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Free Will Makes No Sense

Silly Druid

Entry posted by Silly Druid in Philosophy

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So, for some people (I think I'm using 'some people' too much in this blog) free will is a very important thing. They feel that if everything is deterministic, then it's already decided what they are going to do, so they can't decide it themselves. It's like something is forcing them to do things, and they don't have a will of their own. So determinism is a bad thing, and free will should exist to make the human existence meaningful.

This is wrong.

We are a part of the universe, and the laws of physics affect us the same way they affect everything else. And if we ask why something happened, there are only two options: either it depends on something else (so it's deterministic) or it doesn't (so it's random). When we make a decision, we can take many things into account, but in any case, it depends on something, so it's deterministic. There can be also a small random factor due to quantum processes in our brains, but even if decision making is completely deterministic, and everything that happens in the future is already decided (more about that next week), then it's still our decision, and no one forces us to do anything. So the entire concept of free will is pointless, it's one of these things that make sense when you don't think about them, but when you do, it doesn't.

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North Star

Most pointed of your blogs so far!
 

You are able to select between so many things as an intelligent conscious being... it's almost as if you are free, sometimes. 

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Splashee

Choose what you want to do, as you are free to do almost everything, but most of your choices must be biological for survival: Eating, sleeping, fighting, arguing, crying, falling in love, and then... You finally have free will to watch YouTube advertising! :yay:

Nice entry @PawelS :fluttershy:

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Props Valroa

We like to believe we are free however our bodies have engrained genetic codes that give us certain traits. A template from which our personalities and lives are crafted. You are free to act within those parameters, and of the sum of all experiences you have. The way that I see it as, that is much like a guiding hand. If the future is something that is going to happen it will already happen the way it will based on the sum of all interactions. 
 

I do not consider it pointless though because we are all free to act how we choose and we all can be who we want to be (within limits). 

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Evil Pink One
13 minutes ago, Starforce said:

We like to believe we are free however our bodies have engrained genetic codes that give us certain traits. A template from which our personalities and lives are crafted. You are free to act within those parameters, and of the sum of all experiences you have. The way that I see it as, that is much like a guiding hand. If the future is something that is going to happen it will already happen the way it will based on the sum of all interactions. 
 

I do not consider it pointless though because we are all free to act how we choose and we all can be who we want to be (within limits). 

Some actually break those limits...

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