Comment by Ron V on June 12, 2011 at 5:22pm

This is a very complex question that has volumes of philosophical discussion (as a start, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will).

With that said, I have occasionally considered our behavior with respect to probabilistic mathematics- refer to http://ai.stanford.edu/~amaas/papers/amaas_aaaisymp.pdf.

Personally, whether I think free will exists or whether it is an illusion, the implications of no free will frighten me no more than the implications of no god.

Comment by Kris Feenstra on June 12, 2011 at 5:40pm

I was around seventeen or eighteen when I arrived at a deterministic world view.  I can't say it really bothered me in the least.  The world was exactly the same before that point as it was after; the only difference was in my perspective.

 

But acknowledging determinism wasn't really the end of the trail.  By common terms, I would now be deemed a compatibilist, though I'm not fond of the term as I don't believe there was ever a need to view freewill and causal determinism as incompatible to begin with.  I simply think that freewill was poorly and improperly defined in the past.

Comment by Philip Jarrett on June 12, 2011 at 6:23pm

I am reminded of Joe Pantoliano's character in The Matrix.  The steak still tastes the same. 

Comment by Greg Gorey on June 12, 2011 at 6:25pm

we are going to be talking about free will tonight on Think Atheist radio, so check it out. 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thinkatheist/2011/06/13/episode-12-tba...

it starts at 8 eastern time.

Comment by Kirsten on June 12, 2011 at 6:34pm

Thanks for the tip Greg, and good comments from all else as well.

 

Reading into the Stanford article was a little dry, though I know what they're talking about at the least. Probability may be the closest we can get to real modeling of human behavior though.

 

And reading up on compatibilism, I seem to fall into that category as well. 

Comment by Doug Reardon on June 12, 2011 at 6:49pm

I don't think it's an either/or choice, I think we are asking the wrong question and there is a "piece of the puzzle" of which we are unaware. For example physicists argued for decades whether light was a particle or a wave, but it was something else altogether.

Comment by Trevor Siemens on June 12, 2011 at 7:40pm

Nothing is going to change how small we are in the universe, and our brains are built to ignore such things so that we may do what we are programed to do.
Really the only way I see this as scary is if you are so absorbed with the notion that we are in fact actually important, that this contradict it.

Sometimes when I'm having issues, I think about how insignificant it is on the grand universal scale, but quickly return to the reality that my brain is making me think that it is important, and there's not much I can do about it. Honestly I don't think anyone has true "free will". Though breaking free from unacceptable social practices is a step in that direction. But we would not be subject to control emotion has over us if we really had free will, which isn't such a good thing.

Comment by Michael Edminster on June 12, 2011 at 8:52pm

I find it interesting that atheists still like to make their own decisions about the metaphysical nature of things.

 

As a non-theist and humanist I find discussions on things like determinism to be quite useless. It is just as much rooted in speculation and faith as the religions which I reject.

Comment by Philip Jarrett on June 12, 2011 at 10:17pm

"Deep down, I do not actively enjoy the idea of being so mundane and effectually predictable."

 

Determinism posits so many potentialities and outcomes that predictability is impossible.  

Both theism and determinism claim that 'everything happens for a reason.'  Theism places that reason in the future and is in the hands of God...flipping cause and effect so that the effect precedes the cause.  Determinism places the reason in the past...cause leads to effect...and does not require validation through superstition and thus is the more rational of the two approaches.  It is better to be rational than irrational, of course.  However, I would suggest that individual identity pre-existing life is quite similar to the theist belief that the soul (whatever that means) exists from the moment of union between egg and sperm.  Existence precedes Essence.

Physics does not make good philosophy, quantum physics does not even make good sense.  In spite of an ego much, much larger than my penis, I'm still humble enough to admit that there are people who know more than I do on every subject.  I limit myself to the best minds in a given field as determined by education (doctorate level) , publication (in peer reviewed journals) and vocation (tenure at the best universities).  Newtonian Physics is still a mystery to me and quantum physics is so far beyond me I don't even claim a good layman's knowledge of the subject. 

I'm reminded of Sherlock Holmes, when informed by Watson that the earth moves around the sun.  His response was, since this information could not have any bearing on his work, he would do his best to forget it instead of wasting space in his brain with useless information.  To suggest that individual identity is predetermined by physics, even if it is true, is not only useless, it is a distraction from life.  With luck, I may have twenty or more years left to me.  Still, I am acutely aware of the ticking off of each second and the work I have left to do.  

The question is where do we live?   I would propose that identity is a product of the interaction between the individual and the culture in which he lives.  Man is a shallow creature by nature, easily distracted by bright, shiny things.   We are, also, a social creature.  Our accomplishments and our follies result from collective effort over a long period of time.  We live in the flow of history.  Or, as someone once put it, our lives are the hypen on our tombstones between the date of our birth and the date of our dying.

Comment by Walter Maki on June 13, 2011 at 12:53am

"our lives are the hypen on our tombstones between the date of our birth and the date of our dying."

 

I like that statement.

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