Is True Free Will Possible,or Are We Always Influenced by External Factors?

[Dude111]

Whadda ya think dues??

I have been thinking a lot about the concept of free will and wheather it truly exists.

Every decision we make seems to be influenced by our upbringing,environment,biology and even subconscious biases. (Ah man!!)

Can we ever make a completely independent choice,or are all our actions the result of prior causes?

What do philosophical perspectives like determinism,compatibilism or existentialism say about this?

[RichardCoulter]

A very interesting question.

We have much less free will than we think we do, not only because of the things that you mention, but even our own body sometimes manipulates us or overrides our conscious decisions.

You might be enjoying a film, but your body decides it's time to go to the toilet, whether you feel like using it or not.

If you decide to stop breathing this only works for a short time and then your body will take over and try to manipulate you to start again with unpleasant physical & mental feelings. If this doesn't work, your lungs start to involuntary breath (I assume it's the brain ordering the diaphragm to start, whether you want it to or not).

[Dude111]

Ya I dont know if we have it or not..... If Phychics can sense stuff,doesnt it mean everything is already written and we are just pawns moving thru time??

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Dude111

Ya I dont know if we have it or not..... If Phychics can sense stuff,doesnt it mean everything is already written and we are just pawns moving thru time??

Spiritualists believe that time doesn't exist and that it's a man made construct that we use to organise our lives.

Spirits from the spirit world constantly say that linear time doesn't exist and that everything happens all at once, but that's something I can't grasp as a concept. Probably because I, along with everyone else living on this physical plane of existence at this point in time, has been taught that everything has a beginning, a middle and an end.

It will all become clear when we pass to spirit I think.

[tweetiepooh]

This question has been thrashed around in theology within a certain framework for millennia : https://www.christianity.org.uk/arti...-and-free-will

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by tweetiepooh

This question has been thrashed around in theology within a certain framework for millennia : https://www.christianity.org.uk/arti...-and-free-will

What a load of rubbish , so much easier to blame something which we can't control

[Jaymoss]

We are all programmed by our culture like it or not.

---------- Post added at 16:10 ---------- Previous post was at 16:07 ----------

Originally Posted by Itshim

What a load of rubbish , so much easier to blame something which we can't control

We can not control who we are born to or where we are born and grow up and these are all the things that shape us as children. We choose our own path later on but none of us choose our foundation

My mother abused me and that has damaged me all my life. Her death on Good Friday is the first time I have felt free from her influence and she still got in on her funeral day with her family. I just walked away. It took 55 years and her dying to end that control over parts of my psychology

[Dude111]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

We are all programmed by our culture like it or not.

Very true Jay!!


We are lied to EVERYDAY and its important not to let our minds be filled with crap that makes us live like others wanting us living!

Its not easy and most cant do it sadly...........

[tweetiepooh]

Originally Posted by Itshim

What a load of rubbish , so much easier to blame something which we can't control

What is rubbish, predestination or the fact that it has been debated? It is the latter I wished to hightlight, though even in predestination the individual is responsible for their own actions. The thinking gets very convoluted and the focus is around soteriology more than simple daily choices. But it does fit in-line with the overall topic.
Then, I guess, the question becomes do we have total free will to make any choices we wish, do we have free will to choose between a more limited number of options, are any choices we make real or just an illusion (like a magician's force) or are we so controlled that we don't have any real options at all that really matter. I would also suggest that the question is more than smaller choices we make like what to have from a menu (obvious limited options) or what colour shirt to wear today.
If we are always influenced/controlled by external factors what/who are they? Do we have a choice about which external factor we pay attention to or is even that an illusion?

[SnoopZ]

Originally Posted by Dude111

Very true Jay!!


We are lied to EVERYDAY and its important not to let our minds be filled with crap that makes us live like others wanting us living!

Its not easy and most cant do it sadly...........

Dude111 really? It's not related to this topic but I guess that statement didn't work for you with the amount of crap you often post on here because you're extremely gullible. lol.

[Dude111]

Hehe can ya give me an examply Snoop??

[SnoopZ]

Originally Posted by Dude111

Hehe can ya give me an examply Snoop??

Your conspiracy theory posts over the years and computer related posts saying your system is safe here, there are too many to post.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by SnoopZ

Your conspiracy theory posts over the years and computer related posts saying your system is safe here, there are too many to post.

So it should be easy to be able find one or two examples then, surely?

I find Dude111's posts to be some of the most interesting and thought provoking on this forum. Even if I didn't share his opinion or views on a particular subject, this would still be the case.

[Dude111]

Thank you for such kind words

[idi banashapan]

whether true free will actually exists, or if everything we do is just the result of prior causes, I'm not entirely convinced we will ever have a definitive answer. When you really dig into it, it's hard to find any decision that isn’t influenced in some way by our upbringing, environment, biology or even unconscoius bias. The more I study human behaviour and influence, the more it seems that our 'choices' are often shaped long before we;re consciously aware of them (see experiments by Ramachandren et al. within the nueroscience arena on predicting 'free will' - very interesting!).

That said, I’ve come to think that it’s not about being free from influence (that’s probably impossible) but about becoming aware of the influences acting on us. From that point, we can start to reclaim a degree of control. This fits with the philosophical view of 'compatibilism', the idea that free will can exist even within a deterministic system, as long as the decisions come from our internal processes and not external coercion (admittedly, I do not knwo much about this, so I'm not going to be able to give deeper detail). However, my understanding is maybe we’re not free in a cosmic(?) sense, but we can still act in line with who we believe we are.

Existentialism takes a different approach and says we’re radically free whether we like it or not, even not choosing is still a choice. I think there;s something powerful in that idea. It puts the responsibility back on us, which is uncomfortable but also quite freeing. It suggests that even if we've been shaped by life, we’re not permanently bound by it.

From a practical standpoint, especially with what we know from behavioural psychology and persuasion science (e.g. Cialdini, Skinner, Pavlov, Hughes, Voss, Ekman, Morris and Carnegie to name a very few I have read and studied the works of over the years, either as part of my Psychology, behavioural or body langage qualifications, or just for my own interests), it’s clear people are being nudged and influenced all the time often without realising. But the more we study those influences, the more conscious we become of them, and in that awareness is where real agency starts to appear. So maybe true free will isn’t binary, it’s something we can increase with awareness, intention and reflection.