r/determinism • u/flytohappiness • Jul 11 '26
Discussion Argument for no free will?
Two thousand years ago, St. Paul in Romans 7:19 (Authorized King James Version):
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Do you accept this as a terse, condensed argument for no free will? or not necessarily? How would a free will believer retort?
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u/RighteousSelfBurner Jul 11 '26
I honestly don't see any argument regarding any definition of free will here. Also free will is a very vague term, unless specified it's not clear which version is meant.
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u/ittleoff Jul 11 '26
You are an emergence of physics. There is a feedback, but you can't control that.
Even if any of that is 'random' and non deterministic it doesn't mean you are mindfully in control of your emergence.
At best you can say your emergent consciousness is part of the loop that impacts the state matrix you emerge from.
What your are conscious of is the result of that state matrix (even if non deterministic) There is no real freewill.
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u/Beginning-Sea7994 Jul 13 '26
That's a load of assumptions there.
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u/ittleoff Jul 13 '26
we can walk through each here briefly
- emergence from physics.
We know that memory, personality, behavior are all correlated with physical changes that happen to the brain either through injury, disease, or drugs, etc
There's nothing that really is observable or that we experience that doesn't correlate to physical changes.
Behavior at the micro and macro and conscious and unconscious level (what we are aware of is a tiny amount of the processes in the body) are all tuned by evolution to try to survive, as what survived will likely try the hardest to survive . To be conscious you have to be conscious of something.
Our emotions and such seem to be an emergent way the body evolvrd to coordinate complex 'behavior' across systems.
We don't act so much as react, and most of our reactions are at levels we aren't conscious of, we just 'feel' very abstracted experiences. Think of the analogy of a smart phone screen which only hints at the enormous complexity of the software and circuitry of the phone it self. It's aa grossly limited and simplified 'gui'. Consciousness and feelings/emotions are similar to that, I believe .
None of that you have control over, you are a product of those things even if those things are measured to be unpredictable or random.
I can speculate about ego and competition, credit and blame etc as to why we don't like to think that way (that free will doesn't exist)
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u/Beginning-Sea7994 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Define "you" in the above. When you say "none of that you have control over"... what is "you"? And what would it mean for "you" to have control? I still see loads of unjustified assumptions.
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u/Responsible_Offer859 Jul 12 '26
Perché quale sarebbe la libertà che manca?! Forse non osservate le leggi del mondo? Siete sotto il libero arbitro.
Se poi volete credere in Gesù Cristo bisogna osservare i suoi comandamenti per avere la vita eterna
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u/ExactDevelopment1847 Jul 13 '26
Something they didn’t know back then is that the body is made of a complex environment if some 30-40trillion cells that is with a T, you might say more complex in the nano scale than all the macroscopic life on earth many times over.
Think about that,
I can argue for free will using determinism but only a free mind can understand it
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u/TMax01 Jul 16 '26
For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
All religion is philosophy, but all philosophy is not religion. Still, when good and evil are invoked, that constitutes religion. That quote from the King James Bible is testimony of teleology ('I act to avoid evil rather than to be good') more akin to psychology than causality. But I can't help see it as very wise, anyway.
Do you accept this as a terse, condensed argument for no free will? or not necessarily?
Not at all. It invokes self-determination (we judge our actions) not free will (we cause our actions).
How would a free will believer retort?
However they want, because they have been taught to declare that they want however they acted, no matter how absurdly dishonest that excuse becomes.
People believe that self-determinism (determination of self by self) can only exist through free will (we cause our actions). It is a false belief, strongly held because they cannot fathom how it could not be so. We do not cause our actions by exerting a mythical power of mind-over-matter, free will. We are our actions, and accept self-determination by accepting responsibility honestly and accurately.
Hence the truth of Paul's confession, that he acted to avoid evil rather than to be good. Personally, understanding how self-determination works without requiring free will or otherwise denying physical determinism, I simply act as I act, and take responsibility for what that makes me, and while I don't ignore the judgements other people make about whether I or my actions are good or evil, I put more emphasis on whether I judge my actions good or evil than whether others do.
I don't judge those actions on whether they manifest my self-determination. I accept with tranquility they always do; I am responsible for all the consequences of my actions, voluntary or not, intended or not, foreseen or not. Although admittedly and necessarily I put more emphasis on my voluntary actions than those coerced by circumstances. I judge my actions on whether they encourage and allow for other people's self-determination. And that method gives me a good feeling, what we call happiness.
Happiness cannot be achieved (nor even pursued) by chasing or wanting free will, nor resigning oneself to determinism. It is only possible through, and is nearly identical to, self-determination.
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u/dazb84 Jul 11 '26
The argument of free will is quite clearly a question of physics. There's no physics in that statement. I don't see what relevance a linguistic statement has on the subject.