Thread: Does free will actually exist?

I have been listening to Brian Greene's, "The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality", on audio book. The way he explains it, all of time exists now. Everything from the beginning of time until the end of time exists right now. He takes a couple of chapters to explain it, but it does make sense (what I can understand anyway). What we think of as now depends on different things. For example,

"You are not seeing the words on this page as they are now; instead, if you are holding the book a foot from your face, you are seeing them as they were a billionth of a second ago. If you look out across an average room, you are seeing things as they were some 10 billionths to 20 billionths of a second ago; if you look across the Grand Canyon, you are seeing the other side as it was about one ten-thousandth of a second ago; if you look at the moon, you are seeing it as it was a second and a half ago; for the sun, you see it as it was about eight minutes ago; for stars visible to the naked eye, you see them as they were from roughly a few years ago to 10,000 years ago."

He goes on to explain another way in which two people living on worlds 10 billion light years apart could have the same "now list" until one gets up and walks toward or away from the other. Then, fly's toward or away from the other. This movement would cause the "now list" of the one moving to differ from 150 years when walking at 10 miles an hour, to 15,000 years when flying at 1,000 miles an hour.
(A "now list" is a mental list or snapshot of everything that exists right now for the person making the list.)
He sums things up by saying,

"So: if you buy the notion that reality consists of the things in your freeze-frame mental image right now, and if you agree that your now is no more valid than the now of someone located far away in space who can move freely, then reality encompasses all of the events in space-time. The total loaf exists. Just as we envision all of space as really being out there, as really existing, we should also envision all of time as really being out there, as really existing, too. Past, present, and future certainly appear to be distinct entitles. But, as Einstein once said, "For we convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent .The only thing that's real is the whole of space-time."

So, given that everything that has happened and everything that will happen, has already happened (not to us, but to some one/thing), has all of reality been choreographed? Are we free to make decisions? Or, are the decisions that we do make an illusion of free will? Have our choices already been decided long before humans even existed? If so, then by who/what?
Very hard if not impossible to wrap our minds around that one, huh?

What free will comes down to is electro chemical trigger to an event. I dont see how that can be controlled. To god or an advanced civilization is probably as predictable as planets revolving around a star.

Then if there is no such thing as free will, is there such a thing as a soul? If there's no free will and no soul and somehow this could be proven, would that prove that all religion is bullshit?

The answer to the question of free will (and this is only my thoughts on this) is yes and no. That is, no, it has been determined (let's say a decision you make) already in the future, (it exists there), but there is a variance of possibilities that you could make, guided by (as Tom previously stated) an electro chemical trigger and your physiological structure. Like particles, there are many possible paths to travel, but they all eventually land. So the short answer is yes, you do have free will, but only to a certain degree. As for the existence of the soul, that is a slippery fish. It would be easier, perhaps, to answer that question if we find a definite term by which you would characterize what a soul is. Many people have many different definitions attached to that word and as you are probably aware, when you talk metaphysics, you are straddling a slippery ledge.

since evrything is cause and effect,then wouldnt something have caused you to make a decision thus negating free will and streering you on a certain path?

Free will cannot exist if any one has been proven to be able to "predict" the future with better than 50/50 accuracy. If the future can be "read" than the events have already happened and everything leading up to it has already happened, premonitions are just a message from a time and place that already exist. Therefore, all events, decisions, actions and reactions have to follow the same course to get to the same conclusion. Any deviation would change the course of events and if the event has already happened, it can't be changed. The big question is, why do we exist at all if there is no free will? What possible purpose could there be for us to act out a scripted play for an audience that already knows the ending?

Quantum space time is very interesting, difficult to wrap a thought process around but interesting. The only problem I have with non linear time is our realities still flow in a linear direction. If all time exist simultaneously and we just pass through dimensions in space time then why do we go to the future and never wind up in the past? That is a constant lineal movement down an established path.

Deusinvir is on the right path, but we must remember that we always talk about probabilities. Though every possibility exists, there are some choices you are more likely (or probably likely) to choose, then others, but it doesn't mean that you will choose the same possiblity again and again. We are not machines. And the variance which occurs in our organic structure is not one that can be predicted with accuracy again and again. Hence, my answer of yes and no to certain degrees. I would also suggest to anyone interested the book, "Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene. In it, he addresses this idea of "the arrow of Time" and why it exists. I might also add with some humour that this topic leads to the question of Time travel, old Charley Chaplin movies nonwithstanding.

Well your question is essentially existential. The very fact that you ask the question, implies that you ultimately believe that there is. Otherwise why ask? What if it is all just an illusion?

But, the 2 concepts may not be mutually exclusive. Perhaps as you say everything that ever will or could happen has already happened and you have free will. What if, you’ve already exercised your free will and what you perceive in your now is just the movie of what happened.

I think if we are going to talk about time in relation to free will, that certain preconceptions about time need to be thrown out. In a sense, time doesn't necessarily have an arrow. Every moment is time itself. We measure time based on events, so we would naturally assume that event-based time is time itself, and therefore all events in this event-based time would be occuring at once. I would tend to doubt this is the case (let me know if I'm wrong, I'd hate to be mistaken), because events are essentially causal. So the time that we are used to is a series of events. Your birth, your life, your death (as an example). It's not so much that all those are occuring right now, it is that space-time is a unifying fabric that exists now and these events are occuring within that framework, but can be changed by other events that are also causal.

In terms of free will, I really don't think that ABSOLUTE free will is true. Absolute free will would be the ability to will something autonomously without any previous experience to it or anything like it. As the evolved beings that we are, we have a lot of evolutionary and experience-based baggage that gives us our normal choice options. We are also influenced by our families, our respective religions, ideologies, goals, doctrines, thoughts, friends, TV, movies, music, etc. etc. There is a lot to be said about how choices are influenced in our lives. Now, I by no means am a hard determinist, but I would definitely say that, in terms of free will, the answer is this: sort of.

We are free to the extent that we can choose, but every choice is partially influenced by something else. So we are free to an extent. While this extent is large and quite staggering, it isn't a full 100%.