A definition of free will?

[opstachuck]

I'm curious as to what any of your thoughts might be regarding the existence of free will, and how this might relate to your political viewpoint.

For a few years, I've had a running feud with some friends about this issue and I maintain that free will is an illusion feuled by a desire to be in control of your situation. And for the life of me i can't wrap my head around the law of thermodynamics that states every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If this is true on the atomic or molecular level, how can it be that through the course of more complex layers of interactions a free will emerges that can change the destiny of the individual?

In regards to politics, I think a belief in free will can be detrimental to the formulation of public policy because it can, in the mind of the politician, make it so much easier to justify the problems of society by considering them to be problems with the individual. It then seems to logically follow that places which are more religious would have citizens who politically would be more conservative and opposed to government programs which are meant to help less fortunate people (ie welfare, universal health care, public education, etc.). Pat Robertson and Billy Graham's rants come to mind.

Okay, just a few thoughts. I'd like to hear yours.

[ferg]

1. chaos theory

One of the main point of chaos theory is that the future is not predetermined. Any imperfection in your information, no matter how small, means that you can't predict the future. That's the point of the chaos butterfly and the weather. It is literally possible that something as small as a butterfly flapping last year influenced the formation of this hurricane to either make it hit or miss Washington DC.

Since no one has the kind of information to the detail of every butterfly, even the weather can't be predicted.

So your free will is safe.

But that depends on you being a complex enough person to defy prediction. The freepers, for example, will follow The Party's orders no matter what. They're totally predictable.

That's one reason the Republicans lean on fear. Fearful people are more predictible and controllable than non-fearful people.

[opstachuck]

4. okay, this is where i start to go a little crazy...

i've disputed chaos theory as a justification for free will for hours on end with a good friend and i'm still not convinced. i see no reason why unpredictability has anything to with the decision making process. i think it just means that the environment and circumstances that contribute to a decision are too complex to be humanly knowable, which in turn makes free will an easy thing to accept because you can never actually prove that it does or doesn't exist. so, in my mind, this is a scientific question, not a human one. what, through the course of our trillions of years of evolution from a ball of gases would endow us with such a power? and if we have it then free will surely must have been slowly developing over those trillions of years. so at what point does that spark that defies everything that came before it begin? a ball of gases didn't have a will, it was basically just energy. i guess i'm just skeptical because i see no evidence for the evolution of it and because i meet very few people if any who seriously question whether it exists. i've told a few strong religious types what i think and they think i'm nuts or they give some answer that has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with what they believe - well, at least from my perspective.

[newyawker99]

6. Hi opstachuck!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[AnAmerican]

2. It is way too late for me to .....

Get involved in a discussion dissecting the concept of free will. Suffice it to say one of favorite songs includes the lines;

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice....
I will choose the path that's clear, I will choose free will."

"Free Will" on the album Permanent Waves by Rush

[opstachuck]

5. here's a simple quote i like...

"As soon as questions of will or decision or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss." - Noam Chomsky

essentially, i think it really hinders the policy making process when one makes judgements about the individual's motives.

[dweller]

3. Tathagata

thou art that.

Simple.
dp