This is the equivalent of the “How many angels could dance on the head of a pin?” debate that our predecessors took seriously hundreds of years ago (The SDMB was a controversial place in 1438 with many notable members getting banned left and right for heresy and we don’t want to repeat that especially with the burning at the stake and all). Their mistake, just like this one, is that they didn’t acknowledge that their whole premise was built on really incomplete knowledge just like this one is.
Well, we don’t have the angels, but we do have the pin.
Science can address some of the questions involved – and, in fact, has given us some wonderful insights on volition, decision-making, risk-assessment, cost-benefit estimation, and other things that we do.
Rather poorly, alas!
We may not live to see it, but I think human civilization will, in the next couple centuries, make some real breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence, and that will give us another real scientific tool to use to analyze cognition and volition.
(And I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords…)
If I’m A, and was single, and you asked me if I would have sex with B, B’s sex has a significant influence, B male - no. Be female, maybe. Is that decision totally free?
And even if B is female, my interest would be significantly affected by my built-in proclivities. Think about who you find attractive. Did you sit down one day and decide blondes or red heads are hot?
Can you predict the actions of someone without free will? If not, there is no practical difference.
We can’t make a choice without first of all wanting it, and we can’t want anything without knowing about it through experience. I choose to eat ice cream instead of dirt because my experience informs me that it will taste better. A baby doesn’t have enough information to want one over the other, and is just as liable to eat dirt as ice cream. Does that mean it has more free will than I do?
I’ve been programmed, so to speak, to choose ice cream. That could mean that I don’t have any say in the matter, and therefore, no free will. On the other hand, I make the choice I want, therefore I have free will. That’s where I’m stuck and can’t figure out if one or both or neither are true. I have a vague feeling that all can be true depending on some kind of perspective but that’s as far as I get before my head hurts.
Why do you like ice cream more than dirt? Your taste buds have been genetically programmed to give a better response. I can’t stand some foods that others love, and love some food that others hate. That’s not a choice, that is programming.
I say it’s spinach, and I say I love it.
I agree, but I couldn’t know I was genetically predisposed to hate spinach till I tried it. Until then, I couldn’t choose between it and ice cream.
Once I found I didn’t like spinach, I was able to make a choice. We choose what we want, regardless of how or why we want it. Is that not free will of some kind? Or is that the illusion? (my head’s still spinning from thinking about it for too long, but I still have this vague notion that there’s more than one legitimate definition of free will)
Huh? Do you want to clarify, like anything you just said?