Im hoping to get a little help in this thread.
I want an easy way to explain why free will is an illusion. For people that dont agree/understand this please do not post in this, as i do not want this to be a debated in this thread.
My dilemma is, whenever i try to explain to someone that we are able to make different choices, but this is governered by the brain we have, through genetics, and what is learned by circumstance. i get replies such as “But i can choose to be bad or good, its up to me!” - therefore illustrating they have missed the point entirely. I try and combat this buy saying things such as “Yes, i am aware we are able to make different choices, but ultimately the final choice must be made by the means you have to make the choice, i.e your brain, which will make different choices base on its chemical balances, neural pathways etc, which is why people have different personalities” or something to that effect… which i realise is not very clear and causes more confusion.
The ultimate point that i am trying to illustrate when talking to someone about this is:
In the chrisitian religion, people beleive we are created by god, we sinned and therefore are dammed, unless we accept jesus as our saviour. However if you understand why we do not have free will, we operate only by the means which we can. Then it would be god who is responsible for creating as with a brain/soul which was capable and even willing to sin. Which obviously leads to the conclusion that god is an unfair sadist, or the whole theory of god is flawed.
If someone has an easy way to explain this concept please share
For one thing, you don’t post in Great Debates and ask people not to debate you.
That being said, I think you’re trying to explain a way of looking at a very complicated and indocrinated thing- religion- to people that may never have thought about it in any way but Christian. If you are having problems communicating your ideas and presenting them in a way that provokes thought instead of defense, you have very little chance of ever convincing any of these people.
Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations With God series talks alot about free will and why Christianity is such a farce with the contradiction that you have absolute free will yet if you don’t believe you’ll burn in hell. Maybe you could check out those books and then you’ll be able to communicate your thoughts more effectively.
I realise posting in Debates and asking for no debate seems ridiculous. I thought it was the logical place on the forum however, given the topic
Usually this type of discussion is brought up in a supposedly open minded religious debate, and i run into trouble trying to convey the concept, and always get reply like “i chose to were a red shirt this morning over a blue, that shows i have free will”, illustrating the person does not understand what i am saying. So as you suggested a book is probably a good place to start. Any more suggestions on books that explain why the concept of judging on free will is flawed?
No offense, but isn’t this a contradiction? There is no “easy way to explain why free will is an illusion”, as evidenced by the fact that the topic has been debated throughout the ages.
I mean, it’s fine that you want an easy explanation, but the truth is there is no such explanation.
I understand peoples viewpoints will always be different, which means explaining a factual certainty of free will near impossible, as you state. That does not mean that there is no easy way to explain a particular veiwpoint however. What i am looking for is an articulate and eloquent way of explaning the viewpoint that we do not have free will. We are able to make different choices, but ultimately that choice is decided by the means we have to make the choice. i.e our brains.
Ah, I see what you’re looking for now: A clear, persuasive (relatively, anyway) argument that free will is an illusion (rather than a proof). I’m not sure that I can help you there (beyond what you’ve already mentioned in your OP), but perhaps someone here can.
I don’t see what your argument is, exactly. Are you arguing for hard determinism, where we don’t have free will because all events are determined totally from prior events? Or are you arguing that, because we have inherently limited cognitive abilities, we must not have free will? If the former, there are many writing that can help you. Maybe start from here and look around. Then, once you’ve gotten that argument, you’ll have to get into the issue of whether determinism and free will are really incompatible. And to do that, you have to provide an acceptable definition of free will. Really, there’s no end to the fun of discussing free will.
If you’re in a religious discussion, I believe the anti-free-will side generally takes the form of:
“If God is omniscient, then he must know what we will do even before we do it. If this is true, then there is only one possible outcome of everything, therefore we do not have free will.”
On the other hand, if you don’t believe in God, you’re back to deterministic science (which, in the end, may not help you very much).
Actually, not all Christians believe in free will. There is a doctrine called predestination. If I recall correctly, this was one of many disagreements that were responsible for the schisms during the Reformation. I am not really familiar with all the intricate points of doctrine.
IANA historian — so I could be wrong — but I think the original debate was religious: free will vs. predestination. People began speaking about determinism only after the Scientific Revolution.
Personally, I do not really think free will and determinism are incompaticable. I think the whole debate is largely semantic: it all depends on how you define “you” and “choice”.
Right here is where my problem lies, i am not able to describe well enough my thoughts. that is why im hoping someone might get the Jist of what i am saying and help me to put it into words better.
I will try:
Firstly, what will make people make different choices?
Lets say we have person a, and person b.
Person a does something good, person b does something bad.
The logical choice is they have different personalities that cause them to make different choices. Which is another way of saying, their brains operate differently and come to different conclusions, which a and b act on.
knowing this you cannot judge people by their actions, because neither a or b created themselves, a christian would say god created them, and gave them their different brains. Which ultimately lead to person b chosing to do bad, therefore going to hell… is this not then gods fault given that he created his brain which was responsible for how he acted? B only acted how he could, a only acted how he could, but by luck of the draw he was given a brain that would make good decisions.
Seems like a simple concept, yet invariable people say things to the effect of “b could have chosen to do good, but he chose bad” missing the point entirely, that b acted how he was able to act, his brain determined his descicisions as it knew how, and came to the conclusions that it then acted on. if his brain was constructed defferently, or had been through different circumstances, it would have chosen different descisions. both of which are beyond the control of someone being born into this planet. Therefore anyone stating “i know the devine being that creates everthing and then judges them”, is indirectly stating that the devine being created b, and his brain which caused him to act the way he did and them threw him into hell. To me this seems unfair.
A few people have said “yes, but it is your soul, not your brain”. but if you have a soul which is neutral, then why do people make different descisions? there must be differences in soul which cause people to make different descisions too? Not to mention the fact that if you intoxicate someone, or if someone has a chemical imbalance in their brain they act differently and make different decsicions to when they are sober or on medication - unless you can make a soul get drunk or have a lack or seretonin, this to me is pretty good proof we operate off our brains.
Anyway, along those lines is my theory of how free will works. So if you are able to tell me if that fits into the two categories you described above i will be very grateful
i am totally with you on your position of free will. i too have a hard time explaining it. i cannot be eloquent for you, but I am good at picking out the bottom line
were are living in a world of matter, matter interacting in a chain of cause and effect. we have mapped out much of it as “the laws of physics”
everything material is governed by cause and effect
everything that makes up our body and brain is material
our brains are not outside the cause and effect chain that is physics, the decisions our brain makes are determined by cause and effect
Basically what you’re saying is:
[ol][li]God created us the way we are.[/li][li]God is also omniscient, so he knew exactly what would happen to us and how we would act when he created us.[/li][li]Therefore, God chose all our actions in advance–we are simply actors acting out a great play.[/li][li]Therefore, the ideas of divine punishment and reward are inherently wrong[/ol][/li]The whole idea seems pretty simple to me. I don’t think people misunderstand you so much as they disagree with your premise. Or perhaps the idea of free will is so ingrained that they believe it can’t be challenged. At any rate, as Cabbage pointed out, this issue has been debated for centuries. It’s unlikely that any perfect argument can be designed for any side of the issue.
If free will is an illusion, then you shouldn’t get upset if someone cuts you off in traffic. Or steals your radio. Or decides to fly a passenger jet into a prominent New York skyscraper. After all, if that person has no free will, then he or she had absolutely no choice but to engage in those actions.
Therein lies one of the problems with denying the existence of human volition. You cannot claim that there is no free will, yet simultaneously cast blame on people for choosing to act in an evil way. At least, not if one wishes to adopt a consistent worldview.
Thats not at all what i am trying to describe. the concept in which i am trying to decsribe, it would not matter whether or not god was omniscient and knew the future. And as i said before, i am not trying to prove the point, I am just hoping someone who gets the idea of what i am saying knows of a book in which this is described easily. Like a kind of “why there is no free will, for dummies” or has a clear way of stating the concept.
true things are not made true by my simple awareness of them. i am sure there are many facts that no human mind is aware of
my conciousness is just an extention, an image, or even a shorthand summary if you will, of the complicated goings on (synapes releasing chemicals, nuerons firing, etc.) in my brain. it really has no significance in and of itself
Agreed, the person who cut you off acted how they were able to given the hardware they have. The ultimate decsicion they made to cut you off was made by their brain, others would have made a different descision. The person is not really responsible for their descision, because they did not create their means to make the descision.
However.
The reason people must still be held accountable is for deterance. Society must say “you made this decision” and you shall be held accountable, for the benefit of others, and also to deter others by example. The reason why the descision was made is not a factor.
Therefore accountability must be held in a mortal scale.
But when you get into immortality and it is supposedly the being who created the person, and gave them the means that made them make the decisions they made. It would not be fair to condemn that person.
one thing i would say is that if there is a system of laws that punish criminal activity, then the possiblity of punishment x for crime a will be part of the circumstational informtaion flowing through potential criminal’s brain
Nonsense. Even when deterrence is impossible or repugnant, we still consider various acts to be morally wrong. Harboring hatred thoughts toward Jews or homosexuals is widely considered to be reprehensible, for example, even when those thoughts are kept to oneself.
Deterrence alone is woefully inadequate for determining why we get righteously upset at people for the actions that they perform. Indeed, while the need for deterrence may help determine WHICH actions we choose to condemn, it does not justify getting angry at the perpetrator of those acts. After all, if that person has no free will – no ability to make moral choices whatsoever – then only a moron would choose to cast moral blame on that individual.
Think about that, the next time you are tempted to blame someone for blowing up a building or hijacking a 747.
