I feel as if the answer to this is, by general consensus, yes. You have free will.
Like, does Evil exist? Scientifically? No, absolutely not, but the word still has meaning. If I say, “that man is evil!” And you look at him and recognize his terribleness, then, sure: he is IS evil.
Just because something isn’t objectively, physically quantifiable, doesn’t mean that it’s not a valid rational construct.
I think the actual argument which has been making the rounds recently, is not, “do humans have free will?” But, Rather is, “are humans accountable for their actions, given that thier will is significantly biased by factors outside of their control / awareness?”
It’s just that doesn’t get people’s attention.
Ps, I believe that fundamentally, all physical interactions are deterministic in practice. Any conscious or rational being is fundamentally set in motion with the arrow of time, and if you could develop a fuzzy quantum state based intelligence, you’d only succeed in creating a person with slightly more random ideas. There would be no meaningful uplift in “free will.” However, I also Believe that this is an absurd deconstruction of heady topics. It’s akin to telling someone that a table doesn’t exist because it’s just a decomposing tree. Free will is a rational idea for human animals, and judged by that standard, fulfills it’s purpose in describing the experience of conscious decision making.
Knusper@feddit.de 1 year ago
In my opinion, the concept of Free Will makes no sense. It makes no sense to make a decision which is not based on the things happening around us, inside of us, in the past of us or in the genes of us.
The only way to make a decision that’s not fully based on these inputs, is to make a decision involving randomness. And randomness is not actually a willful decision.
Masimatutu@mander.xyz 1 year ago
It really is a question of definition. When you define it like most people think of it, that there was an alternate possibility in which they had not made the decision, then yes, the concept doesn’t make sense. But a more useful definition might just be the ability to act according to one’s own desires, a common stance held by many compatibilists, which corresponds quite closely to what people are actually referring to when they speak of “free will”.
Knusper@feddit.de 1 year ago
But “desires” derive from the things happening around us, inside of us, in the past of us or in the genes of us.
It’s just shoving an additional layer into the argumentation, thinking it somehow doesn’t need to be explored, which is a logical fallacy.
FlowVoid@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I don’t think it’s that simple. Decisions can be based on more than one factor. Nobody doubts that the things around you affect your decision, the question is whether they fully determine your decision.
And when someone asks “What do you want to eat tonight?”, intuitively it doesn’t seem that your answer is fully determined at the moment the question is asked - otherwise why would it take so long to reach the answer? Nor is it random, because asking it again wouldn’t produce a different answer.
Which is not to say that free will definitely does or does not exist. But you’ve described all decisions as necessarily predetermined or random, and that is a false dichotomy. The third possibility is none of the above, which implies free will.
Knusper@feddit.de 1 year ago
I can definitely see why one might read my comment as presenting a dichotomy, which is why I was actually very careful to not do that in my formulation.
Well, except that I am talking about true randomness (which I doubt exists, but we haven’t proven that on the quantum level). The more colloquial definitions of randomness, I count towards badly understood inputs or just a lack of inputs.
Thing is, if we add true randomness to an input-based decision, it stops being predetermined, but there’s still a logically conclusive choice you’re going to make, based on the incomplete inputs you have. You cannot ‘freely’ decide to not pick that choice, because you have literally no reason not to pick it.
Even if you think, you’re going to pick the ‘illogical’ choice for a change, that is still part of your inputs. It’s likely even baked into our genes, because what appears logical is often not actually the best choice and those who successfully experimented, ultimately survived+procreated.
Dkarma@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah it needs to be better defined. You do have free will but that doesn’t mean it’s not subject to the limitations of the system in which u exist.
U can’t decide to jump off the planet cuz gravity will pull u back down but that doesn’t mean u don’t have free will.
In my mind if you didn’t have free will you wouldn’t have any control over your body at all.
If you can move within the system unfettered to any extent then you have free will. Any reduction in movement is considered entropy within that system.