Free Will, or is it?

Americans have a huge love for free will. We like the idea that everyone is responsible for their own destiny.

Here is my question:

If you input the same set of circumstances into your thinker, are you equally capable of outputting decision A as you are decision B?

If Yes, Is your thinker really that important? Couldn’t you just as well flip a coin? Seems like a silly thing to hold up as a sacramental blessing. It if free, but it seems like you can hardly call it a will.

If No, Is your will really free? If you will always choose what you would choose, all else being the same, perhaps you are not free at all, but rather enslaved to your will. Really it is your perception of circumstances that is what controls your life, and the Will is a rather irrelevant funnel that the circumstances flow through.

What do you think?

Update — Some folks say this isn’t clear enough. I am an IT guy. I think this way:

INPUT —> System —-> OUTPUT

The thinker is the system. What the Inputs and outputs are is rather irrelevant.. The point is how firm is the system about correlating the two.

January 17, 2011 · Filed under Uncategorized

  • Monica

    I THINK I know what you’re trying to ask??? I guess I would say that the difference is that human responses are not linear computations, but an integration of MANY variables, internal and external (see, you’re an IT guy so you think computers, and I’m a PT, so I think neural pathways). Part of the “thinker’s” job is INHIBITION — our muscles will continually contract without higher neural inputs (that’s why people with brain injuries are so tight!), we may want to impulsively blurt something out, but our brain INHIBITS these impulses… sometimes. And sometimes not. Even when circumstances are exactly the same. Circumstance A might lead to Decision A on one occasion, or Decision B on another, based on the state of your mood or psyche (openness of your heart, lack of inhibition) at that particular moment. In which case, it’s not necessarily your brain making the decision, but your HEART responding. Free will is not simply reason. It’s a decision to act, or respond – at least that’s my interpretation. And ultimately we have responsibility for that action or response – right or wrong. But for every RIGHT response, we have a whole lot of help along the way ;)

  • http://www.fingertoe.com/blog Josh Reighley

    Another way of putting it — If I could make 100 copies of my self and put it in the same exact situation would I choose the same every time?

    Yes, it is impossible to do a controlled study on this — But there is still an answer..

  • Monica

    Making a choice, even if it’s the SAME choice, over and over again, is still a choice, isn’t it? You will choose what you will because you’ve integrated all the variables? Each individual instance is a free-will choice, even if it’s the same. Like when you roll a dice – EACH time you roll the dice you still have a 1 in 6 chance that you’re going to come up with a certain number. Each time there’s that “free will” choice or chance, so to speak. That’s if you’re speaking only rationally. Because there’s alwas the case of impulsivity. Sometimes people may do something one time that they would NEVER do again, simply because they lacked the inhibition at the time to control the impulse. Good or bad. And afterwards they say “I have no IDEA why I just did that… ” . Because sometimes reason and the brain are not involved in our decisions. But regardless if we’re making a rational, thought-out decision or an impulsive “just do it” one…. the RESPONSIBILITY for even that tiny little inkling… is ours. I don’t think that’s just an American individualist thing. I think that’s human nature, if you go back to ancient writings and catch a glimpse of the human psyche from back then. Because we were CREATED that way by a God that knows that Love is not Love if it is compelled, and He wants us to Love HIM. Not that he won’t help us along the way to respond to Him, or lead us in the right direction. Or call each of us to Him by name, or cause a transformation within us to be more like Him as we respond. Not that He doesn’t work INSIDE us. But that one.little.bit…. that one acceptance of the free gift He gives us….taking it from Him.. that is our “part”. The initial response. The hearing and acting in response. And whether that be because of a thought-out, rational process, or an impulsive, emotional “oh NOW I get it” when your guard is down for a SECOND – it is what it is.

  • http://www.fingertoe.com/blog Josh Reighley

    I asked this same question to Mark, the computer programmer across the hall. Here is his answer, which I found insightful:

    “The human will is not a solid state system. Everytime it recieves an input it modifies the system”

    I don’t think his words totally solve this riddle – but it is pretty good insight.

    Of course the whole point of this is that we take ourselves way to seriously with whatever answer we have for the riddle. We are either rigid pipes and the outcome is going to be the same or we are like a plinko board, and our decisions can be here or there..

    Either process trades off freedom or certainty, diminishing the accuracy of the phrase “Free Will”

    As far as the C/A debate goes I tend to like Mark’s answer. (Although I doubt Mark has a strong opinion on soteriology) The bible says that God gives us a new heart. Inputs change the system. The system (our will) chooses what the system will choose. God has plenty of power to input what he needs to input to change the baseline of the system so that it will see the light.

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