free will before they even have a nervous system. Is it at the precise moment of birth? What’s special about going through a birth canal that would give you free will? Besides, newborns aren’t sapient, how could they have free will? Some animals are smarter than newborns, do they have free will too? So, then, do you develop it as you grow older? When exactly? How do you go from not having free will to having it? What causes that change? Is it gradual or sudden? That’s the crux of the question here: how do you make your _very first_ choice with free will? There has to be one. For free will to mean anything, there has to be a first situation where, without free will, a person would have done A, but, with free will, they will do B. How would that work? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/2 "2016-09-29T22:40:13Z")
There’s a middle ground between free will and determinism, though. Animals routinely make survival decisions with little hesitation and certainly no conscious reflection as we would define it - it turns out we do the same, forming a decision long before we find ourselves mentally talking to ourselves, saying “Yeah, choosing Option B is the smart thing for me to do.” If we _didn’t_ operate that way, we’d have likely gone extinct long ago. If we limit the definition of “free will” to “decisions we make consciously”, then I’d be okay saying that free will is overrated. That doesn’t force me to the alternative of believing in fate, though, let alone anything supernatural. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/3 "2016-09-29T23:56:44Z")
> [@lucid-nonsense](#): > > So, I’ve got a question concerning free will. It’s pretty simple: How and when do you make your first choice out of free will? > > Are you born with free will? If so, does in appear in utero or at conception? Both seem impossible. That would mean fetuses have free will before they even have a nervous system. Is it at the precise moment of birth? What’s special about going through a birth canal that would give you free will? Besides, newborns aren’t sapient, how could they have free will? Some animals are smarter than newborns, do they have free will too? > > So, then, do you develop it as you grow older? When exactly? How do you go from not having free will to having it? What causes that change? Is it gradual or sudden? That’s the crux of the question here: how do you make your _very first_ choice with free will? There has to be one. For free will to mean anything, there has to be a first situation where, without free will, a person would have done A, but, with free will, they will do B. How would that work? Without supernatural influences like magic or divine power how does free will even exist? It’s doubtful that it does. What mechanism allows the brain to override physics? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/4 "2016-09-30T00:41:33Z")
I’d say it has to occur in very early childhood…but is not present at birth. Up until about the age of two, a baby is pretty much indistinguishable from other animals. It’s when the toddler figures out allegory, metaphor, modeling of other minds, and other feats of abstraction that real and meaningful volition begins to appear. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/5 "2016-09-30T00:52:41Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Without supernatural influences like magic or divine power how does free will even exist? It’s doubtful that it does. What mechanism allows the brain to override physics? Any sufficiently complex decision-making system is indistinguishable from free will. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/6 "2016-09-30T00:52:54Z")
At the moment the soul moves/attaches to the new person’s body it does have ultimate free will, that is at the moment of the body’s death the soul will be given the option, to come out with God back to life or descend into death. Where that point is, when the soul is firmly rooted into the new body is uncertain but very early and in-utero - I would place it at the point it ‘roots’ into the uterus. Before this the soul is still free floating unattached, though attracted to the new body, if at that time the body is destroyed it simply floats on. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/7 "2016-09-30T01:19:26Z")
There is no free will. If there was free will, I would be able to tell you what my first thought upon waking tomorrow morning will be. But for me to know this, I’d have to know what I’m going to dream about and what state it’s going to put me in. I can’t consciously know these things with any certainty. My first thought upon waking will determine the thoughts that follow. Those thoughts will then determine my mood. My mood, in turn, will affect my decision-making. The decisions I make will then affect my thoughts and my emotions. And around and around we go, until I’m laying in bed again, subjected to the incoherent messages of my subconscious mind. So no, there is no free will. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/8 "2016-09-30T02:14:31Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Any sufficiently complex decision-making system is indistinguishable from free will. > > Stranger A crazy flow chart and some dice? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/9 "2016-09-30T02:15:32Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > At the moment the soul moves/attaches to the new person’s body it does have ultimate free will, that is at the moment of the body’s death the soul will be given the option, to come out with God back to life or descend into death. Where that point is, when the soul is firmly rooted into the new body is uncertain but very early and in-utero - I would place it at the point it ‘roots’ into the uterus. Before this the soul is still free floating unattached, though attracted to the new body, if at that time the body is destroyed it simply floats on. Right. That’s an appeal to the supernatural which is one mechanism a real free will can exist. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/10 "2016-09-30T02:41:00Z")
What makes you think there’s any difference between free will and determinism? So far as I can tell, the two are synonyms, and neither one of them is in any way in conflict with physics. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/11 "2016-09-30T04:04:24Z")
OP, I think you’re talking about the development of [executive control.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_functions) You may find [this paper (PDF)](http://www.alisongopnik.com/papers_alison/Cognition2939v1.pdf) of interest. Here’s a quote from the abstract which may answer the age question for you: > [@](#): > > Across two experiments, 6-year-olds, but not 4-year-olds, endorse another person’s (Experiment 4) or their own (Experiment 5) freedom to act against stated desires. These age-related changes suggest relationships between a belief in free will and other cognitive and conceptual developments in theory of mind, self-control and self-awareness that take place in early childhood. My intuition is to say you developed free no later than when you first developed self awareness, though probably before that (you just wouldn’t remember). As for how, science doesn’t have a good description of the neurological underpinning for how the brain makes decisions yet. > [@Chronos](#): > > What makes you think there’s any difference between free will and determinism? So far as I can tell, the two are synonyms, and neither one of them is in any way in conflict with physics. The discussion greatly depends on how one defines “free will.” A majority of philosophers are [compatibilists](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/), but not all. A common objection is that compatibilists use a watered down version of free will. The standard argument against free will itself is that it’s incoherent, because: 1. If the world is determined then your will is determined and not free. 2. If the world is random then your actions are the result of random processes and can’t be attributed to your will and certainly aren’t under your control. Interestingly, exposing people to anti-free will arguments [may increase selfish behavior (PDF).](http://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/91974.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/12 "2016-09-30T05:30:29Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > There is no free will. > > If there was free will, I would be able to tell you what my first thought upon waking tomorrow morning will be. But for me to know this, I’d have to know what I’m going to dream about and what state it’s going to put me in. I can’t consciously know these things with any certainty. > > My first thought upon waking will determine the thoughts that follow. Those thoughts will then determine my mood. My mood, in turn, will affect my decision-making. The decisions I make will then affect my thoughts and my emotions. And around and around we go, until I’m laying in bed again, subjected to the incoherent messages of my subconscious mind. > > So no, there is no free will. Believing this also requires the belief no one bares responsibility. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/13 "2016-09-30T05:53:28Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What makes you think there’s any difference between free will and determinism? So far as I can tell, the two are synonyms, and neither one of them is in any way in conflict with physics. Sure they do. Doesn’t the presence of free will mean that the universe is non deterministic? Free will has to operate outside of determinism. What mechanism allows non-deterministic choice? Can you construct a circuit that is non-deterministic? If your brain and body interact according to chemical and physical law how does neuron choose to fire differently? What allows for that? Do all animals with neurons have free will? Does my phone? My phone, like a bee, is a complex object that can behave unpredictably. But does it have freedom to choose what how it acts or are it’s outputs a function of its inputs and present state? What is the threshold of neurological or AI complexity to be considered free will? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/14 "2016-09-30T07:08:43Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > There is no free will. > > If there was free will, I would be able to tell you what my first thought upon waking tomorrow morning will be. But for me to know this, I’d have to know what I’m going to dream about and what state it’s going to put me in. I can’t consciously know these things with any certainty. > > My first thought upon waking will determine the thoughts that follow. Those thoughts will then determine my mood. My mood, in turn, will affect my decision-making. The decisions I make will then affect my thoughts and my emotions. And around and around we go, until I’m laying in bed again, subjected to the incoherent messages of my subconscious mind. > > So no, there is no free will. That’s not free will, that is the inability to predict the future. Now, if you had a sufficiently powerful computer, with a complete map of your internal state and the state of the world (is your alarm going to ring?) , it might be able to forecast your first thought based on these things if there were no free will. Since that is clearly impossible to do, we seem to be in a world that looks like we have free will even if we don’t. As for predictions, chaos theory tells us we can’t with adequate accuracy. But we can’t predict the weather perfectly either, and no one says the weather has free will (though it does seem obstinate some days.) ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/15 "2016-09-30T07:22:16Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > At the moment the soul moves/attaches to the new person’s body it does have ultimate free will, that is at the moment of the body’s death the soul will be given the option, to come out with God back to life or descend into death. Where that point is, when the soul is firmly rooted into the new body is uncertain but very early and in-utero - I would place it at the point it ‘roots’ into the uterus. Before this the soul is still free floating unattached, though attracted to the new body, if at that time the body is destroyed it simply floats on. Interesting theory. Do you have any evidence for it? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/16 "2016-09-30T07:32:52Z")
I think free will is about as easy to prove as the existence of a soul. In other words, it is a concept of the imagination. Do I have choices? Certainly. But although I may believe I am choosing freely, I am still basing me decision on past experience, the present situation, and even possible future consequences. I am most likely to choose the thing that benefits me most, or I can make a conscious choice to choose the opposite, but at no time am I making a decision in a vacuum. That is worth noting: the world around me will always influence my decision, so it is never as free as it might seem. As for the soul, well it’s another interesting concept but pretty much impossible to prove in any empirical sense. If I believe in a soul, it’s because I choose to believe…is that free will again or a product of my environment? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/17 "2016-09-30T08:12:44Z")
I think the statement “There’s no such thing as free will” is meaningless and/or incoherent. I realized this when I heard a philosopher dismissing the idea that quantum indeterminancy could be a mechanism of free will because it’s just randomness and therefore not a choice. It occurred to me that his idea of free will then, was predicated on it being a reasoned choice (i.e. based on knowledge of the world, past experiences) but also for it to be free it must somehow not be a function of past events. So there’s an implicit contradiction there, and one I’ve never seen resolved adequately. The non-existence of this incoherent concept should not make us feel constrained or as though we’re living in a Fatalistic universe. Unfortunately this makes the OP not really one we can answer. There are various ways of categorizing actions and choices; it’s not obvious which one maps most cleanly to what some people think of as “free will”. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/18 "2016-09-30T11:47:05Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Believing this also requires the belief no one bares responsibility. No, it doesn’t. (Although, I don’t think this is a good argument. If it can be proven that we’re puppets on a string, then no, we don’t bear responsibility for our actions. And? Does this realization cause the world to suddenly fall on its axis or something?) We typically don’t attribute free will to children, animals, or the mentally ill. And yet we don’t see anything wrong with scolding them–punishing them, even!–for their offenses. Because we know punishment works regardless of how much “free will” a person supposedly has. If you fuss at a kid long enough, he’ll stop doing that annoying thing he’s doing…as long as his brain is amenable to stopping. I can recognize that I am more than my conscious mind. I am also my unconscious mind–my control center. It is the control center that is generating all the thoughts, feelings, and choices. If my control center fucks up and makes the wrong choice, then I’m still at fault. But it’s not my conscious mind that needs rehabilitation. It’s my faulty programming that needs debugging. Some people “debug” themselves by going to therapy or taking better care of their health or removing themselves from bad environments and triggers. They have thus taken responsibility for themselves, despite the blinders around their consciousness. ---
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/19 "2016-09-30T14:57:01Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Believing this also requires the belief no one bares responsibility. Yes, this is true. But just because it’s a hard problem and I don’t know how to deal with the dilemma that no one is truly responsible for their actions and yet we still have punishment doesn’t mean I should dismiss the facts. I didn’t have free will to write this. Or this. And the punishers don’t have free will not to punish the punishee. And the punishee doesn’t have free will to not be punished. So there is really nothing to do about it, just hope that along this ride on the rails that someone is bound to figure out a solution to the dilemma and has the ability to have it implemented. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2016, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244/20 "2016-09-30T15:11:49Z")
There’s a thread going on now in ATMB about whether “[telling someone their premise is wrong is threadshitting](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=805666).” This current thread is based upon the premise that people have free will, if I’m interpreting the OP correctly. Several posters are disputing that premise. I don’t think that’s threadshitting, but I do think it may be hijacking the thread away from its intended (by the OP) purpose, into other discussions like “ **Do** people have free will?” and “What does it even mean to have free will?” I think these are reasonable and interesting questions to discuss, but they’ve been discussed here on the SDMB before, in other threads. I’m not saying it’s wrong to discuss them here, but I am a bit disappointed that there isn’t much discussion of the OP’s original question, which assumes (at least for the sake of argument) that people do have free will, and which I thought was also a reasonable and interesting question. But, if we don’t have free will, I guess we all had no choice but to take this thread in the direction it’s gone… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/free-will-how-and-when-do-you-make-your-first-choice/767244.md?page=2)