Does Free Will Exist?

[DmnStr8]

Everything that can happen will in infinity.

I highly recommend Sam Harris' book 'Freewill' if you are interested in this topic. I believe I have seen a video on youtube lecture by Sam Harris with the same title.

 

[Ulim]

No. Everything is just random. Even when you think its not.

 

[endlessness]

repeating what I said in a thread couple of years back:

As for the free will topic in general....Obviously we don't have 100% free will. The billion-dollar budget of the advertising industry is a good indication of that, and so are the hundreds of social psychology experiments which show how people can be influenced by the circumstances. Want a quick thought experiment to show that we are not 100% free? Think of a 7-dimensional object... You can't, right? Think of a color that doesn't exist and isn't a combination of known colors... You can't either, right? We are limited.

We could go to the other extreme, and say that we don't have any free will at all. And to some extent it is easier to argue for this idea. But why do we have the illusion of free will? From an evolutionary perspective, does it offer any advantage? I can't really think of one, it just seems like it would mess up things more and be a disadvantage... We might as well be robots, would be easier to guarantee our survival without any confusion from making choices to screw things up.

Now, talking from a purely personal perspective, without any grand philosophical argument or scientific proof to back it up, but I feel that free will is not a black and white thing that either you have or you don't. It feels rather like it is some kind of gradient, which is related to inner development. I don't think as humans we will ever reach 100% free will, but I do think the more I develop my consciousness and awareness, the free-er I am. As I develop myself, the more variables I am able to take in account regarding different phenomena due to my expanded awareness, the closer I am to being free.

 

[ETERNAL]

I personally do not believe in free will. I definitely see it as more of an illusion. I believe in a cause and effect universe that unfolds perfectly. I didn't choose my parents nor form the structures of my brain, and I certainly had no power over any of the events that predated this human. All the thoughts and actions that I feel so strongly "belong" to "me" are really just manifestations of nature that took form due to how the structures of this brain-body organism functions (and sets things in motion) in general as well as how it reacts with its environment. I do not believe I am my thoughts or body, but rather they are just appearances of nature/universe that feel/think a certain way and arise due to conditions (cause and effect).

However, I do admit that my view may be biased coming from a Buddhist background. Sooo there could totally be free will, it just doesn't seem like it to me, that's all.

Agreed my friend. We are one. Everything unfolds in perfect and divine order.

 

[muladharma]

Bumping the thread with an article I'd like to hear thoughts on: "Computational irreducibility"

In the article it's stated that it could provide a "resolution for free will"

Most of the article references Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" (2002)
I see it referenced by himself also in podcasts that I know people on the DMT-Nexus watch. I see more and more content from him since he launched "A Project to Find the Fundamental Theory of Physics" (2020)