Proof of nonexistence of free will

[fhansen]

The individuator in humans is the rational soul; which is distinct formally from our mind or body; and in truth what our haecceity is - what we are per se; and as an element of our rational soul is the disposition to inclinations that composite the will we are thus.

Would this be true, to the extent that, without a mind, we could still be whoever we essentially are?

 

[JohnDamian]

Would this be true, to the extent that, without a mind, we could still be whoever we essentially are?

Our mind is a part of us; but it is not exactly who we are. Think of it this way, all people need lungs; but our lungs don’t make us who we are; likewise our minds don’t make us individuals. It is our souls that are the individuating thing in people; not their physical bodies or minds (which are still nessecary).

 

[JM3]

Intellect and reason are part of the equation but if they are to have an influence on your free choice they must translate into your desires or intentions, which then influence the choice. I don’t think there is a significant difference between desire and intention because both are motives that influence your choice.
Then of course there may be other variables, besides desires and intentions, that determine your choice but they don’t make the choice any more free - they are the unintentional contribution to your choice.

My intention is to be with God. My physical desire is for the physical things. My spiritual desire is for peace in my being. My intellect tells me there can be a balance. My reason tells me that one must control, or guide, the other. Free will gives various values to each, so a decision can be made.

Yes, desire and intention are both ‘motives that influence your choice’, but they are not the same motive.

 

[glowingembers]

My intention is to be with God. My physical desire is for the physical things. My spiritual desire is for peace in my being. My intellect tells me there can be a balance. My reason tells me that one must control, or guide, the other. Free will gives various values to each, so a decision can be made.

And why would free will give a certain value to something? Again, because of desires, reasons, intentions. So the value follows from the set of desires, reasons or intentions that are available to you in the situation.

 

[JM3]

And why would free will give a certain value to something? Again, because of desires, reasons, intentions. So the value follows from the set of desires, reasons or intentions that are available to you in the situation.

If you and I had the same desires, intention, knowledge and reason, it does not follow that we would make the same decision. Thus, free will is proven.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

1. If X is my free choice, it must be determined by my desire (intention) Y.
   NOTE: this is a necessary condition for a free choice, because if my choice is not determined by my desire (intention) then it happens without my desire (intention) and so is unintentional.
2. If I don’t choose my desire Y freely, then my choice X is determined by something I didn’t choose freely and hence X is not my free choice.
3. If I choose my desire Y freely, then it must be determined by my desire Y2 (according to point no. 1).
4. If I don’t choose my desire Y2 freely, then my choice Y and consequently X is determined by something I didn’t choose freely and hence X is not my free choice.
5. If I choose my desire Y2 freely, then it must be determined by my desire Y3 (according to point no. 1). And so on. It’s an infinite regress or there is a first desire that is not determined by another desire and is therefore not freely chosen. Hence, my choice X is never free.

Then why do you expect a freely thought out reply? Who are you talking to exactly? Or is it you that is talking?

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Forget

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Every choice is determined by our desires or is not determined by our desires. The first case leads to determination by something we never desired (as I showed in OP) and the second case lacks intentionality. Neither case seems to support belief in free will.

To be honest I am not sure what you mean by freewill. Freewill is most evident to us when considering moral choices; which is not surprising if that’s why we were given freewill in the first place. Perhaps all of our choices are motivated by some kind of desire, but there are different levels of desire, and we have the freedom to choose that which is the the most appropriate to actualise. We have the freewill to choose between selfish actions and loving action. If we were determined by our desires we could not not consciously choose between desires; we would have no conciousness of choosing because we would have no concept of freewill. If you have never experienced freedom how can you build such a concept. It cannot come out of nothing. Neither can one think that his or her will is restricted without having some experiential knowledge of freewill.The ability to choose between the moral good and selfish passions; that is what true freewill is about. I don’t know what you mean when you speak of freewill and perhaps we don’t have the kind of freewill that you are talking about. But, so what?

 

[glowingembers]

If you and I had the same desires, intention, knowledge and reason, it does not follow that we would make the same decision. Thus, free will is proven.

No, the difference in our decisions, if any, would be unintentional. And that has nothing to do with free will.

 

[glowingembers]

To be honest I am not sure what you mean by freewill.

I mean what people usually mean by it - the ability to ultimately control your action (and hence be ultimately responsible for it). If your action is the result of something over which you have no control, then you have no control over your action either. And if your action is unintentional, then you have no control over it either. What I show in my OP is that your action is ultimately the result of something over which you have no control, or is unintentional.

The fact that we feel we have free will (ultimate control over our actions) doesn’t mean that we really have it. It is just a feeling, an illusion that crumbles under logical examination.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

I mean what people usually mean by it - the ability to ultimately control your action (and hence be ultimately responsible for it). If your action is the result of something over which you have no control, then you have no control over your action either. And if your action is unintentional, then you have no control over it either. What I show in my OP is that your action is ultimately the result of something over which you have no control, or is unintentional.

I don’t know what you mean by freewill. It is evident to all of us that having a desire to do something does not mean that you must do it. You have provided no evidence to support your position. What do you mean when you say that our actions are “determined” by our desires? We have many desires, and we can choose between them. The evidence falls in favour of freewill by the mere experience of it in ourselves. There is no justified reason to doubt it; and if we didn’t have freewill we would not have the freewill to doubt it or not doubt it. Thus i don’t quite see where you are going with this, accept down the road of extreme unjustified scepticism.

The fact that we feel we have free will

According to your argument, we have never experienced freewill. So what sense does it make to say that we “think” that we have freewill. Somebody who has never seen anything but darkness, is not going to have an illusion of seeing the sun and the moon and trees. And who exactly is doing the thinking in your little scenario? According to you nothing we do is a free act of the intellect but is just a chemical reaction, thus i fail to see the rationality of expecting anybody to be convinced by you argument accept those who are chemically primed to agree with you. The fact that you are typing nonsense on this forum is just a chemical reaction according to your theory.

Either way you have given no evidence to support you position except to misrepresent what freewill is about.
.

 

[glowingembers]

What do you mean when you say that our actions are “determined” by our desires?

It means that our actions are the result of our desires, that our desires cause our actions. If you desire to kick a ball into a goal and yet you kick the ball off the goal then kicking the ball off the goal is not determined by your desire (because you desired something else) and it can’t be said that you freely chose to kick the ball off the goal. You wanted (intended) to kick the ball into the goal but for some reason which was out of your control the ball didn’t get into the goal - kicking it off the goal was unintentional. On the other hand, if you kick the ball into the goal then kicking the ball into the goal is determined by your desire (and perhaps by some luck or skill) and it can be said that you freely chose it. The point is that you can say that you freely chose an action only if it is determined by your desire; otherwise the action is unintentional.

We have many desires, and we can choose between them.

But if you choose between them intentionally (which is a necessary condition for a free choice) then this choice itself must be the result of some desire.

and if we didn’t have freewill we would not have the freewill to doubt it or not doubt it.

I don’t need free will to doubt free will, because my doubts are caused by my awareness that free will is impossible.

Somebody who has never seen anything but darkness, is not going to have an illusion of seeing the sun and the moon and trees.

Why not? Someone may simply present him with a fake sun.

And who exactly is doing the thinking in your little scenario? According to you nothing we do is a free act of the intellect but is just a chemical reaction,

Maybe it’s just a chemical reaction and maybe it’s also some other process. And we are just observers who are so viscerally immersed in this process that we falsely believe we can control it.

 

[abucs]

But why would we choose to favor certain desires over others? Again, because of “A” desire (then our choice follows from “THIS” desire) or not because of “A” desire (then our choice is unintentional).

Your reasoning is limited to discussing single desires, not a choice among many pre-existing desires which was my original definition.

To answer your question from my original definitions -

We choose to favour certain desires over others because of our free will.

The definition of our free will is a choice BETWEEN desires, awareness and knowledge.

If you are defining free will as nothing more than the compulsory action of THE greatest desire then you are defining away free will before we begin.

If we start off with a definition that disallows free will then no matter how we reason, we are always going to end up with a position that disallows free will.

We are not compelled to act because of ONE single desire. We choose to act amongst MANY pre existing desires BECAUSE of our free will.

 

[LogisticsBranch]

The fact that we feel we have free will (ultimate control over our actions) doesn’t mean that we really have it. It is just a feeling, an illusion that crumbles under logical examination.

Free will was discussed in an interview with scientist Francis Collins and John Horgan. I agree with Francis Collins.

Horgan: Free will is a very important concept to me, as it is to you. It’s the basis for our morality and search for meaning. Don’t you worry that science in general and genetics in particular—and your work as head of the Genome Project—are undermining belief in free will?

Collins: You’re talking about genetic determinism, which implies that we are helpless marionettes being controlled by strings made of double helices. That is so far away from what we know scientifically! Heredity does have an influence not only over medical risks but also over certain behaviors and personality traits. But look at identical twins, who have exactly the same DNA but often don’t behave alike or think alike. They show the importance of learning and experience—and free will. I think we all, whether we are religious or not, recognize that free will is a reality. There are some fringe elements that say, “No, it’s all an illusion, we’re just pawns in some computer model.” But I don’t think that carries you very far.
ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0702/voices.html

 

[LilyM]

Ok, so basically you say that will acts based on intellect but not solely based on intellect. I say that, to the extent that will does not act based on intellect (desires, intentions), the will is blind/unintentional, and so is the action that is determined by it. So our actions are determined by a combination of a basically blind, unintentional will and our intellect (desires, intentions). They are in general determined partly unintentionally and partly intentionally. But does this describe what we imagine as free will? The unintentional part hardly so, and the intentional part leads us to the causal influence of our desires and intentions, which are ultimately determined by something we neither desired nor intended.

Not always.

Case in point. If I touch my hand to a burning hot pan, it will instinctively jerk itself back off that hot object before the fact that it’s hot even registers to my intellect.

Is that act of my hand blind or unwilled? No way. That act of my hand is the result of my will to protect myself from further harm by further burning. But in this case the body bypasses the conscious intellect in order to do so more efficiently (since it takes a shorter time for pain receptors to send signals directly to the muscles of the hand than to go via the brain and then back out to the hand.)

So the act of the hand, although not consciously willed, certainly isn’t blind in any fashion.

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

When counsels, exhortations etc. are associated with a man’s desires, then they can motivate him through his desires. So this is just another case when a man is motivated by his desires.

On the contrary, Gregory of Nyssa [Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. xvi.] says: “That which obeys reason is twofold, the concupiscible and the irascible,” which belong to the sensitive appetite. Therefore the act of the sensitive appetite is subject to the command of reason.

Appetite is another word for desire. Concupiscible Appetites: Simple inclination with respect to sensible object. Irascible appetites: Inclination in virtue of an arduous object.

Summa.1-2. q 6, a 7

… consequently what is done by the will, cannot be compelled. Therefore the will cannot be compelled to act.

This is the part that is erroneous based on Aquinas:

1. If X is my free choice, it must be determined by my desire (intention) Y.
   NOTE: this is a necessary condition for a free choice, because if my choice is not determined by my desire (intention) then it happens without my desire (intention) and so is unintentional.

The choices are deliberated by desire prior to reason and the intellect then wills the choice based on reason. If one has a compulsion then the reason may be abandoned but this is in no way considered apart from a free act. Today people may give in to their desires but they could, with knowledge, (and often do later after learning the consequences), make a better choice. They are both free even if not totally informed.

 

[grannymh]

1. If X is my free choice, it must be determined by my desire (intention) Y.
   NOTE: this is a necessary condition for a free choice, because if my choice is not determined by my desire (intention) then it happens without my desire (intention) and so is unintentional.
2. If I don’t choose my desire Y freely, then my choice X is determined by something I didn’t choose freely and hence X is not my free choice.
3. If I choose my desire Y freely, then it must be determined by my desire Y2 (according to point no. 1).
4. If I don’t choose my desire Y2 freely, then my choice Y and consequently X is determined by something I didn’t choose freely and hence X is not my free choice.
5. If I choose my desire Y2 freely, then it must be determined by my desire Y3 (according to point no. 1). And so on. It’s an infinite regress or there is a first desire that is not determined by another desire and is therefore not freely chosen. Hence, my choice X is never free.

Somehow there is confusion between choice, reason, intellect, desire, action, non-action, emotions, subjective reasoning, etc., etc.

Choice is a decision which comes from the rational intellect. Desires come from the emotions or are emotional themselves. Desire usually has an object. One can chose to go to bed and act on that decision because being tired one desires sleep. Basic survival instincts and habits can result in automatic actions.

If X is one’s free choice, that choice is made in the intellect which is a faculty or power of the soul. The soul does not depend on an infinite regress of desires.

 

[Matthew_E]

The working of the human brain are indeed an interesting and debatable topic. I’ve witness victims of physical trauma have their thought process, perception of right/wrong, goals, dreams etc. changed in that instance of trauma. This witnessing has made me lean somewhat toward the notion that freewill does not exist, and that the human bring performs eerily like a computer program.

lifeinchrist-newsletter.com

 

[grannymh]

The working of the human brain are indeed an interesting and debatable topic. I’ve witness victims of physical trauma have their thought process, perception of right/wrong, goals, dreams etc. changed in that instance of trauma. This witnessing has made me lean somewhat toward the notion that freewill does not exist, and that the human bring performs eerily like a computer program.

lifeinchrist-newsletter.com

Free will and intellect continue to exist as they are faculties of the soul. Human nature is a profound, unique unification of the rational/corporeal, spiritual soul/material anatomy. Because of this unique unification, the intellect and will are expressed via the brain. Physical trauma prevents the brain from responding as it should. The ability is there, but lightening hit the keyboard.

 

[glowingembers]

Your reasoning is limited to discussing single desires, not a choice among many pre-existing desires which was my original definition.

To answer your question from my original definitions -

We choose to favour certain desires over others because of our free will.

The free choice should be intentional though, which means it must follow from an intention (desire). So if you make a free choice between desires, like any free choice, this choice itself must follow from a desire. Maybe not from a single desire, maybe from a set of desires. When a choice follows from a set of desires it means that all the desires in this set jointly determine the choice. Every desire influences you with a certain power and direction, so the direction given by the strongest desire(s) will prevail.

If we start off with a definition that disallows free will then no matter how we reason, we are always going to end up with a position that disallows free will.

Unfortunately, that’s the consequence of the requirement that a free choice be intentional. Intentionality seems necessary for free will but in the end it ruins free will.