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Question 70

As an atheist, what is your opinion of the concept 'free will'?

• The absence of a predetermined future from which I cannot deviate. (Fritz #838)

• It's a crock of shit. Meaningless aside from the concept of it being used in philosophical debate and religious dogma. My re-definition of free will: "Shit Happens." (Elroy Willis)

• As an atheist, I have no opinion of the concept of "free will" that has anything to do with atheism. As a humanist, I tend to doubt that "free will" actually exists (if by that one means absolute personal autonomy), although I tend to act as though it does in my personal life. (George Ricker #146)

• I'm not sure that I have "free will", but if I do, I freely choose to act as though I do have free will. If I don't, it doesn't matter. (Liz Huth #658)

• Whether free will exists or not is largely irrelevant; people are people and act as they do regardless. The concept is really only useful in a philosophical setting, and then only when morality is under discussion. Says I, anyway. (The Deadly Nightshade #119)

• "Free will is the ability to, when given a choice between black and white, choose red." C. Adam Scott (AKA Wingedbeast)

  Free will is more than the ability to choose between the choices presented, but also to find, and choose, the choices not presented. Free will is the ability to think beyond what you have been told it is possible to think.

  When two men, or gods, come up to you and say, "You can be a slave to one of us or the other," free will is the ability to choose to be slave to neither. (wingedbeast #273)

• Basically chaos. There are so many different influences in our life, and so many neuronic connections, and so much randomness in our bodies, brains, and environments, that our actions and thoughts are even less predictable than the weather. (Scott Davidson #1045)

• The ability to choose ones own path in life and the lack of predestination. (Chani #1118)

• Oh no, not again! I never get tired of putting forth my thoughts on this though, since for some reason I still haven't converted everyone in the world to my views on it.

  I'll assume that by "free will" one means some property of the human brain that is independent of both the laws of physics and of randomness. Another definition might admit of "free will", but it seems to me it would be a trivial usage of the term.

  Given that definition, what can free will possibly be? You can't make any action that is both independent of influence and independent of randomness. There simply is nothing else. Even if one were to presume new factors active only in the brain, one still couldn't escape the fact that one's actions must depend on those factors and randomness, Thus I don't feel the concept of "free will" even makes sense. (Rumplestiltskin)

• I recently read a post from Mark Richardson that impressed me greatly, and I quote:

  "In short "cause" is a mental construct derived from the way humans view the world and not a necessary "entity". Use it when its useful, abandon it when and where it no longer applies."

  I feel that free will is an illusion of our mental process that is a useful explanation for much of what we do on a superficial (read that as over simplified to the point of being wrong without being useless) in much the same way Mark speaks of "cause" as a useful construct without actually being a true requirement of reality.

  If and when we develop examples of artificial intelligence that rival or superceed our own, we will be in a much better position to see how this is so.

  If free will is truly free, what is it free of or from? Physics? hemistry? Time? Logic? Reason? Biology? The only thing I am sure it is free of is influence by deities. (John Popelish #159)