The Illusion of Free Will Created 17 years ago2007-04-09 01:04:09 UTC by Soup Miner

Here's a nice little mindfuck for you; something I've been thinking about for a while now.
If something is random, it exists without a purpose. Now consider, if you will, that everything in existence, across all time and space, was created randomly. This means everything, EVER-Y-THING, was created without a reason. That statement alone disproves free will. At this early point I'm sure many of you could argue this point: "Oh, well humans were randomly created with the ability of free will". Let me shoot that idea down for you. If everything in the universe is created without a purpose, randomly, then the planet Earth was created randomly as was everything living on it. This means that humans were created randomly, which means that out bodies were created randomly, which means that our brains were created randomly. Ultimately this boils down to the fact that the functions of our brains are all completely random impulses. What does this mean? It means that perception is random. Allow me to elaborate further and, hopefully, make this concept much easier to understand if you don't already.
I actually want you to do this. Take your hand and form a fist. What you have just witnessed is a voluntary action triggered by a series of electrical impulses sent from your brain telling your body to ball your hand into a fist. What you perceive is an act of free will, thus proving that free will exists, right? Wrong, very wrong. As I have already stated, our minds and the functions of our minds are all generated randomly. The electrical impulses sent from your brain triggering a fist is nothing more than another randomly created event in the universe. What you perceive as an act of free will is actually purposeless event. So why, and how, do we perceive these things as this miraculous thing we call "free will"? The answer is simple: Humans do not truly "think". Thought is merely an unorganized, very long, series of random events. The reason that they seem organized to us is because our brains fire random impulses that cause random perception. It is completely by chance that all these perceptions fall in a seemingly organized process of thought, but I'll get into the chances a littler later.
At this point it may seem hard to believe that somehow everything in our universe was created randomly, and yet so many things fall into perfect place. Well consider this: whatever is the source of all this random creation is not bound by the limits of time. This means that it had all the time, or rather lack of the existence of time(ostensibly an infinite amount without measure) to randomly create universe after universe after universe. With this in mind it should be easy to comprehend how simple it was to create out universe with so many events occuring in an organized manner. However, because random events can be generated within the universe, it is not the universe where everything falls into perfect place until the very end. The one universe that was created where everything falls perfectly into place would not be able to create something randomly because everything contained in said universe will seemingly have a purpose to anything else in it.
This is basically the end but I have a few last points I would like to make.
-Because everything is created randomly, there cannot be an intelligent source to creation. In fact, a god could exists, but could have only been created randomly by the ultimate source. This god, which cannot perform with purpose, will randomly create a universe, and so on.
-If everything was created randomly, then there really is no such thing as "purpose". Purpose is merely a perception of what seems to make sense in the grand scheme of things. ut becaue our perception is a random event, what is really there, that seems meaningful, is not.
-Personally I do not believe in random creation. I believe that everything exists with a meaning, but that isn't as fun to think about. This is good brain food.

truly fascinating..../reject. God is the ueber l33tzors dood who created everything. thats the basis upon which i live. kthx

tl;dr.

Oh snap, Arcan, except I disproved intelligent gods in the end! But I realize this all ultimately boils down to personal opinion. Like I said at the end of the essay, I don't even believe in random creation. But hell, it sure is fun to think about.
Edit: I posted this over at FPSB too, but too many of them don't even understand what I said. Most of them are like "But everythig isn't random!" even though once you start reading this you are supposed to consider that everything is. bah.

tl;dr.

tl:dr

tbqh, stfu. plz. kthx.

it is my free will to ignore you and your bullshit

tbqh, stfu. plz. kthx.

qft.

its my free will not not give a fuck about essays about shit and religion and more shit etc.

Stop being retarded, you guys.

Uh, define random. Without purpose? Without intelligence behind our creation, how could it be anything but purposeless? In fact, define purpose - some sort of plan for everything in the universe?

No, we don't have a purpose. Well, I agree with you that free will is an illusion (after all, the only thing that dictates future actions is previous experience) so I guess you could call everything "random". But the word isn't really fit to describe the universe. I see where you're coming from, though.

It boils down to "either we don't have a purpose, or you believe in intelligent design". Simple as that.

sounds like an introduction to one of the chapters of The Hitchhikers Guide in its original radio series platform.

An interesting read, but i'm afraid I dont find any of it remotely plausable.

its my free will not not give a fuck about essays about shit and religion and more shit etc.

What the fuck is your problem you peice of bat shit. I'm sick of you constantly fucking up something that has potential. All you ever do is shoot down opinions that don't match your god damn own. If you don't give a shit then stay the FUCK OUT of threads that I am trying to have an intelligent fucking discussion in. And the same goes for Hydeph. I don't give a fucking shit if you think I'm just trying to sound smart, I couldn't care less, but that kind of bullshit is better left to yourself. Some people DO find it interesting, not everyone is god-damned, child-predator Orpheus. Some people think about this kind of thing for a fucking living, and they earn good money, so why the fuck should I be kept in the dark?!
Fuck it all, just delete this thread. Don't even bother locking it, just delete it. Please. Jesus christ.

I thought it was an interesting read.
I believe in the random creation caused by the quantum mechanics.
But I do not agree that us - humans - are random.
I believe that we have certain constants in our body wich help define our character, but there are variables wich we can edit and therefore gives us the free will.

Example - using maths cuz it always makes things easier to understand.

Let's say that our behaviour follows this equation: XY=B
Where B is our behaviour.
X is a constant wich we were born with (like, DNA or hormones, I'm not a biologist), and Y is our "editable variable".
And if a part of the equation is editable, and an other part is constant, then the end result isn't free, but it can have almost any answer.
While a random behaviour could have any answer to "B".

So I believe that randomness only occours in the small world where the atoms and particles lives.
But up here in the larger world, there is both free will and determinism.
(While the determenism has no effect on the free will)

Don't delete, I found it interesting too.

The thing is, what determines our actions? We evaluate the situation and act according to previous experiences - chemicals in our brain react and send nerve impulses. If any free will would exist, IE it's not based of previous experiences, then it would be purely random. If choice 1 and choice 2 are exactly as good and our previous experiences don't dictate our choice, then the outcome is just random.

WCD, thats quite, err... original. Some philosopers said human has no free will because he is just like a rock that was thrown a moment ago and believes it decieded to move. All his actions are created because a chain of the forces of nature forced him to do so.
But I disagree with those guys, and I also disagree with you!

First of all, nothing, absolutly nothing is random, everything has reason and everything can be foreseen, if you are wise enough.
Rain doesn't fall randomly in one place and not in another, it's because the wind draged it the clouds to that paticular spot, and in that spot the rain drops became too heavy and started to fall. It's not a coincidence that the deserts are located in one place and not another. A volcano doesn't errupt randomly. The big bang didn't create the galexies randomly neather, a chain of reactions caused it. The only thing that is a bit random is evolution, but it's not entirly.

And even if it were random how does it prove that our actions are random? If our hand hurts and then we reach for it, is it random or that it had some reason? We didn't randomly do that.

The thing is, what determines our actions? We evaluate the situation and act according to previous experiences - chemicals in our brain react and send nerve impulses. If any free will would exist, IE it's not based of previous experiences, then it would be purely random. If choice 1 and choice 2 are exactly as good and our previous experiences don't dictate our choice, then the outcome is just random.

When I think about it closer chemical reactions are also random as they are down in the molecule level.
And since our behaviour is defined by chemical reactions - then we are random indeed.
Kinda sad when you think about it.

This thread is one big mind game.

Oh well, I don't know how to explain this to you, but nothing is random, everything happens because of something that happend before, it's a long chain of reactions, just like history.

Elon Yariv: What do you mean, nothing is random? Trust science. (at least, physics)

yes and suddenly everyones got a little Freud or Nietzsche in them =D

I don'y mean that everything has a purpose, hardly anything has one, I mean that everything was caused by something, not that it just happened randomly without any reason at all!

Well, that's sort of a no-brainer, Elon. No one's claiming things to happen "out of nowhere", that'd be pretty silly.

I really think we need a set definition of "random" here, because everyone seems to have their own appreciation of the word.
"Lacking any definite plan or order or purpose" was the first one I found.

And your example with non-random rain and volcano eruptions sort of fit my thoughts about free will too. Since all of our actions are dictated by something else, be it our previous experiences or anything else, how can it be called "free will"? We're bound to do whatever our experience tells us.

Random: proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern.
^That's the concrete definition.

Let me rephrase the whole thread:

Elon Yariv - You're a dick.

Luke spamming this thread was a totally predictable action, dictated by his previous experience of being an asshole. This alone proves ZombieLoffe's theory all kinds of right.

Teal Deer. <3

I'm too tired to make any sense of that unless you make use of paragraphs -.-

Truly interesting. Although I don't believe this, and I believe we DO have free will to a certain extent pointing back to our creation by God, I think this is something that could very possibly have potential among those who do trust more in science and supernatural powers than religion and God.

Anyways, good thinking, and nice to see something rather than spam on the boards.

Hmmm...interesting read, but I believe, that there is some kind of purpose in our universe, and that you can not define everything with just simple physics. I've experienced such things in my life - that you may find stupid and easy to explain - where I thought, that there is something out there, something helped me...what can be God, or maybe just an unknown function of our brain. Situatuions like: I wanted to meet someone, talk with him or her urgently, and I couldn't reach the person (because he/her didn't had a cell phone or for some other reason) and then, I just accidentally met this person, in some place, where I never thoght to meet him/her. Or I was supposed to be at two different places at the same time, and just before, I got a phone call, or some kind of message, that one of them is cancelled, or just delayed to another date. And these things only happen, when I have no solution to the problem.

As I said, you may find this primitive, but this is what I personally believe.

O LAWD, saw is religious.

...supernatural powers than religion and God.

God would pretty much qualify as a supernatural power, you know?

So what is free will?
If I can choose between a bacon+cheese pizza and a pepperoni+cheese pizza, I could never choose freely according to your definition of free will since:
-Choosing one at random would be a random event and not an act of free will.
-Choosing the one I really prefer would be conditioned by what ingredients I like most.

That's a pretty easy way of saying we can't choose. The fact is, we do. But inside a set of physical and chemical laws. The fact that we can choose randomly is already a sign of free will. A comet will always follow the paths dictated by gravitational forces, a hippopotamus will drink water from the river even if you place a water bottle next to it. etc

The pizza companies are gonna be in trouble if word gets out about this. They might have to start offering a special destiny discount.

Free will means to have a choice of being good or evil, not so much doing whatever you want.

Oh, then whats the problem... almost everything has no purpose, it's so trivial.

this thread is full of lulz

kasperg thats because hippos have not yet unlocked the art of drinking from a bottle yet

That's the idea. We have unlocked the art of doing many things in many ways. We have options, so we have a certain freedom inside that array of possibilities.

Well, that's sort of a no-brainer, Elon. No one's claiming things to happen "out of nowhere", that'd be pretty silly.

I am.

Virtual particles can, though it is extreamly unprobable, suddenly be created in a large quantity in one spot without destroying themselves (and thereby becoming REAL particles), out of noware and without energy added.
This is a popular theory of what caused big bang.

(No, I am not getting all the info from wikipedia, I've got it from severall books - I love quantum physics)

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What I said in an earlier post

Let's say that our behaviour follows this equation: XY=B
Where B is our behaviour.
X is a constant wich we were born with (like, DNA or hormones, I'm not a biologist), and Y is our "editable variable".
And if a part of the equation is editable, and an other part is constant, then the end result isn't free, but it can have almost any answer.
While a random behaviour could have any answer to "B".

When I thought about it closer, it is true - but it is still random from it's origin.
The "constant" X (DNA or whatever) was randomly generated.
Once generated it remains constant.
The other varianble could also be random, but it will only be able to change the value in a certain range of numbers.
Therefore - if that is true, then it is if you go back to the start, random.

Makes sense? :S

So what is free will?
If I can choose between a bacon+cheese pizza and a pepperoni+cheese pizza, I could never choose freely according to your definition of free will since:
-Choosing one at random would be a random event and not an act of free will.
-Choosing the one I really prefer would be conditioned by what ingredients I like most.

In my theory - this is the constant wich is making you want to eat the pizza you want, because whatever "number" the random variable gets -
you will still want to eat that pizza.
The Constant limits the answers - and the constant itself was randomly generated from the beginning.

No. I could decide not to eat that pizza and look for something else...
I have free will because I can choose between answers, be it 2 answers or 200. Of course we are limited. I have the will to fly but I don't have wings. Duh.

ostriches have wings and cant fly =

quantum physics also have the theory that theres a minuscule chance that i could walk straight through a wall if the particles all move out of the way at the same time. I'd say thats pretty random though

The arcan: True - they can.
In particle level - almost anything can happen! That's what makes it so interesting IMO

No. I could decide not to eat that pizza and look for something else...
I have free will because I can choose between answers, be it 2 answers or 200. Of course we are limited. I have the will to fly but I don't have wings. Duh.

But there we have the randomness again.
XY = B doesn't only have one outcome. It restricts a certain area.
I mean - you COULD buy a pizza even though you don't like it - but why would you? It's really unprobable. ;D
The choice is randomly generated, but it is more probable that you will buy something wich you like, than if you would buy something that you don't like.

So what's your point? Randomness is part of it. That's why humans can do things that defy logic, like walking over burning ashes. If you don't call that free will, then I don't know what is!

I could buy a pizza for someone else, which is probable. And if I didn't know that person's favourite ingredients, I could freely choose whichever one I wanted, even if I wasn't going to eat it.
Saying that our actions are random means we are not limited to one option. Saying we have a lot of options to choose from is having freedom. The fact that we choose for some reason or another does not take away the fact that we are choosing.

But that is the "constants" acting.
They limit the choices and therefore you have a specific type of pizza wich you like the most.

And if you buy your friend a pizza without knowing what he wants (without any constants) then you will pick any pizza, at 100% random.

This is an interesting argument!
Oh and kasperg, I really hope you're right - really. ^^
The thought of a non-free will is disturbing.

that essay kinda reminded me of the matrix. The part where the architect was talking to Neo and saying that you already made decisions, but now you have to understand them. I buy the part that everything is random but when it comes down to it, i have to agree with Kasperg. I have my own free will despite the random everything.

All this talk about pizza makes me hungry!

The choice is randomly generated, but it is more probable that you will buy something wich you like, than if you would buy something that you don't like.

Then you are saying that there is a chance I might decied buy something I loath and don't want to have? I want proof! You say alot of things but never give any proofs.

By the way madcow, what do you mean by random, has no purpose or has no reason? Because if you'll search carefully you'll find most things have a reason!

The choice is randomly generated, but it is more probable that you will buy something wich you like, than if you would buy something that you don't like.

Then you are saying that there is a chance I might decied buy something I loath and don't want to have? I want proof! You say alot of things but never give any proofs.

I think what he meant is that there's a small chance that the conditions will change, like if you were not to buy your favorite because your friend wanted his favorite, rather than a spontaneous change in someone's tastes.

of course you can also argue that his favorites were randomly generated so he randomly liked something therefore he will choose that favorite item in the future..

by random of course

Then that's not entirely random, because its randomosity is contained within certain parameters (whatever proceeded those actions being the parameters) decided to do before it.) In the end, the feasible choices are narrowed down by so much, that you don't really have any options left. I think our choices are defined only by our previous actions, and since every action is the result of something else, we don't actually have that much choice in matters. :

I want to make one final point before letting this one to rest. You people keeping saying that there are concrete patterns that the universe follows, and you keep using that as a basis to prove my arguement wrong. I've got an analogy that explains these patterns perfectly.
Flip a coin, there's a 50-50 chance that it lands on heads or tail(and there's a miniscule chance that it will land on the side, but that doesn't matter here). If you flip that coin 500 times, there is a possibility, though extremely slim, that the coin will land on heads every single time. If that happens, it might seem like a pattern of landing on heads, but you know that it isn't a pattern because you know that flipping a coin cannot have a pattern, you know that flipping a coin will always have a random outcome. Think of that coin as the universe. Every flip is another event. Now if you flip 5,000,000,000,000,000 coins 500 times(or create that many universes with 500 events in each), your chances of at least one of those coins landing one heads every time is drastically increased. If you have an infinite amount of coins, the chance of at least one coin landing on heads every time is 100%. Our percreption of what is a pattern and what is just a random coincidence could just be determined by another flip of the coin like everything else, that's what I've been trying to tell you. See the correlation here?

I agree with WC.

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Then that's not entirely random, because its randomosity is contained within certain parameters (whatever proceeded those actions being the parameters) decided to do before it.) In the end, the feasible choices are narrowed down by so much, that you don't really have any options left. I think our choices are defined only by our previous actions, and since every action is the result of something else, we don't actually have that much choice in matters.

What do you mean?

If we have the equation XY=B, and one of them is a cosnstant wich from the beginning was randomly generated - and one variable wich is randomly generated each time, then the outcome must be - from it's origin - random. Or am I wrong?

Elon yariv:

By the way madcow, what do you mean by random, has no purpose or has no reason? Because if you'll search carefully you'll find most things have a reason!

Well, if an event is random - then the outcome can't possebly have a purpose?
If someone wanted the outcome to have a purpose (like a god or something) he wouldn't have made it random - wich IMO it is.

What things have a reason?
What do you mean by that?

I want proof! You say alot of things but never give any proofs.

What do you want prove of?
The equation wich I've talked about "XY=B" is just a theory of mine, and therefore lacks experimental prove.
Also, we could never prove such a thing - just have "mind games" about it.

I have little idea what I'm talking about, much like everybody else here. Plus, some of that stuff in my post was messed up/poorly written. So you know, don't ask me what I meant.