@MrCode

Honestly, what I stated are my beliefs and did not intend malice. It actually gives me comfort. I don't believe that life is predetermined but life is a response to our environment. The only way it could be predetermined is if you could calculate the reactions of each individual to every other stimuli in existence. Humans can't even predict the weather, only make good judgments as to where it might go.

If anything, it should empower you. If you can figure out how people react, you can go anywhere. At least that's what everybody else does that's on top.

I also have many other beliefs that can or can not tie into everything having an equal and opposite reaction. Such as if a work of art is part of the painter's soul and existence, then wouldn't we equally be all apart of our creator. In essence we are god because without us, god has no meaning.

Freewill is only a small part of existence. I just don't feel it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Existing in it self is the purpose and the meaning.

In fact! If you were never born. Everybody you know now would not be the same person they are. If you cease to exist, the people that you don't know yet would not be the same people the are.

Meaning to your existence can only be determined by you. Perhaps your meaning is even in causing me to type all this. Which is actually a positive thing because I enjoy sharing my ideas. It causes me to think about what I actually believe.

@lumak, vigilandy (if he's still reading/tracking this thread)

I apologize if I seemed rude, but I do have a tendency to take the old "everything is a result of action/reaction" response as offensive.

...I wrote that out of "gut instinct", if you will, and I don't really mean it so personally. What is really meant by that is that the notion that I don't have any control over my existence (i.e. that I'm basically a super complex machine) makes me "want to scream", in that it makes me feel powerless; like I'm not "me" anymore.

I understand that social interactions (like casual conversation) are often predictable, but the kind of "free will" I'm talking about is more in abstract choice, e.g. when you're sitting in a restaurant looking at the menu, and you're making a choice as to what meal you want. So it's really more like "do we have freedom of choice", not so much "do we have free will", I guess.

It's more like, "Was it predestined that I would make that choice internally?", rather than "Was it predestined that I would perform the actions necessary to effect that decision?". Of course I know that once you've made a decision to go ahead and act on whatever thought it was that you were having at the time, you can't really take it back, but my problem is more about where the original mental motives come from...

Basically, there are a few specific things that run through my head constantly which reinforce the whole "complete and utter 'freedom' is an illusion" idea (this is an "includes, but is not limited to..." type list, BTW):

...and the "we are completely free" side:

...which of course, is nothing more than a panicked ramble. I still have a hard time deciding which side I want to listen to more. Ideally, I would like to be able to have the two be able to "kiss and make up", rather than me constantly bickering with myself over which is true, and which is the illusion ("If we're free, then that probably defies a law of quantum physics or something, and we'd be forced to question the very fabric of our reality. But if we're not free, then why do we have the perception that we are free? Evolutionary trait that is soon to be extinct?" [see ramble above, etc., etc.]).

This I mostly agree with.

EDIT: I think I've found the core of this whole problem (actually I think I've always known it, I've just never known how to express it in words): I figure that if I'm just a 'machine' like everyone else, then I'm susceptible to the same (or similar; genetic differences create variety, right? ) kinds of "vulnerabilities" as others, i.e. I can be controlled on such a base level that the very core of my consciousness could be directly altered by "artificial" means (e.g. some kind of machine that can alter the brain precisely at the neural level), and thus the "me" is really just a result of neurons sparking in a certain pattern. This, to me, is a massively depressing view on life, and, as unSpawn said earlier, can cause "motivational and cognitive hazards".

So really, it's not so much an existential thing (well it is, but only in part), it's more of a "fear of absolute control of the mind" thing, right? This thread particularly disturbed me because of that little fear (and the existential thing, too).

...it's really kind of both, and one, I think, is natural ("OMG my mind can be completely controlled!"), while the other is rather, well, not ("OMG there's no such thing as a "soul" or "spirit" and it's all just physical matter!").

All it takes to (invisibly) alter brain perception is a strong magnet. Placed around different areas of the brain can alter different things. For example, experiencing the 'god' effect is somewhere above the right ear. And perceiving the morality of other people's intentions is just to the left of that. But then... you can do the same thing with drugs or a large blunt object.

Other than that, if you must justify freewill with the whole action/reaction business, you can call freewill one of the byproducts. Much like heat caused from friction of two objects colliding. All actions in physics has heat as part of the equation.

No, that's not what I'm saying. In philosophy you will want to reason your way out of a problem by chunking up the problem and providing your own (or accepting other peoples) supportive and coherent arguments. Schrödinger's cat refers to the core problem of the spectator. Simplifying things the spectator shapes what it sees, or phrased differently: the problem with any answer itself is in how the question influenced it.

One way out of this, which several people hinted at, is to not ask the question. Without question no answer is necessary but at the same time also all, any or no answers make sense.

It would have been better if MrCode had never asked himself "Free will or determinism?", definitely. But the cat's out of the box now. And he's chosen to believe the option that makes him unhappy. Self-inflicted wound.

Personally, the idea that there might be no "free will" doesn't really bother me. Mostly because I don't think of it as if we are machines following a predetermined path, but as, for example, a computer making a decision but with your consious thought involved in it. You are just weighing the good and bad things about one decision vs. another, and you choose the right one. Who cares if this was possible to predict? What difference would it make whether you had "free will" or not, you still would have made the same decision with the same input!

Well, this just about kills my spirituality...thanks a lot for ruining some things I hold dear...you have no idea how that just made me feel. There are some things that I think about that have a sort of 'god effect' if you will (at least I think), and you just reduced it to a cold physical effect. Thanks for crushing my hopes and dreams.

EDIT: Seriously, there are some things I wish could happen that you people would mark me down as insane for desiring, and yet they are some of the things that I hold most dear...it seems that the more I learn about the world, the less plausible my hopes seem, and the deeper it depresses me knowing that I'm stuck right where I am.

Really though, you don't want to know what those hopes are...I'd probably sound like some insane maniac if I shared them. Really really, no joke, this is not a self-pity thing, you really would think I'm crazy...

You seem to be massively over-focusing on this. Everyone, without exception, has these thoughts at about your age. Some take psychology, theology, philosophy, etc classes and try to learn more about the questions they ask in a better directed way. Some grow out of it. It is not that important a question. You need to remember that last sentence.

What is important is what we do with our time while we are here. You could spend your next 70-odd years on this planet obsessing about a meaningless question or you could get over it and move on. The first part of that is futile and pointless - even if you could decide on which is "correct", there is literally nothing you can do with the information - you can't control your life more or less once you know whether that is in your power. Do what the rest of the planet does - assume free will and act accordingly. Currently you are trying to second guess every aspect of what you do and are and that way lies madness.

Take some classes in something, try to direct these thoughts you have in a controlled environment. And, in the meantime, go here and answer the questions in bold.

Oh, if only I had that kind of bravery...I'd probably get fed a bunch of reductionist $#!t (at least if I took psychology) that would only make my "free will or not?" problem worse, i.e. it would tend to lean towards "we're not free at all, everything can be explained through psychological dynamics".

I once read a small bit in a Discover magazine (a science/tech magazine here in the US) regarding the supposed "big question" of whether or not our moral actions are dependent upon our ability to reason. There was one person there who basically wrote that in order for moral decisions to depend on reason, "any psychologist or neuroscientist will tell you that would depend on free will, and that modern science has shown that free will is an illusion."

^ After reading that, I literally spent the next 20 or so minutes crying my eyes out, because I thought "well, if this guy got quoted in a public magazine, then surely that will color other people's opinions towards the 'we are automatons' side, and thus I won't get nearly as much support for the things that I want to believe". That's not to say that I think that everyone will agree with what he said, but those who have a more "rational" mind probably will...

This statement is also part of what biases me against professional counselors/psychologists/psychiatrists/whatever...they'd just tell me exactly what I (don't really) want to hear...probably similar things to what you guys have been telling me ("So what if you don't have "free will"? You're alive, aren't you? So why not just enjoy life, predestined or otherwise?")

EDIT: Regarding your questions...I don't think they're really "answerable", at least not rationally, and that's what put me into this whole mess, I believe.

Much as I hate to resort to a prayer, the Serenity Prayer is applicable here:You seem to be hugely hung up (damagingly so, it seems) on something you can't know and can't affect. You need to find a way to take this out of the realm of something you need to worry about and into the realm of "thought exercise".

You clearly are reading, possibly selectively, around the subject - which is always a good start - but you don't know enough to know what to do with the knowledge. Take classes about the subject, be a bit courageous and listen to people who are telling you things you don't want to hear. Locking your mind away is doing you no good at all.

ALL TOGETHER NOW!
Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.

So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo

The thing is, I'm very emotionally sensitive about this whole issue, and it links in with a whole other host of "issues" that I have as well (many of which I'd really rather not discuss here). I often feel like crying when I get like this...sometimes I do, which of course leads to more bad feelings, because my "cold, clinical self" sees the crying as nothing more than a simple reaction to the input, no different from how a computer processes data. I'm afraid that I won't be able to control myself in a "classroom" setting, and I'll end up being classed as "emotionally disturbed" and put into "special" programs just to get me "back on my feet again".

I guess this is why I'm so vehemently against AI; I'm afraid that some group of university students (or something, just giving an example here) will code the 'perfect' AI that is virtually indistinguishable from a human being (in all capacities, not just conversational, but also learning and other 'human' cognitive traits), thus destroying the notion that humans are somehow "greater" than machines.

Maybe I just have an inferiority complex, in that in believing that we're all automatons, it makes me feel powerless; like I'm a 'pawn of the universe', so to speak.

^Please don't take too much offense to the blog post I linked to above. I wrote it when I was feeling particularly nasty...

You received some responses to he piece in the comments. From the description of your reaction in the post above, I would have to say that you need a therapist. Really. Nobody should get that emotional over a thought exercise. See a therapist, life is going to hit you with so much more as you get older and you need to learn to cope with it.

Ah, "The Life of brian(L)" Always a good one.






"

Just going back over the thread, I notice a couple interesting things:

What I really wanted to type was "No, I believe that we have free will, and that not all of our decisions are determined by cold equations". "Cold equations" wouldn't fit within the 100 char limit for poll choices (just "equations" would sound silly), so I had to round off to something that I thought best fit the subject. Really what it's trying to say is something like "No, and I don't believe that life can be easily reduced to cold, hard equations", but I wasn't thinking of that at the time I posted this thread, so...

You can still predict the behavior of a "closed" system, though, if it is deterministic. For instance, when you write a piece of software, you should always expect it to perform the same functions every time, e.g. the assembly instruction mov eax,2 should always move the hexadecimal value 2 into the register eax.

Even bugs are deterministic in nature, it's just behavior that the programmer (or user) wasn't expecting. There is a difference between "lack of certainty" and "lack of order". That is the basic difference between chaos and randomness: chaos is deterministically generated, but randomness (if it even exists) is generated non-deterministically, i.e. there is no applicable algorithm to generate the exact same data sequence.

But anyway, my main point here is that if you can predict the behavior of a closed system such as a computer approximately enough to be sufficient, then why shoud the brain be any different? The only way that could possibly not apply is if somehow the brain's logistics can operate at the quantum level, in which case you would have to take Heisenberg's uncertainty principle into account.

^ Mind you, the only thing I know about that principle is what I've read of that Wikipedia article, so if anyone here has a degree in physics or something, you'd probably lose me if you started getting into the nitty gritty of quantum mechanics, so please, don't go there; big semi-Latin terms scare me sometimes.

Put even more simply, I'm looking for freedom in randomness.

(cue "there is no such thing as randomness" and "the brain doesn't operate at the quantum level" responses )

Also:

I notice you said "therapist" rather than "counselor", so I guess you're saying that it could be anyone who can give me some kind of emotional "therapy", be it a counselor, psychiatrist, "spiritual" counselor (which I'm sure are abhored be the world of "real" psychology), or whatever.

In other words, I just need to talk it out with someone who knows what they're doing in whatever their "psychological" field is, and can really understand and help me through this whole problem.

^ Regarding "spiritual" counselors: I've never seen one, mostly because I'm only "partially" spiritual, because I'm afraid that otherwise I'd be regarded as a complete nut by "normal" people, and because I myself don't agree with some of the things that they talk about. But, I figure that even if any "healing" were the result of a mental placebo effect, if it lasted, at least it would be worth it...at this point, I just want to feel better and stop the internal argument. ()

(cue hate responses bashing spirituality and metaphysical beliefs )