Biological laws aren't compatible with free will

[disillusioned]

Once you add up all the different known personality influencers such as hormones, IQ, individual differences in the regions of the brain responsible for regulating emotion, etc it becomes very obvious that you have no fucking control over who you are. You're an organic super computer. In a way what you think is "you" doesn't even really exist at all.

For instance, people with depression feel like shit and thus being gloomy becomes their "personality". Then they take some anti-depressants and suddenly their "personality" changes and they become "happy" merely because some bullshit drug altered their brain chemistry. Happiness is literally fucking just chemicals jfl.

 

[Deleted member 6538]

 

[Aesthetics_III]

I don’t think that’s what free will is

 

[disillusioned]

I don’t think that’s what free will is

Free will = being able to make your own choices.

If your entire persona is just the result if your chemical makeup at that moment in time then your "choices" are deterministic. Hence, free will doesn't actually exist.

Also consider how different demographics of people virtually always without fail average to the same types of behaviors almost without exception. This would not be so if free will was a thing.

 

[Danish_Retard]

I've thought this way for many years.

 

[Deleted member 4209]

of course there is no such thing as totally free will eg. being able to 100% come to your own conclusions given no outside information/no environmental or brain chemistry factors. but ppl can choose how to behave/make decisions within this world. that is what the overwhelming amount of ppl mean by as free will.

 

[disillusioned]

of course there is no such thing as totally free will eg. being able to 100% come to your own conclusions given no outside information/no environmental or brain chemistry factors. but ppl can choose how to behave/make decisions within this world. that is what the overwhelming amount of ppl mean by as free will.

This isn't true.

First off, lets define what "behavior" actually is:

Behavior: Acting a certain way within the context of a given situation.

ex: A man walks down the street and then notices a McDonalds. He's on a diet so he knows he should not eat it, but does anyway because he really wants to do so.

In the above example, the "behavior" was finding yourself in a situation where McDonalds was offered and then making a decision on if to indulge or not despite knowing it isn't good for you. Conventional wisdom says this is a matter of mere willpower, but this isn't supported by actual evidence. Genetic studies have shown that things like appetite and impulse control are mostly genetic (70%+). This means that you could put 10 different individuals into this exact same position and reliably predict who will give in to temptation and who will not. This would not be possible if free will was real.

 

[Zygos4Life]

Brutal existential pill

 

[Deleted member 4209]

This isn't true.

First off, lets define what "behavior" actually is:

Behavior: Acting a certain way within the context of a given situation.

ex: A man walks down the street and then notices a McDonalds. He's on a diet so he knows he should not eat it, but does anyway because he really wants to do so.

In the above example, the "behavior" was finding yourself in a situation where McDonalds was offered and then making a decision on if to indulge or not despite knowing it isn't good for you. Conventional wisdom says this is a matter of mere willpower, but this isn't supported by actual evidence. Genetic studies have shown that things like appetite and impulse control are mostly genetic (70%+). This means that you could put 10 different individuals into this exact same position and reliably predict who will give in to temptation and who will not. This would not be possible of free will was real.

my point is the overwhelming amount of ppl think genetic impulse control falls under the definition of "willpower". i'm agreeing with you that your definition of free will does not manifest in humans.

 

[Dylan2]

Free will, like most things exists on a spectrum.

 

[Deleted member 6095]

You are the longest most complicated chemical reaction ever. That's how I see it.

 

[bladeeout]

This thread is your brain on scientism

 

[Zyros]

Once you add up all the different known personality influencers such as hormones, IQ, individual differences in the regions of the brain responsible for regulating emotion, etc it becomes very obvious that you have no fucking control over who you are. You're an organic super computer. In a way what you think is "you" doesn't even really exist at all.

For instance, people with depression feel like shit and thus being gloomy becomes their "personality". Then they take some anti-depressants and suddenly their "personality" changes and they become "happy" merely because some bullshit drug altered their brain chemistry. Happiness is literally fucking just chemicals jfl.

more than free will itself, this one is what hits the most. I dont mean this exact example but the many cases in which personality is permanently changed because of something (accident, lobotomy, drugs, surgery... I dont mean being high on something but actual permanent core changes), hinting that the concept of identiy and the "I" is much less solid that we feel it to be. I don't care much if I dont have real free will (if time is a fixed dimension for example) as long as I have at least the illusion of choice and experience events in a non deterministic way, but I have a strong sense of the self, what makes me be "me", and kinda saddens me to know my entire way of being or personality could be forcibly shifted or changed into another thing.