I think free will as a concept is kinda stupid I’ve yet to talk to anyone who can actually give it a solid definition that isn’t something like “it means we can do what we want”
Either your decision is based on your personality, meaning it’s not free it’s a set calculation based on genetics and accumulated experience or it’s completely random meaning it’s not will at all
If you just start talking to some random person about it, then you’re unlikely to get a high-quality conversation; because most of the stuff people will say about it is inane or obvious or obviously wrong, etc. But there are definitely interesting discussions and thoughts that can be had about it.
I’ve had countless garbage conversations about, and a handful of good ones. Probably my favoutite take is from Daniel Dennett’s book “Freedom Evolves”. He is very careful to build up a strong picture of what is it that we’re talking about and what the ‘obvious’ problems are, before then carefully and systematically showing those things aren’t really problems with what we were talking about anyway. Before reading that book, I was hard line in the camp of “obviously free will doesn’t exist; that’s a scientific fact”; but after reading it… well, I’d now say “it depends exactly what you mean, but probably the free will you’re talking about does exist.”.
I think conversation with anyone about that kind of thing is good as long as they’re willing to engaged. If they have thought about it you get a different viewpoint, if they haven’t you give them something to think about
I don’t really take a stance either way on the free will thing because I think it’s a made up concept whose existence entirely depends on your own definition of the word
Unless you believe in some kind of immutable soul that’s separate from the physical body and brain that is in charge of decisions somehow I suppose
Can your free will be restricted in any way? Someone in prison has less agency than you or I, if that means his free will is restricted then we have more free will than he does. Therefore it exists.
His decision making options are restricted but those decisions are just as much a product of his past as the ones we make out of prison, he’s still acting entirely based on external and internal forces
I’ll put it this way, if you were to make an exact copy of our universe at this moment and watch both of them play out, he’d almost certainly make the exact same decision both times, same applies to someone out of prison
My point isn’t that people don’t practically have agency in the decisions they make, because they obviously do. We just don’t know all the forces that influence that decision and it’s not useful to think about that, so we call it free will
I think free will as a concept is kinda stupid I’ve yet to talk to anyone who can actually give it a solid definition that isn’t something like “it means we can do what we want”
Either your decision is based on your personality, meaning it’s not free it’s a set calculation based on genetics and accumulated experience or it’s completely random meaning it’s not will at all
If you just start talking to some random person about it, then you’re unlikely to get a high-quality conversation; because most of the stuff people will say about it is inane or obvious or obviously wrong, etc. But there are definitely interesting discussions and thoughts that can be had about it. I’ve had countless garbage conversations about, and a handful of good ones. Probably my favoutite take is from Daniel Dennett’s book “Freedom Evolves”. He is very careful to build up a strong picture of what is it that we’re talking about and what the ‘obvious’ problems are, before then carefully and systematically showing those things aren’t really problems with what we were talking about anyway. Before reading that book, I was hard line in the camp of “obviously free will doesn’t exist; that’s a scientific fact”; but after reading it… well, I’d now say “it depends exactly what you mean, but probably the free will you’re talking about does exist.”.
I think conversation with anyone about that kind of thing is good as long as they’re willing to engaged. If they have thought about it you get a different viewpoint, if they haven’t you give them something to think about
I don’t really take a stance either way on the free will thing because I think it’s a made up concept whose existence entirely depends on your own definition of the word
Unless you believe in some kind of immutable soul that’s separate from the physical body and brain that is in charge of decisions somehow I suppose
Can your free will be restricted in any way? Someone in prison has less agency than you or I, if that means his free will is restricted then we have more free will than he does. Therefore it exists.
I would say his free will is not restricted
His decision making options are restricted but those decisions are just as much a product of his past as the ones we make out of prison, he’s still acting entirely based on external and internal forces
I’ll put it this way, if you were to make an exact copy of our universe at this moment and watch both of them play out, he’d almost certainly make the exact same decision both times, same applies to someone out of prison
My point isn’t that people don’t practically have agency in the decisions they make, because they obviously do. We just don’t know all the forces that influence that decision and it’s not useful to think about that, so we call it free will