Free Will Paradox

Definition of Free Will (Assumption): We assume having free will means having the ability to pick one or more choice(s) (but not all) out of definite or indefinite choices; that one or more choice(s) could be any of the various options.
The Paradox: The only way to prove that you have the ability to pick a (any) choice is by picking that (one) choice, and since you can only pick one or more (but not all) of the various choices, you can't prove that you had the ability to pick anything other than those particular choice(s) already made.
Example: I give you a cup of fatal poison and ask you whether you have the ability to drink the cup. You can reason that you do have the ability but you won't drink it because of common sense. I argue that you don't have the ability to drink it because common sense prevents you from drinking it no matter how hard you try. You can't prove that you have the ability to drink it because you won't do it, so you don't have the ability to drink that cup. Consequently, you don't posses the free will to do so either. This example can be expanded to everything (minus choices already made).
Conclusion: Since you can't make all the possible choices there is to make, you can't prove that you had the ability to choose any of those choices (other than the ones already made), therefore you had no control over the choices already made. Consequently, you don't posses any free will. By proving free will exists (making all possible choices at the same time), you also prove that it doesn't exist because if all choices can be made simultaneously, then the definition of free will would be invalid.

Does that make any sense to anyone here?

Hi Reav3R,
I feel that your example is not accurat, it is very one sided so to speak. Off course I can drink the poison if I want to kill myself, and therefore can meet up to your task asked. I do not think you can argue this way....
You have used your free will by saying No to your offer of to drink poison, then I can only wonder why you would even come up with this kind of thought??

Love
ia

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Originally Posted by IA56

Hi Reav3R,
You have used your free will by saying No to your offer of to drink poison, then I can only wonder why you would even come up with this kind of thought??

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How can you prove that a chain of previous events and thoughts set from the very beginning of existence hasn't set things up for you to make that No choice at the present? That's my point. How do you prove that you used your free will to make such a choice and how will you prove that you actually had the ability to say Yes if you have already taken No?

How can you know you could've done A instead of B if B is already done, the only way to prove you can do something is by doing it and if you have already done X in the past then you can't prove you could've done something else unless you change the past which is impossible.

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Originally Posted by Reav3R

How can you prove that a chain of previous events and thoughts set from the very beginning of existence hasn't set things up for you to make that No choice at the present? That's my point. How do you prove that you used your free will to make such a choice and how will you prove that you actually had the ability to say Yes if you have already taken No?

How can you know you could've done A instead of B if B is already done, the only way to prove you can do something is by doing it and if you have already done X in the past then you can't prove you could've done something else unless you change the past which is impossible.

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By knowing that it is poison you offer, there is Always knowledge to lean at, from beginning all knowledge was to know by try and error...as if you look at rat´s they send a weak or sick individual from the Group to eat new food what they do not have any knowledge about, to see if it is safe....so we have a knowledge bank inside of us all...we have lived many Lifes.

Love
ia

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Originally Posted by IA56

By knowing that it is poison you offer, there is Always knowledge to lean at, from beginning all knowledge was to know by try and error...as if you look at rat´s they send a weak or sick individual from the Group to eat new food what they do not have any knowledge about, to see if it is safe....so we have a knowledge bank inside of us all...we have lived many Lifes.

Love
ia

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Let me make another example:

I ask you to pick 1, 2 or 3 and only pick one, prove you have the ability to pick either 1, 2 or 3. The moment you give me the number you picked, I argue that you couldn't have picked another number by choice, how do you prove I'm wrong logically?

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Originally Posted by Reav3R

Let me make another example:

I ask you to pick 1, 2 or 3 and only pick one, prove you have the ability to pick either 1, 2 or 3. The moment you give me the number you picked, I argue that you couldn't have picked another number by choice, how do you prove I'm wrong logically?

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There is no logic to prove, but accept the fact that I did use my free will and picked one number. When known all 3 alternatives you can start to Think if it was the best choice, but when not knowing what the numbers represent, when you know more about each of the numbers you can start to argue about the intuition was the one who helped in your choice by some kind of sensing to be the best choice for you.

Love
ia

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Originally Posted by IA56

There is no logic to prove, but accept the fact that I did use my free will and picked one number. When known all 3 alternatives you can start to Think if it was the best choice, but when not knowing what the numbers represent, when you know more about each of the numbers you can start to argue about the intuition was the one who helped in your choice by some kind of sensing to be the best choice for you.

Love
ia

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That's my point, it's impossible to logically prove my claim therefore it remains unresolved and free will doesn't exist because you can't satisfy the assumption requirements BUT if you somehow logically prove then free will doesn't exist because the problem ends up in a paradox with both outcomes leading to non-existence of free will. The cycle ends up in infinity and whatever the possible answer is, free will can't exist.

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Originally Posted by Reav3R

That's my point, it's impossible to logically prove my claim therefore it remains unresolved and free will doesn't exist because you can't satisfy the assumption requirements BUT if you somehow logically prove then free will doesn't exist because the problem ends up in a paradox with both outcomes leading to non-existence of free will. The cycle ends up in infinity and whatever the possible answer is, free will can't exist.

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Yes, in that contex it is true...the eternity contex....you have to accept to go up or into Gods will so to speak...and be ONE with it.

Love
ia

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Originally Posted by IA56

Yes, in that contex it is true...the eternity contex....you have to accept to go up or into Gods will so to speak...and be ONE with it.

Love
ia

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I didn't quite understand the relevance of this sentence of yours but regardless, my point was:

There are three outcomes and all of them point out that free will can't exist:
1) You fail to prove free will exists.
2) You prove free will doesn't exist by trying to prove it does (through paradox)
3) You prove free will doesn't exist by failing to prove it does (through paradox)

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Originally Posted by Reav3R

I didn't quite understand the relevance of this sentence of yours but regardless, my point was:

There are three outcomes and all of them point out that free will can't exist:
1) You fail to prove free will exists.
2) You prove free will doesn't exist by trying to prove it does (through paradox)
3) You prove free will doesn't exist by failing to prove it does (through paradox)

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I can´t say it in other way than....acceptance that we do not have free will...only to some extent...and that is to go towards the truth by try and error, and in one point there will be the life force meeting up you and you will accept the fact that there is only ONE and you are a part of it....and when you accept then you have come back home.
I have no other words to try to talk about the eternity and the ONENESS.

Love
ia

Oh, I've gone round and round about this. Wrote about it extensively on my journal, in fact. Do a search on this board, though, for a number of threads on the topic, there might be some insight in one of them that you find helpful.

So I'm a little confused with the premise of the statement- that by failing to prove that something exists it means it doesn't?
I can't prove the ocean exists, but if you go to the beach and see it, you can either decide it exists, think it's something else, or think you have hallucinated it's existence. In other words, if experience doesn't show something exists to someone who has as a premise that it doesn't, nothing will prove it because his premise is already set, and nothing will convince him it does.
That's why in logic, you cannot prove a negative.

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Originally Posted by CFTraveler

So I'm a little confused with the premise of the statement- that by failing to prove that something exists it means it doesn't?
I can't prove the ocean exists, but if you go to the beach and see it, you can either decide it exists, think it's something else, or think you have hallucinated it's existence. In other words, if experience doesn't show something exists to someone who has as a premise that it doesn't, nothing will prove it because his premise is already set, and nothing will convince him it does.
That's why in logic, you cannot prove a negative.

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Well you've mentioned my own point exactly, you can't logically prove is exists, you can't prove it doesn't exist either BUT if you prove it does exist, you also prove that it can't exist so it's a paradox. You don't prove it doesn't exist by failing to prove it does, there simply is no outcome where it can exist. It either doesn't exist, or it doesn't.

P.S.: I don't think it was a good idea to move the thread here since it's not really a question, it's more like a theory.

Seems to me that once any mind attempts to resolve paradox to a neat answer, a side is taken, and the opposition, or opposite side or pole to the answer naturally emerges without our noticing or effort. Is it a particle or wave?

Duality is.

But neither side, or truth presented in a paradox exists as a true opposite, the conditioned idea of mutual exclusivity spins up the false reality, putting one side at odds with the other without good reason, other than to keep you from being eaten or run over or robbed.

Once the idea and mental insistence on one or the other gets gutted by the Inner Guru, peace is the leftover.

On a side note, have you ever stared at a wall or carpet or TV fuzz long enough to see a menacing face in some harmless pattern?

Presto. That's the mind doing its job and creating a threat where none exists. It's separating this from that. This is not that.

In truth, this is only ever that.



Two cents.

Ask Gnu is really a conversation about topics that people have questions on. It's not about mysticism, its more about philosophy, and I believe it fits here much better than the mysticism forum, and out of topic is well, too 'out of topic', it seems to me.

Na theres no such thing as free will. Because there is always some reason why we do the things we do, make the choices we make, even if we're unaware of them and as such they decide what we do....circumstance not us. As long as we have needs, however minor they hold sway...

I guess the next question is, what is free will to you? If you do everything for a reason, why is this different than having free will? I honestly am not following some of y'all's logic.

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Originally Posted by CFTraveler

What is free will to you?

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The premise is having the ability to choose up to n-1 options from a set of n available options, wherein those selected choices could be any but not all of all available options.

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Originally Posted by CFTraveler

If you do everything for a reason, why is this different than having free will?

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Fits well with my premise, it doesn't matter you do it randomly or with reason (thinking). As long as you have the ability to choose any but not all of the options, you have free will as it doesn't matter for what reason you make those choices.

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Originally Posted by CFTraveler

It's not about mysticism, its more about philosophy

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I think I got the two words confused. xD

Agency and the ownership of personal agency--both seem so real.

Yet, I do not 'have' a brain that wills. The brain generates a sense of 'me' from competing and cooperating regions. That alone puts a double barrel shotgun to the whole question if one walks the question back to its origin, knowing that the self is little more than a bundle of senses coupled with thoughts.

Does not freewill presuppose and require sentient agency?

Go back. Go back to the root. Who or what's making the decisions in the first place, and should that being be granted a hall pass simply because it feels like a real person? Is the foundation actually solid enough to put the weight of any philosophy upon it?

Pardon me jumping in with more Oneness blather. But without an actual 'self' the whole matter dissolves back into the ground from which it came.

lol I guess I dont get the "random' notion...If a decision isnt made with a reason than no free will exists at all something is merely being thrown at you.

I think yes freewill does require a sentient agency if it existed. But only circumstance exists in decision making you are forced to pick the one that satisfies and as such your circumstance kills freewill. Even if you do the opposite of what you really want to do its done for a reason driving you in that direction.

Were kinda like fish in a fish bowl....the poor little guy can swim anywhere he wants.....as long as its in the glass bowl...what kind of free will is that? lol We dont have free will and I dont think we even want it.

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Originally Posted by Reav3R

Well you've mentioned my own point exactly, you can't logically prove is exists, you can't prove it doesn't exist either BUT if you prove it does exist, you also prove that it can't exist so it's a paradox. You don't prove it doesn't exist by failing to prove it does, there simply is no outcome where it can exist. It either doesn't exist, or it doesn't.

P.S.: I don't think it was a good idea to move the thread here since it's not really a question, it's more like a theory.

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We can't really prove anything in the end though right? We can make make approximations of what we think will most likely happen based on what we know(knowledge as a subset of belief).
I could show to you that i have the ability to drink. If the poision is drinkable you don't have any good reason to believe that i would lack the ability to drink it if i wanted to.

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Originally Posted by heliac

We can't really prove anything in the end though right? We can make make approximations of what we think will most likely happen based on what we know(knowledge as a subset of belief).
I could show to you that i have the ability to drink. If the poision is drinkable you don't have any good reason to believe that i would lack the ability to drink it if i wanted to.

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My point is, the only way to prove you have the ability to drink it is by doing it. If you drink it, I argue that you didn't have the ability to not drink it, how will you prove me wrong?

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Originally Posted by Reav3R

My point is, the only way to prove you have the ability to drink it is by doing it. If you drink it, I argue that you didn't have the ability to not drink it, how will you prove me wrong?

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I will give you a metaphore; I bow to you, the man standing behind me say...why do you moon at me...so this kind of arguments are going in circles and does not lead anywhere, but by all means, feel free to waist your time by pondering on them :-).

Love
ia

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Originally Posted by IA56

I will give you a metaphore; I bow to you, the man standing behind me say...why do you moon at me...so this kind of arguments are going in circles and does not lead anywhere, but by all means, feel free to waist your time by pondering on them :-).

Love
ia

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That's why it's a called a paradox.

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Originally Posted by Reav3R

My point is, the only way to prove you have the ability to drink it is by doing it. If you drink it, I argue that you didn't have the ability to not drink it, how will you prove me wrong?

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I don't have to prove you wrong, because just before I chose to drink I wasn't drinking. So the act of doing something doesn't make something before it not have happened. If I sit in front of you, you say, make a choice, drink or not drink, and I choose to drink, you can stay there until the cows come home saying I didn't have the choice not to do it, but the fact I wasn't drinking before you challenged me, proves that I had a choice and made it. This is purely semantics, not logical at all.
Reality by its nature changes constantly, and anything that happens at any moment is either by choice or chance, but is. Provided you're laboring under the assumption (and with this example, we have to) that what happens is real, this is really not an argument, just you saying something is a certain way because you say it is.

Where has the mind's sense of free will gotten the I that presupposes that action is based on volition...

Every time I have tried to influence life, assuming I exist, and assuming that something needs to be changed, all I have found is that I have made things absolutely worse. Life could not unfold in the easy, free way that it naturally does without influence, and life became far more difficult.

If life were a butterfly on the side of a tree, free will would be a person standing next to that tree deciding that butterfly would be more beautiful if it were flying. The person then pokes the wings of the butterfly trying to get it to move, and as a result, damages them. The butterfly can no longer fly. In free will's attempt to change life, free will continues to suffer as it hurts life, which was never in need of changing.

What if "free will" is simply the nature of all things unmolested, and that using "free will" to compartmentalize things into mental specificity actually limits it? Why does it have to be yes or no? What if free will were the ability to make either decision of yes or no, without either answer being wholly right or wrong? The paradox wouldn't be a problem at that point, because there's nothing here to solve when there's no correct answer.

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Originally Posted by DerFürst

The paradox wouldn't be a problem at that point, because there's nothing here to solve when there's no correct answer.

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Best answer so far, I liked the way you described things.

Also a wise man once told me, having free will is like being on a train that's moving north, you can't change the path the train moves but you can decide to move south inside the train, but you can only go until a certain point and the train will eventually arrive in the north.

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Originally Posted by Reav3R

Definition of Free Will (Assumption): We assume having free will means having the ability to pick one or more choice(s) (but not all) out of definite or indefinite choices; that one or more choice(s) could be any of the various options.
The Paradox: The only way to prove that you have the ability to pick a (any) choice is by picking that (one) choice, and since you can only pick one or more (but not all) of the various choices, you can't prove that you had the ability to pick anything other than those particular choice(s) already made.
Example: I give you a cup of fatal poison and ask you whether you have the ability to drink the cup. You can reason that you do have the ability but you won't drink it because of common sense. I argue that you don't have the ability to drink it because common sense prevents you from drinking it no matter how hard you try. You can't prove that you have the ability to drink it because you won't do it, so you don't have the ability to drink that cup. Consequently, you don't posses the free will to do so either. This example can be expanded to everything (minus choices already made).
Conclusion: Since you can't make all the possible choices there is to make, you can't prove that you had the ability to choose any of those choices (other than the ones already made), therefore you had no control over the choices already made. Consequently, you don't posses any free will. By proving free will exists (making all possible choices at the same time), you also prove that it doesn't exist because if all choices can be made simultaneously, then the definition of free will would be invalid.

Does that make any sense to anyone here?

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Let's break it even further.

Will = ability to decide
Free = without forcing you to a certain choice

If you wanted to prove the free will, you had to prove first these two components.

How do you decide that (this is) you (who) can decide? ;)
And, how do you judge that nothing influences your decision except yourself by any sort of manipulation?

This is an old problem inherent in religions as well. Religions and ancient beliefs say about non-physical beings indeed trying all the time to influence living people (and non-living too). I face(d) them too, which I wrote about on AD.

The answer is perception and extending it. If you cannot see where your will is coming from, you won't be able to prove anything due to having no "material" to use for proving anything. In short, it may be that we live in an illusion of purely free will. However, a will to discover will is a good choice in this quest, I think :) BTW If you remove the limitation of time, you may have all the options (possible choices) available at once, still having not resolved the free will dilemma.