CreateDebate is a social debate community built around ideas, discussion and democracy.
If this is your first time checking out a debate, here are some quick tips to help get you started:
Arguments with the highest score are displayed first.
Argument replies (both in favor and in opposition) are displayed below the original argument.
To follow along, you may find it helpful to show and hide the replies displayed below each argument.
To vote for an argument, use these icons:
You have the power to cast exactly one vote (either up or down) for each argument.
Once you vote, the icon will become grayed out and the argument's score will change.
Yes, you can change your vote.
Debate scores, side scores and tag scores are automatically calculated by an algorithm that primarily takes argument scores into account.
All scores are updated in real-time.
To learn more about the CreateDebate scoring system, check out the FAQ.
When you are ready to voice your opinion, use the Add Argument button to create an argument.
If you would like to address an existing argument, use the Support and Dispute link within that argument to create a new reply.
You can share this debate in three different ways:
#1
#2
#3
Paste this URL into an email or IM:
Click here to send this debate via your default email application.
Click here to login and CreateDebate will send an email for you.
Can We Prove That We Have Free Will? Do we have Free Will?
No. It just doesn't make sense to me that we can prove that we have free will. Yes i can do anything i want and feel that i have free will. But who is to say that im not destined to create these debates or these such words.
Edit.
I feel like this debate is going towards the question: Do we have free will? Which i also approve. So basically from now on, you can answer both questions or you can say what you think.
Yes we have free will on what religon to choose and no one will say anything against it. You have the free will to own your own house and to live off the land and plant your own seeds. You have free will to buy whatever you want in the stores. You have free will to do what is good in this world.
Who says that what we do isn't already pre determined?
We choose religion. And we might change our religion the next day. We view that as free will because it feels like it is free will. However, how do we actually know if what we do is already pre destined or determined.
This debate really is questioning mine your destiny. Or mind destiny. Or other's destiny.
Yes we have free will on what religion to choose and no one will say anything against it.
People say things against the religions people choose constantly. In fact it is one of the things most often "said something against."
You have the free will to own your own house and to live off the land and plant your own seeds.
Not it you can't afford a house, or live on land that won't support crops, or are paralyzed from the neck down.
You have free will to buy whatever you want in the stores.
Again, not if you don't have money.
You have free will to do what is good in this world.
Again, it depends on circumstance.
Only mentioning all of this because I find it fascinating that to prove something deep and philosophical you use such easily disproven material examples.
Of course we have free will. We decide what our actions will be, we determine what comes out of our mouths. As a Christian I believe that God allows us free will. He of course is the creator but stepped back...to allow us to live and to decide our fates.
If you don't think we have free will and are controlled...then obviously you believe in a higher power. And if there is a higher power then most the people here who are atheists would have to answer yes as well.
Someone can create a religion yes, but no one can make you believe it, even under force, if you don't want too. No one can control what you think and feel.
"Of course we have free will. We decide what our actions will be, we determine what comes out of our mouths"
Our actions are pre-determiend by who we are, we do not have free will because in any given situation when confronted with the same set of circumstances we will react to the same external stimuli in exactly the same way based on our biology and psychology.
"He of course is the creator but stepped back...to allow us to live and to decide our fates"
Of course.
"If you don't think we have free will and are controlled...then obviously you believe in a higher power."
If depends on what you mean by higher power, higher power could mean natural forces.
"Someone can create a religion yes, but no one can make you believe it,"
I beg to differ, when young the mind is shaped by the reality with which it is presented.
"No one can control what you think and feel."
Again that simply isn't true, minds are completely accessible, and susceptible to all kinds of manipulation, and these techniques are becoming more powerful and subtly
nuanced as time progresses. The effects regementing the mind and instilling uniformity in the minds of large populations are easily demonstrated.
They are not predetermined....you said so yourself that in different situations we might act differently. LOL
Well can the rain make you put on a raincoat or go inside? Some people like and would choose to walk in the rain. We have free will to decide what we want to do and what we don't.
When a hurricane comes......some people evacuate...some people stay. YOU CHOOSE unless you are forced physically.
I don't drink alcohol. I was in the minority in high school and in college and in my adult life. I did not smoke pot in college. It was all around me. It was my decision. And today....we are a culture of tatoos. I hate them and would never get one. My decision. I dislike the Kardashians....I don't watch them. But some people choose to watch them. We all decide based on our individual wills.
We have infuences in our lives......but ultimately we decide.
"They are not predetermined....you said so yourself that in different situations we might act differently"
Can you not even interpret your own words? -> " in different situations we might act differently"
"We have free will to decide what we want to do and what we don't. "
You don't understand the point i was making.
"YOU CHOOSE unless you are forced physically"
You make a choice determined by the circumstances, and given the exact same set of circumstances you would make an identical choice.
"I was in the minority in high school and in college and in my adult life. I did not smoke pot in college."
Might have loosened you up a little.
" I hate them and would never get one"
I really don't know what you think you're proving here.
"We have infuences in our lives......but ultimately we decide"
Given the same set of circumstances we will make the same chioce everytime, if your life was stuck ion a loop and you were presented with a given set of circumstances you would make the same chioce again, and again, and again, therefore free will at least in the sense of being able to determine ones own actions regardless of the circumstances cannot be true for our actiosn are already pre-determined by the circumstances, now the genesis of the circumstances is a different matter entirely.
I don't like smoke and the smell of cigarettes, pot and cigars makes me literally sick. I did and do not need booze or a substance to make me have a great time. Most the people at parties...did not even know I did not drink. It's to bad most people need something to be able to party.
And about making the same decision over and over again...... I mean really how old are you? I would love to change some of the decisions I made throughout my life.
Don't you believe in learning by your mistakes? Oh thats right......you are Mr. Gary Perfect. LOL
I don't like smoke and the smell of cigarettes, pot and cigars makes me literally sick.
Congratulations. However I believe you have no choice in the matter. I think you are being controlled and could not even if you tried smoke or drink. Prove me wrong.
Your not getting his point, Why is it that you don't smoke, drink etc?
Is it because it makes you sick or because you have a superiority complex? Rather than you "choosing" to not do such.
You decide something based off of a standard, that in the final analysis, you did not choose and thus something outside of yourself is intricately involved in your decision making process; such that it is not reliant on you alone.
I do get his point. And I am answering BY FREE WILL. I AM DECIDING TO REPOND BECAUSE I WANT TOO NOT BECAUSE I AM BEING FORCED. That is what he does not get. I could smoke....but the smell makes me sick.
That was a low blow. I said that I didnt smoke because the smell makes me sick. I still chose to go to the partys where people were doing it. I just did not do it myself. Superiority? What a crappy thing to say. Come on you can do better than that can't you?
I could care less if people smoke...they have a right. I have a right to remove myself from where they are smoking or I can stay. Do you comprehend that skippy?
Free will is an illusion, if you don't use a standard to decide something than you do "decide" randomly, which really isn't a decision. There is a degree of sickness and image your not willing to accept for yourself, that is your standard. Avoiding physical sickness, as well as social stigma is a natural desire shaped into your particular form by your life's social context(s). If you do have free will, you should be completely unpredictable, however what then would distinguish free will from random chaos? You have an identity, free will is only possible for something without restriction; and then it is equivalent to not existing. Since you exist, have an identity, are predictable to a good degree, etc; you must not have free will.
I believe in my god, which is different than the one you believe in.
This is to everybody who reads this.....The question of this debate is not whether or not Free Will exists. But how can we prove it?
Now this is for you.....Proving that we have free will is difficult. I created this debate and to me it seems like i was using my free will. But how do i actually know if im not controlled by a higher being? Like a videogame. We could be videogame characters like the Sims but don't know that we are in a videogame and go on with our daily life thinking we have free will.
I understand what you are saying. I knew i was going to create this debate. However, how do i know if whether or not if it is my destiny to create this debate? How do i know that an external force pre determined my actions in which i think it is free will.
And honestly, if you think this is gibberish nonsense in which only you think it is, then please don't debate. I don't want to read it as it hurts my feelings, get me angry and annoyed. God bless. :)
However, how do i know if whether or not if it is my destiny to create this debate? How do i know that an external force pre determined my actions in which i think it is free will.
You don't know, of course. But the possibility that your actions are predetermined by anything other then yourself has nothing to do with what's relevant to reality, so it might as well be untrue.
And honestly, if you think this is gibberish nonsense in which only you think it is, then please don't debate.
I'm debating for your benefit. I don't intend to stop because you're assuming something about what I think about this.
I don't want to read it as it hurts my feelings, get me angry and annoyed. God bless. :)
Being hurt by irrelevant things makes it easier to cope with the truly horrible things. If you can't brace yourself for the possibility that your ideas are going to be threatened, then you shouldn't be debating.
And for the record, how dare you act like I'm that mean! I was just teasing with the gibberish comment. You're supposed to be able to laugh. Ha ha ha.
You don't know, of course. But the possibility that your actions are predetermined by anything other then yourself has nothing to do with what's relevant to reality, so it might as well be untrue.
It can't be untrue unless proven un true. I understand what you are saying. It is hopeless to answer because what im saying is not sticking to reality. But things that aren't relevant to reality doesn't guareentee it is untrue. That is like saying that facts that don't connect to my reality, to my life, is guareenteed untrue.
The weird part is about your first paragraph is that you are contradicting yourself. You first agree with me and then you disagree...?
And for the record, how dare you act like I'm that mean! I was just teasing with the gibberish comment. You're supposed to be able to laugh. Ha ha ha.
You're being sarcastic right? If not, then what you said about me being hurt is totally hypocritical. But i will lean towards sarcasm because i doubt that even you would show hypocrisy that quickly.
It is hard to tell whether you are joking or not. This is text and text can display any emotion.
Respect can't be a one way lane all the time. We both have to agree to our terms of respect. I can sit here and understand that you can say whatever you want because this is a debate site and honesty is the best policy. And i respect that. But i wish you can at least be careful with some of your words as well. It really doesn't make sense to me. You are right....that i shouldn't be debating at all. But it still doesn't make sense to me to why can you stop using certain words that you know hurt my feelings. It is about respect. And i will show my respect towards you and agree with you that you can use those words. Because like i said, if i can't handle it, then i shouldn't be debating.
And it can't be proven true unless proven true. Asking 'what if' is therefore moot and meaningless to what really matters.
But things that aren't relevant to reality doesn't guareentee it is untrue. That is like saying that facts that don't connect to my reality, to my life, is guareenteed untrue.
Except all facts that are apart of reality trace back to your life. Once again, asking 'what if' is therefore moot. Remember, I said that it might as well be untrue, not that it was untrue.
The point isn't that it's untrue, but that it might as well be untrue because the 'what if' question you're asking has nothing to do with reality and never will.
The weird part is about your first paragraph is that you are contradicting yourself. You first agree with me and then you disagree...?
I agreed that we don't know. I disagree that it matters to ask.
You're being sarcastic right? If not, then what you said about me being hurt is totally hypocritical. But i will lean towards sarcasm because i doubt that even you would show hypocrisy that quickly.
I'm not being sarcastic. What's hypocritical about that? I first talked from the possibility that was I trying hurt you to address your reaction to me, and then I revealed that I wasn't actually trying to in conclusion to my reaction to your reaction. There's nothing hypocritical about that.
But it still doesn't make sense to me to why can you stop using certain words that you know hurt my feelings.
Like I made apparent, I had no idea you were actually being emotionally hurt by a mere debating website... really. That's somewhat preposterous to me. What logic is there that you'd come to debate here but be unable to emotionally handle the intense side of debate? Either you're lying about your feelings being hurt or they aren't being as nearly hurt as you are trying to lead me to believe. You can't possibly be insane and indulgent of things not healthy for your mind.
I still think this is worth asking whether or not it is a part of reality or not. I can't say for sure that it is true or untrue, but i will have to wait and find out.
And im sorry. You aren't hypocritical at all. I used that word out of context a lot. I thought you are were contradicting. You basically told me that it is insanse to get hurt by words if im on this site. But yet, you were hurt at my words. I see that im wrong because my words were directed towards your personality and not your debates as your criticisms were just only to my debates. So i apologize.
I still think this is worth asking whether or not it is a part of reality or not. I can't say for sure that it is true or untrue, but i will have to wait and find out.
And im sorry. You aren't hypocritical at all. I used that word out of context a lot. I thought you are were contradicting. You basically told me that it is insanse to get hurt by words if im on this site. But yet, you were hurt at my words. I see that im wrong because my words were directed towards your personality and not your debates as your criticisms were just only to my debates. So i apologize.
God Bless and Peace.
I have no idea what's going through your mind right now. I really tried to read this, then the other things you said, and now I just find myself unable to follow.
You said that the "what if" question has nothing to do with reality and never will. I still believe you cannot say never but i will agree that what im asking has never been a part of reality before. So who says it will be now?
And in the second part of my recent message, i apologized for calling you a hypocrite. I was wrong. And i have to apologize because if i don't point out my mistakes, i look like the fool.
I'm going to assume you meant 'so who says it will NOT be now'. That would make sense in relation to the rest of that paragraph.
And my answer is that nobody says it won't be now... because it doesn't have to be said. For every second it doesn't matter, it still doesn't matter. You can't fill your future with ideas that don't matter now. If you want to plan things based on importance, you can only plan them based on what's important now.
An example would be when I was first engaged. Me and my wife were planning a marriage because we were together at the moment of planning the marriage. If we had, on the other hand, planned a future based on 'what if,' then the engagement wouldn't have mattered. If we had thought up 'what if' situations that don't matter to what's important now as if they were actually important now, then we might as well have never gotten engaged!
Do you see how that works?
Live based on what's important now. You can't foresee the future, therefore the future cannot be prepared for based on what might be; it can only be prepared for based on what is now.
I agree with you but not completely. I do think that asking 'what If" question do matter in some cases.
I do think that asking "what if" question starts the process of planning. Like if you are on a money budget and you have two supermarkets to choose from. You weigh out the possibilities with "what if" questions. For example...if i go here, i would save money on more food products than the other super market.
Yes as a Christian we have free will to believe in God. We are not forced to believe in Him. Its the person choice. It is also the person's choice on what to wear, or what to eat and where you can live. Its your choice and you can do whatever except for the bad things. We have a free will to live off the land on a farm without anybody forcing us how to live and what way to live. We have the choice to buy whatever food we want without someone bothering with you on what to buy same thing with clothubg
What constitutes you consists of things outside of yourself. In order to have free will, you would have to be god in that you would need control over everything, since everything is a factor in who you are. For every cause you can trace back a ever expanding train of causes till you lose the trail, you are not an uncaused cause, and thus there are reasons outside of yourself for who you are; these reasons ultimately expand out to include everything that is known and these determine you.
No one is controlled, we are only influenced. But even then you can choose to do the opposite at any given moment.You can train and condition a kid all your life. At any given moment if he choose he can stab you to death and claim he is god or something.
Our free will is based on our ubringing, societal influence, and individual conscience.
It is easily influenced when we are young. As we get older we form our own opinions, but even then "free will" can be influenced or controlled to some degree.
There is no such thing as "total free will". To do "whatever one wants" would probably get one locked up.Humans are agressive by nature, so free will has to be somewhat "controlled".
This contradicts the concept of free will. According to free will, you have the choice to do whatever you want and it is not governed or forced by anything, including the law. So, anyone could either exercise their ‘free will’ to go against the law or abide by the law.
Personally, I see no evidence of free will, a person’s decision to break or abide by the law is determined by specific causal factors which the individual had no choice in from the start, therefore one cannot rightly say that they were free in the decision they made.
Our free will is based on our ubringing, societal influence, and individual conscience.
Again, this contradicts the concept of free will. You cannot say that free will is based on or determined by anything because that would fall under the concept of determinism. Determinism is the opposite of free will.
It is easily influenced when we are young. As we get older we form our own opinions, but even then "free will" can be influenced or controlled to some degree.
So we are influenced when we are young, and influenced when we are older (to a lesser extent according to your comment, but influenced nonetheless).
Where does free will come in? When are we able to EVER make a ‘free will’ decision? How is it even possible if we are always influenced in making our decisions?
There is no such thing as "total free will". To do "whatever one wants" would probably get one locked up.
You say there is “no such thing” and yet people get locked up all the time, so according to that logic there IS such a thing, correct?
Regardless of that logic, flawed as it is, free will doesn’t exist for other reasons. Namely the fact that every action or thought is caused by something, making it NOT free. The concept of ‘free will’ is inane and quite honestly very STUPID imo.
Humans are agressive by nature, so free will has to be somewhat "controlled".
This is a whole new debate in itself, the idea that there is ‘human nature,’ apart from basic survival and procreation instincts which is inherent to all life forms. There is no ‘human nature’ that differentiates us from other life, there is human behavior, but it is not nature. Behavior is not based on instinct (although it can sometimes be caused by instinct), it is not inherent, it is something learned. The notion that “humans are aggressive by nature,” can be and IS proven wrong by the simple fact that there are unaggressive humans.
But I digress; once again you have contradicted the idea of free will in that comment. If free will has to be controlled, then it is not free.
Will is like a machine. First we come up with something to do. Then we tweak it without knowing. Your body would tweak the action or "will" until it sees fit to let it happen. So in reality your mind is doing all the work and your mind is part of you so YES.
it's not really that hard, we have the free will to make decisions, people can tell use to do somthing, that not free will, it's free will if we make the decision to listen to them or not.
Free will states that an entity makes his decisions alone, but choice requires a standard, and well we may modify our standard of choice overtime, it is done so in light of previous standards. Further more, we need an original standard to start making choices with; the original standard isn't one that we choose; such would be absurd. Thus our decisions are not solely ours.
You need some criteria to base your decision off of, if asked to decide between two options you'll need a standard to compare them with, and some way of valuating the options in order to decide, else your "decision" is just a random choice.
ok. ok. hmmm i see what you are saying more clearly.
So i need "something" to base my decision off of.
So lets say i want a car. I went to the dealer i "chose" the car i want. However, that decision was somehow manipulated by my experiences such as a television ad commercial or something else. And thus, it is not my free will.
Honestly, i keep going back and forwards on this. I understand your point of view. But in one point of view, i agree. In another, i don't agree. So im on two different sides about this but im more on your side.
I understand the going back and forth, the illusion of freewill is appealing in some aspects.
What car you choose to buy is determined by a great variety of factors, such as what you can afford, what you need it for, the aesthetics you like, the options(perhaps the most important determinate, if we know you are going to buy a car, and there is only one car we know with certainty which one you are going to get, however if there is more than one some uncertainty may arise without additional info) etc. Due to a lack of info we can model what your going to choose as a probability distribution, if all choices are weighted equally than your choice is unpredictable, not "free".
I hate to dispute someone i like but Casper, there are times in which i do think we do have free will.
I understand your arguement that there are factors considered when doing something by choice. Like if i wanted to buy a truck, i would buy the truck because of it's size, color, and price. It makes sense instantly why you would consider that not free will because free will seems like it shouldn't have any influencing factors.
If it is my free will, i would instantly choose to buy a truck without any hesitation. I would say this to the dealer..."i want this truck sir. No question." If i see more than one possibly truck that i would buy, i would weigh out the cons and pros. So in a way, these factors are pointing me in a direction. And like i said before, it seems like my choice is somehow "controlled and manipulated." Now here is my contradicting problem...
These factors are only influences. They are not forcing me to buy the truck but they are pointing me in a certain direction to the possibilities of trucks i would buy.
So maybe.......???.........the "path to choice" is not free willed unless it is completely random. Such as if i walk down a school hall and punched a person in a face for no reason. In continuation....the act of choice is free will.
In other words, i like the truck because it is black and huge. (For example). Because it is black and huge, i buy the truck. But i wasn't "forced" to buy the truck. I was influenced. This alone makes me think we have free will. And when i think about this again, this makes me thinks that we don't have free will because my mind says..."it is the factors that makes you buy the truck. Not yourself." But im not forced....lol.
Well the choice to buy the truck or not is either determined, or by chance. I don't see a middle ground, where one's decision isn't random/probabilistic or determined but something else, such an option seems absurd to me.
You can think of the influence as absolute, for why would you not buy the truck unless there was an overwhelming counter influence? you can think of people as point objects, and influences on their behavior as forces. Internal forces alone are not enough to cause the point object to move.
Religion is a good example. My friend is really religious and i think he is religious by the household he grew up in. And is muslim and he tells me to thank Allah right before you take a test, have sex, pick up food, etc. Im not dishonoring him by saying this. He is a smart man but it interests me to find out that....why he is so religious.
Is it because of his family? And i don't think it is free will because his family gave his this standard to walk on. And to him as a child, he must walk the path of being deeply religious. And if that is the case, then that is not free will. He chose too, then i guess it is free will. I would say it is free will because he chose to walk that path. But in a controlling way, it doesn't seem like free will.
Anyway, this is not the debate question. How can we prove that we do have free will? Are we controlled?
If you are a completely irrational thinker and human being, then yeah, I guess you could consider yourself "free". And by "free" I mean free to jump of a bridge suddenly, or shoot your next door neighbor for no apparent reason, or light your house on fire.
But normally, we act in a way that is predetermined. And I mean this in a way as follows "I'm hungry. Therefore I'm going to eat. But I don't want to get fat, so I'm not going to eat anything that has a lot of calories in it" Those could be considered free actions because I made the conscious decision to do them, but if you look just a little deeper than that, each decision was predetermined by the last one.
So if you want to say that none of your actions predetermine the next, you will have to act in a way that is so totally random and hay-wired that you appear crazy to any rational thinker.
No we cannot prove we have free will. No we do not have free will.
The idea of free will is more than simply 'making choices,' which it is often confused with.
Most people that blindly believe in free will also blindly believe in many other things.
For those of you who believe in the concept of free will, I am curious to know: 1. If you are religious, and 2. where do you see evidence of the existence of free will even within your own religion? In other words, where does it say it in your holy text that we have free will?
What is "free will"? (Will, means the function of choosing) What happens if you decide that you will no longer work or pay your taxes? The cause and effect steps in and your free will goes out the door.
Generally us humans are acclaimed to have free will but it is usually constrained by conditioned beliefs programmed within our consciousness. Most of us are restricted from practicing free will because we have been psychologically programmed from birth to constantly live in fear of going against the will of our superiors, leaders and masters therefore demonstrating that we have no free will at all. It's all an illusion!
I was a determinist for a while, but I can't say that any longer. However, I do not think you can prove free-will. It's just something you have to experience.
I don't mean to nit pick but thats not really an argument, if it was my arguments would be quite strange indeed as i have also had experiences that defy expected reality but if you are going to disagree you should be able to do so using a series of crude metaphors or analogies if a cogent argument argument seems beyond your capabailities or the capabilites of the language.
I think people don't have any free will at all. Because all of our dreams, desires or decisions are same for everyone from childhood. We can just choose the way but not create it. So i think its not a free will.