Is Free Will an illusion?

For free will to exist uncaused actions would have to be possible. It's a simple matter for me. Determinism is the truth because uncaused actions aren't real.
 
LucasWithLidOff is making a good point that all you determinists are ignoring.

If there is no free will and we have no choice in what we believe in, then every theory we believe is right could be entirely wrong and we'd have no choice to believe it otherwise because we have no free will. So all the evidence that points to free will being an illusion would indeed be unverifiable because we do not contain the cognitive ability to decipher what is right or wrong.
 
it is not an illusion, it is a movie about a whale
 
cognition is more or less computational. given a set of stimuli, environmental factors, history, people make very predictable decisions. What we perceive as free will is simply the phenomenological process underlying the computation,
 
For free will to exist uncaused actions would have to be possible. It's a simple matter for me. Determinism is the truth because uncaused actions aren't real.

Erwin Schrodinger:
"Because we know all atoms to perform
all the time a completely disorderly heat motion, which, so to speak, opposes itself to their orderly
behaviour and does not allow the events that happen between a small number of atoms to enrol themselves
according to any recognizable laws. Only in the co-operation of an enormously large number of atoms do
statistical laws begin to operate and control the behaviour of these assemblies with an accuracy increasing
as the number of atoms involved increases. It is in that way that the events acquire truly orderly features.
All the physical and chemical laws that are known to play an important part in the life of organisms are of
this statistical kind; any other kind of lawfulness and orderliness that one might think of is
being perpetually disturbed and made inoperative by the unceasing heat motion of the atoms."

Quantum mechanics defies determinism. Determinism is merely an illusion of the spontanious random events that happen at the atomic and subatomic levels.

PArticles can appear without reason and electron can change spin without reason.
 
LucasWithLidOff is making a good point that all you determinists are ignoring.

If there is no free will and we have no choice in what we believe in, then every theory we believe is right could be entirely wrong and we'd have no choice to believe it otherwise because we have no free will. So all the evidence that points to free will being an illusion would indeed be unverifiable because we do not contain the cognitive ability to decipher what is right or wrong.

Who says we're ignoring it? It doesn't really invalidate the argument so much as bring up some interesting implications.
 
It makes the debate futile

Wouldn't be the first of its kind lol

Negating free will isn't as devastating as people seem to think. You still need to do what you have to to get where you're going.

Actually Alvin Plantinga uses a similar argument for God in his latest book. I don't think the general perception is that he made a very strong case though.
 
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LucasWithLidOff is making a good point that all you determinists are ignoring.

If there is no free will and we have no choice in what we believe in, then every theory we believe is right could be entirely wrong and we'd have no choice to believe it otherwise because we have no free will. So all the evidence that points to free will being an illusion would indeed be unverifiable because we do not contain the cognitive ability to decipher what is right or wrong.
That sounds so weird, I'm not even sure what you're trying to say.

Old theories are discarded and new ones created all the time due to receiving new information. We change our minds constantly. Doesn't mean we have free will. It's just us reacting to the environment.
 
That sounds so weird, I'm not even sure what you're trying to say.

Old theories are discarded and new ones created all the time due to receiving new information. We change our minds constantly. Doesn't mean we have free will. It's just us reacting to the environment.

It means we are incapable of knowing whether information is true or not. If we have no choice in what we accept to be true, then even false things can be accepted as true without being able to realize it. Logical deduction and reasoning are non existent since you need to be in control of what you are reasoning to come to a real conclusion.
 
It means we are incapable of knowing whether information is true or not. If we have no choice in what we accept to be true, then even false things can be accepted as true without being able to realize it. Logical deduction and reasoning are non existent since you need to be in control of what you are reasoning to come to a real conclusion.

How do you figure? It still seems to me like I'm choosing one theory over the other. Moreover, one theory might even be more true than the other.

All we're saying is that the factors that led to the choosing of that option were set from the beginning. I'm still making the "choice" (insofar as that can be said) for the same reason, my judgement and inferences remain the same, but the entire circumstance was created by contingent factors that were ultimately not under my control.
 
How do you figure? It still seems to me like I'm choosing one theory over the other. Moreover, one theory might even be more true than the other.

All we're saying is that the factors that led to the choosing of that option were set from the beginning. I'm still making the "choice" (insofar as that can be said) for the same reason, my judgement and inferences remain the same, but the entire circumstance was created by contingent factors that were ultimately not under my control.

If you have no control over your thoughts then how do you know that "truth" is not an illusion.

To say free will is an illusion is to say consciousness is an illusion. Thus the conscious reasoning that makes you believe something is merely an illusion as well.

So if one cannot reason, then how can one say that they logically arrive to the truth.
 
It doesnt exist entirely. There is some sort of freedom of will, but we exist in the world and understand ourselves in how we interact with it.
 
If you have no control over your thoughts then how do you know that "truth" is not an illusion.

To say free will is an illusion is to say consciousness is an illusion.

Thus the conscious reasoning that makes you believe something is merely an illusion as well.

So if one cannot reason, then how can one say that they logically arrive to the truth.

You're writing as if by taking away free will we're disestablishing some inherent function of the mind. Negating free will isn't that exciting. It's simply the acknowledgement that my beliefs, desires, self, environment are all contingent factors, produced by a system in which I'm merely a self-aware cog in the machine. It's unavoidable.

I still make the same decisions (again, so far as that can be said). I still have the same desires and motivations, and I still act on those desires and motivations. I can still reason and feel and participate in all of the activities we associate with consciousness. I just don't get to choose my course of action to the extent that it feels like I do.
 
If we had free will there wouldn't be toilets. Do people like taking shits? No. People HAVE to take shits. Therefore your life is, in some way, constrained by shitting. Don't shit, you'll explode.

Free will is just an illusion, you'll all continue to worship your porcelain gods like the little shitters you are.
 
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