Free Will or Fate

When you think about it do you really have free will or is your every action a mock of free will and in essentially a mock of angels . Is your life already planned out from the moment you break free of the encompassing shelter that is your mother's womb.

To The Heretic, Come on! I'm ready for you!

I'm not as good a debater as The Heretic but it seems to me our lives are a combination of free will and fate.

Some circumstances that take place around us are fate...acts of nature especially. But our choices, our responses are our choice. I think God presents us with choices that He arranges, but again, our decisions are ours.

*Looks around for The Heretic* Hah! He have no courage, point to me! *Gloats*

Rose Immortal said:

I'm not as good a debater as The Heretic but it seems to me our lives are a combination of free will and fate.

Some circumstances that take place around us are fate...acts of nature especially. But our choices, our responses are our choice. I think God presents us with choices that He arranges, but again, our decisions are ours.

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True, but I believe that free will is the more domaint since I choose to reply to you while Fate would dicate that I write nothing. Dammit! *Looks at watch* Heretic's late.

thewinterknight said:

When you think about it do you really have free will or is your every action a mock of free will and in essentially a mock of angels . Is your life already planned out from the moment you break free of the encompassing shelter that is your mother's womb.

To The Heretic, Come on! I'm ready for you!

Click to expand...

The view that free will and determinism are at odds with one another is called incompatibilism. Adopting incompatibilist views leads one to the highly publicized debate with hardliners like d'Holbach (determinism) and Reid (voluntarism). Oppositely, there is compatibilism.

It is, as Rose Immortal suggested, possible that the two may not be mutually exclusive. In fact, those who hold views tandem to Hobbes will argue one acts freely only in the case where the person willed the act and the person could have done otherwise if the person had decided to. Or more simply: if you are the victim of a burglar, your free will is being denied. In this instance, the perpetrator of the crime is "overpowering" your free will.

The discussion of compatibilism aside, I find myself somewhat more fond of the determinist perspective.

Leucippus and Democritus first pondered determinism when they theorized that all physical events are governed by the behavior of atoms. The scientist Laplace took this further centuries later and hypothesized that if you know the absolute position of all physical matter and all the laws that govern matter, you will be able to predict any future event. Unfortunately, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle comes into play and we are prevented from knowing the absolute details of matter in the universe. **

We have advanced significantly from the times of Leucippus and Democritus. We know that neurochemistry plays a huge role in our behavior. When you're having an orgasm, we can detect a spike in Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine) in your brain is strongly associated with depression disorders. There is even a significant historical relationship between trends in facial hair in men and the availability of suitable females in the marriage market. We also know that humans are biologically conditioned to respond in many ways. If, for example, someone throws a rock at you with malicious intent, the vast majority of people will respond either in anger or sadness, a consequence of biological programming.

It is possible, yes, to condition yourself to smile when Goliath snaps your leg in one blow, but you are still subject to the complex neurochemistry and programming of the brain and any reaction you do have is a consequence of your environmental and biological programming. You may be socially and biologically programmed for an inclination to masochism, which leads you to smile at the pain Goliath brings.

There is one thing that particularly catches my attention. Some may argue a point of moral responsibility. If a murderer murders because of a troubled childhood, should he be punished? Those who do not understand determinism (which I find an affinity to and am not a staunch advocate of) will say that if determinism were correct, then any sort of punishment instituted will not reform behavior. I find this argument ludicrous. The actual act of punishing criminal behavior is an "external effect" that changes the behavior of the criminal independent of his own will.

** As an addendum, when I say matter, I'm guilty of a small flaw--matter and energy are actually interchangeable, as according to the famous E=M*C^2 equation. We also know nothing of the properties and nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, the principle constituents of the Universe. Dark Energy comprises 2/3rds of the Universe, Dark Matter comprises 1/3rds, and baryonic (normal) matter is a tiny, tiny fraction of the whole.

LOL, I have no idea what you said, I think you said (in layman terms' of course)
is that because of your past you perform certain things and won't do certain things.
Free will often overlaps each other and the domiant free will can be labeled as fate. Is that right, Endymion

Endymion--With neurochemistry, I had a personal point to make...while I think sometimes it can predispose you towards certain reactions, one can learn to counter those reactions or at least mitigate them by an act of will. For instance, a child with ADHD can sometimes do with self-control (over time) what people often use medication to do. I should know...I physically couldn't tolerate the meds for it, but over time I think I've developed disciplines that help me to get work accomplished and I must choose to employ them even if it is my "first nature" to be distractible to the point of accomplishing nothing.

And with depression, choice is also implied by the fact that sometimes people suffering severe depression pull through and sometimes those with a less severe chemical disruption do not.

Not necessarily contradicting what you said--just fleshing it out a bit.

Ok here I go! (I'm not a Muslim)

In the Islamic book the Holy Qur’an, it is clearly explained that man himself is not a master of himself yet not a mere puppet content to perform for Allah.

In the book if fate truly existed then God's will would had guided us but despite the fact that we worship God or Allah, we are held accountable for our individual choices.

Now to an another religion, In Christianity, ideas of preordination are strong or weak in parallel with ideas of predestination; the two live or die together. This is not the case in some other religions, which make a strong difference between earthly and eternal destinies. However, in Christianity, although the two are formally distinguished, the principles are the same which explain the relationship of God's determining will and man's free choices, whether speaking of the earthly fortunes and roles to which God has preordained men, or the final status to which they are predestined.

A popular saying of mine that support my opinion "many who are first shall be last and the last, first"

Now to a paradox that explain if fate exists or not.

Newcomb's paradox is as this A person is playing a game operated by the Predictor, an entity somehow presented as being exceptionally skilled at predicting people's actions. The exact nature of the Predictor varies between retellings of the paradox, but the character always has a reputation for being completely infallible and incapable of error. The Predictor can be presented as a psychic, as a superintelligent alien, as God, etc.

The player of the game is presented with two opaque boxes, labeled A and B. The player is permitted to take the contents of both boxes, or just of box B. (The option of taking only box A is ignored, for reasons soon to be obvious.) Box A contains $1,000. The contents of box B, however, are determined as follows: At some point before the start of the game, the Predictor makes a prediction as to whether the player of the game will take just box B, or both boxes. If the Predictor predicts that both boxes will be taken, then box B will contain nothing. If the Predictor predicts that only box B will be taken, then box B will contain $1,000,000.

By the time the game begins, and the player is called upon to choose which boxes to take, the prediction has already been made, and the contents of box B have already been determined. That is, box B contains either $0 or $1,000,000 before the game begins, and once the game begins even the Predictor is powerless to change the contents of the boxes. Before the game begins, the player is aware of all the rules of the game, including the two possible contents of box B, the fact that its contents is based on the Predictor's prediction, and knowledge of the Predictor's infallibility. The only information withheld from the player is what prediction the Predictor made, and thus what the contents of box B are.
Predicted choice Actual choice Payout
A and B A and B $1,000
A and B B only $0
B only A and B $1,001,000
B only B only $1,000,000

The problem is called a paradox because two strategies that both sound intuitively logical give conflicting answers to the question of what choice maximizes the player's payout. The first strategy argues that, regardless of what the prediction the Predictor has made, taking both boxes yields more money. That is, if the prediction is for both A and B to be taken, then the player's decision becomes a matter of choosing between $1,000 (by taking A and B) and $0 (by taking just B), in which case taking both boxes is obviously perferable. But, even if the prediction is for the player to take only B, then taking both boxes yields $1,001,000, and taking only B yields only $1,000,000—the difference is slight in the latter case, but taking both boxes is still better, regardless of what prediction has been made.

The second strategy suggests taking only B. By this strategy, we can ignore the possibilities that return $0 and $1,001,000, as they both require that the Predictor has made an incorrect prediction, and the problem states that the Predictor cannot be wrong. Thus, the choice becomes whether to receive $1,000 (both boxes) or to receive $1,000,000 (only box B)—so taking only box B is better.

In his 1969 article, Nozick noted that "To almost everyone, it is perfectly clear and obvious what should be done. The difficulty is that these people seem to divide almost evenly on the problem, with large numbers thinking that the opposing half is just being silly."

I admit that I do not understand some of those paradoxes that I posted but Heretic should be able to comprend this paradox (I also ask for some of you to try to understand this paradox.)

Thank you for taking your time to read this post

too long story >>>>>>EXIT

Basically, I consider Life to be a game of chess, at first you have a infinte way to change the world and so on. As you make more moves you become more limited and limited until the world changes you ( checkmate)

thewinterknight said:

Ok here I go! (I'm not a Muslim)

In the Islamic book the Holy Qur’an, it is clearly explained that man himself is not a master of himself yet not a mere puppet content to perform for Allah.

In the book if fate truly existed then God's will would had guided us but despite the fact that we worship God or Allah, we are held accountable for our individual choices.

Now to an another religion, In Christianity, ideas of preordination are strong or weak in parallel with ideas of predestination; the two live or die together. This is not the case in some other religions, which make a strong difference between earthly and eternal destinies. However, in Christianity, although the two are formally distinguished, the principles are the same which explain the relationship of God's determining will and man's free choices, whether speaking of the earthly fortunes and roles to which God has preordained men, or the final status to which they are predestined.

A popular saying of mine that support my opinion "many who are first shall be last and the last, first"

Click to expand...

Or conversely, we can take the path of Rosseau and Locke.

Starting from Locke, Rosseau rejects original sin, Christianity's view of man born unclean with a propensity for evil. Rousseau's idea of man's innate goodness lead to social environmentalism, the prevalent ethic among instutions in western society. The American penal code, behaviorist therapies, and the like are all heir to Rosseau. We are reminded of the opening words to The Social Contract, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." We are "prisoners" of our own environment.

Ergo, social environmentalism assumes that aggression, violence, and crime come from social deprivation. From this (and a little more), much of the ethic which is rampant in western society does not explicitly levy blame on the free decisions of individual.

Or you can also argue using the Marquis de Sade through some verbal gymnastics (which I will not do here). Sade is heir to Hobbes (and is a indirect critic of Rosseau) and he assumes that aggression comes from nature.

Off-point: have you read any of Sade's books? He wrote quite something in Justine and Juliette! I've also heard Lepold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs is pretty eye-opening.

Now to a paradox that explain if fate exists or not.

Newcomb's paradox is as this A person is playing a game operated by the Predictor, an entity somehow presented as being exceptionally skilled at predicting people's actions. The exact nature of the Predictor varies between retellings of the paradox, but the character always has a reputation for being completely infallible and incapable of error. The Predictor can be presented as a psychic, as a superintelligent alien, as God, etc.

Click to expand...

Thank you for an interesting read!

I must say, though, that the status of Newcomb's paradox as a paradox is currently disputed. It is also currently not of significant interest to social scientists like it is to philosophers. If you remove the Predictor's guaranteed accuracy, then it becomes a problem within the confines of Game Theory, and is suddenly much more interesting to social scientists.

Before I say anything else, my understanding of Newcomb's paradox is that it challenges the notion of Free Will. That's the opposite of what you were saying above with the Islam and Christianity example. Is that what you were trying to do?

By the way, keep up the posts! I like this discussion, you seem like you've got a lot to add too.

Rose Immortal said:

Endymion--With neurochemistry, I had a personal point to make...while I think sometimes it can predispose you towards certain reactions, one can learn to counter those reactions or at least mitigate them by an act of will. For instance, a child with ADHD can sometimes do with self-control (over time) what people often use medication to do. I should know...I physically couldn't tolerate the meds for it, but over time I think I've developed disciplines that help me to get work accomplished and I must choose to employ them even if it is my "first nature" to be distractible to the point of accomplishing nothing.

And with depression, choice is also implied by the fact that sometimes people suffering severe depression pull through and sometimes those with a less severe chemical disruption do not.

Not necessarily contradicting what you said--just fleshing it out a bit.

Click to expand...

Interesting addition! I am certainly glad you've been able to overcome ADHD and overcome it through a more ... hmm ... holistic method. My hat's off to you.

thewinterknight said:

LOL, I have no idea what you said, I think you said (in layman terms' of course)
is that because of your past you perform certain things and won't do certain things.
Free will often overlaps each other and the domiant free will can be labeled as fate. Is that right, Endymion

Click to expand...

LOL. Kind of.

I started off explaining the difference between compatibilism and incompatibilism and mentioned that Rose might be right when she says that free will and determinism don't have to be against each other.

Then I changed gears and said that we have been "programmed" through our genetics and social environment to make choices in certain ways, so we don't really have free will. If you decide to rob a bank, your social environment has conditioned you with a moral code that allows you to rob the bank for your benefit, the idea that you can rob a bank, etc. etc. etc., though that's a very oversimplified argument.

I'm glad you're taking an interest in philosophy. I think it's something more people could benefit from. It's a great subject. Are you taking a class or something?

Endymion said:

Or conversely, we can take the path of Rosseau and Locke.

Starting from Locke, Rosseau rejects original sin, Christianity's view of man born unclean with a propensity for evil. Rousseau's idea of man's innate goodness lead to social environmentalism, the prevalent ethic among instutions in western society. The American penal code, behaviorist therapies, and the like are all heir to Rosseau. We are reminded of the opening words to The Social Contract, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." We are "prisoners" of our own environment.

Ergo, social environmentalism assumes that aggression, violence, and crime come from social deprivation. From this (and a little more), much of the ethic which is rampant in western society does not explicitly levy blame on the free decisions of individual.

Click to expand...

I recall having studied a bit of Rousseau's work especially the famous quote, but of course it was discussed during the Enlightenment in which played a role in the French Revolution.

Anyway, I'm not into labelling people based on what theory they believe and are proponent of.

There's some merit to Social Environentalism, I reckon, but really it also it's up to people as how to live the right way or go the wrong way.

Forgive me, I'm not very good at explaining things in depth, however, I shall try and sum it up in few words.

Rousseau and Hobbes were right in some ways, but not all. I believe that people do have free will even though some might not believe they do. As for fate, it's something people seem to use as form of explanation for the unexplainable.

As for Marquis De Sade, wasn't he about freedom of expression?

Endymion said:

Interesting addition! I am certainly glad you've been able to overcome ADHD and overcome it through a more ... hmm ... holistic method. My hat's off to you.

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Well, this method isn't for everyone just like meds aren't for everyone, but thanks.

Miss-Delectable said:

Rousseau and Hobbes were right in some ways, but not all. I believe that people do have free will even though some might not believe they do. As for fate, it's something people seem to use as form of explanation for the unexplainable.

As for Marquis De Sade, wasn't he about freedom of expression?

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I sometimes think that all philosophers, like all people, are right in some ways and wrong in others. It's hard, given the nature of language, to be absolutely correct and absolutely wrong.

Oh and for the Marquis, I think he was. He got into a whole world of trouble after he published Justine. I admit it is a scandalously interesting read.

I'm also reminded of Gustave Flaubert. When Flaubert published Madame Bovary, he had to go to court to defend his book from censorship. People of his time argued that he was celebrating adultery through Emma Bovary, but if you if you read the work, she is constantly disappointed and hurt because of her infidelity. It's a bit difficult imagining Flaubert celebrating infidelity through pain.

What do you think of Flaubert and Madame Bovary?

Endymion said:

I sometimes think that all philosophers, like all people, are right in some ways and wrong in others. It's hard, given the nature of language, to be absolutely correct and absolutely wrong.

Oh and for the Marquis, I think he was. He got into a whole world of trouble after he published Justine. I admit it is a scandalously interesting read.

I'm also reminded of Gustave Flaubert. When Flaubert published Madame Bovary, he had to go to court to defend his book from censorship. People of his time argued that he was celebrating adultery through Emma Bovary, but if you if you read the work, she is constantly disappointed and hurt because of her infidelity. It's a bit difficult imagining Flaubert celebrating infidelity through pain.

What do you think of Flaubert and Madame Bovary?

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I agree it's easy to say the philopshers are either right or wrong or somewhere in between. But basically, no one is completely right.

I have heard of the name Flaubert and his book. However, I have yet to read Justine or Madame Bovary. As for Flaubert, I cannot comment on him personally, but he did have the right to defend his book regardless of the material included.

*cue eerie music*

Be careful for what you wish for, winter knight, for you just might get it!



Free will is the invention of theologians. First of all, free will is incoherent, and second of all, it cannot be proven through self-awareness.

Argument #1

All versions of the free will doctrine are incoherent and fundamentally opposed to the basic presuppositions of human comprehension. This argument is based on the simple idea that human will contains certain elements that allow us to judge other people's character, and that in the absence of these elements, it would make no sense to hold anybody responsible for what they have done. If human beings really had free will in the traditional sense of the concept, their behavior would be inextricably unfathomable.

Schopenhauer - as one of the few philosophers to really explicate what is at issue in the whole debate since Will is the centerpiece of his philosophy - shows that, under the assumption of freedom of the will, a man's "character must be from the very beginning a tabula rasa... and cannot have any inborn inclination to one side or the other." This point of view, however, would utterly destroy the conception of human nature illustrated by the classics of literature and the researches of social scientists. Under the free will premise, individuals would have no set character at all, and people in general would have no common nature. It would be useless to study the humanities or the social sciences in order to learn about human beings, because there is no common human nature. Either human beings are the products of pure chance, or they would be spontaneous "self-creators," devising their personalities ex nihilo, out of nothing.

If this is the case, then free will has dire philosophical implications its advocates are terribly ignorant of. However, LaRochefoucauld is right when he said that none of us have the strength to follow all the implications of our reasoning.

Argument #2

Free will cannot be proven through self-awareness, because sifting through one’s own self-awareness will only locate the illusion of freedom. Self-awareness is what’s leftover after all the “awareness of other things” has been eliminated. Since the awareness of other things is almost ubiquitous, all-encompassing, then analyzing self-awareness itself will be rather difficult. A person becomes aware of him/herself as of something that wills. The self that does not direct awareness outwards is a willing self. However, the “will” of a person is not limited to the realized acts of the will or the formal decisions, for it also includes emotions, passions, ranging from the intentional ones such as desiring, striving, wishing, longing, yearning, hoping, loving, rejoicing to the negative ones – repunging, detesting, fleeing, fear, anger, and etc.

All these aspects of the will, although internal, are always related to something external, for they are directed towards at or by the object of concern. Those external things do not belong to the realm of self-awareness, but to the “awareness of other things.” Therefore, if self-awareness is the awareness that always directly accompanies the event of the will, then it can never reach beyond that internally experiencable event in itself. Self-experienced will is found at the beginning of self-awareness, and cannot be otherwise, because awareness must be switched off against external things that may stimulate the will by motivation or causation.

The belief that I am free because my actions depend on my will is a self-deception because once the will itself becomes action it is no longer free. Otherwise, I would be free to will. However, this cannot be the case from the perspective of self-awareness, because according to self-awareness, the will is primal, and primarily basic – I know what I want only after I already will it. All we have is the ex post facto awareness of our own will. Consequently, we cannot know whether the will itself is free from self-awareness. Stepping outside of the inner world, towards the world of things, people, objects that act upon my will, condition it, and suggest motivations, the world of causality.

The Heretic said:

Free will is the invention of theologians. First of all, free will is incoherent, and second of all, it cannot be proven through self-awareness.


Argument #1

All versions of the free will doctrine are incoherent and fundamentally opposed to the basic presuppositions of human comprehension. This argument is based on the simple idea that human will contains certain elements that allow us to judge other people's character, and that in the absence of these elements, it would make no sense to hold anybody responsible for what they have done. If human beings really had free will in the traditional sense of the concept, their behavior would be inextricably unfathomable.

Click to expand...

Actually, the part about humans being unfathomable is true, for example a man rape a dog, and molested 2 childrens. Let us ask ourselves, why?
If Fate truly existed, would God had intended for innocecnt children to be violated, No. Thus by this Fate's existence is highly doubtful

The Heretic said:

Schopenhauer - as one of the few philosophers to really explicate what is at issue in the whole debate since Will is the centerpiece of his philosophy - shows that, under the assumption of freedom of the will, a man's "character must be from the very beginning a tabula rasa... and cannot have any inborn inclination to one side or the other." This point of view, however, would utterly destroy the conception of human nature illustrated by the classics of literature and the researches of social scientists. Under the free will premise, individuals would have no set character at all, and people in general would have no common nature. It would be useless to study the humanities or the social sciences in order to learn about human beings, because there is no common human nature. Either human beings are the products of pure chance, or they would be spontaneous "self-creators," devising their personalities ex nihilo, out of nothing.

If this is the case, then free will has dire philosophical implications its advocates are terribly ignorant of. However, LaRochefoucauld is right when he said that none of us have the strength to follow all the implications of our reasoning.

Click to expand...

Yet, again, you're right about free will having implications but, For example. A man smokes for 10 years and then decides to stop smoking. That is free will. Now some of you may argue that this is not free will because it is determined that the health side-effects was too dangerous to the man.
Argument #2

The Heretic said:

Free will cannot be proven through self-awareness, because sifting through one’s own self-awareness will only locate the illusion of freedom. Self-awareness is what’s leftover after all the “awareness of other things” has been eliminated. Since the awareness of other things is almost ubiquitous, all-encompassing, then analyzing self-awareness itself will be rather difficult. A person becomes aware of him/herself as of something that wills. The self that does not direct awareness outwards is a willing self. However, the “will” of a person is not limited to the realized acts of the will or the formal decisions, for it also includes emotions, passions, ranging from the intentional ones such as desiring, striving, wishing, longing, yearning, hoping, loving, rejoicing to the negative ones – repunging, detesting, fleeing, fear, anger, and etc.

All these aspects of the will, although internal, are always related to something external, for they are directed towards at or by the object of concern. Those external things do not belong to the realm of self-awareness, but to the “awareness of other things.” Therefore, if self-awareness is the awareness that always directly accompanies the event of the will, then it can never reach beyond that internally experiencable event in itself. Self-experienced will is found at the beginning of self-awareness, and cannot be otherwise, because awareness must be switched off against external things that may stimulate the will by motivation or causation.

The belief that I am free because my actions depend on my will is a self-deception because once the will itself becomes action it is no longer free. Otherwise, I would be free to will. However, this cannot be the case from the perspective of self-awareness, because according to self-awareness, the will is primal, and primarily basic – I know what I want only after I already will it. All we have is the ex post facto awareness of our own will. Consequently, we cannot know whether the will itself is free from self-awareness. Stepping outside of the inner world, towards the world of things, people, objects that act upon my will, condition it, and suggest motivations, the world of causality.

Click to expand...

I am aware of myself, I am aware of the decisions that I make. BUT, there is one little detail I forgot to mention. Free will can only be practiced when we are free from immediate and basic pressures like hunger or cold.

Here is yet another example of why I believe free will to exist. The non-believer exercise HIS will not to believe in any deity.

Thank you for taking your time to read this post