For everybody!!!

[Anura]

What is your position on free will?

[AzurePhoenix]

The concept of free will is incoherent in the first place. What does anyone mean by it? Anything and everything we do has some sortve causal context. This happened so this happened so we did/thought/chose this. I know lots of spiritual-types like to denounce "materialism" as eliminating free will by reducing us to strictly material machines, but what do they want free will to be? Either we do what we do for a reason, or we behave randomly with no purpose. Either I went to get ice cream because I had a craving and it was hot out, or I... what?

 

I'm not a physics person so I'm not certain of the accuracy of the analogy, but I see it like a nuclear chain reaction in an atomic bomb, following a path of cause and effect vs virtual particles in a vacuum, popping into and out've existence for no rhyme or reason, and to no effect.

[mortonman1]

For me, I explain free will by explaining what it isn't. it isn't when God chooses every action we take, thus that would make us puppets. So free will is just our ability to think, reason and decide actions to take.

[D'Nalor]

Here's an alternative view that I hold. Free will Is basically being able do do what you want to do without any concequences. of course, this would be slightly complicated if we had complete free will, because this would make laws redundant, which could be rather awkward. someone could murder you and your family without paying any penalty(except your friends might take vengance) under complete free will. there are plenty of people who'd do that too(i know that i have occasionally). So, while having no free will would make us zombielike, we can't have an overdose. all we need is a balance.

 

having said that, I think that there are probably a few too many laws at the moment. Some are very odd. Sticking to just the biblical 10 commandments or "do unto others as you would have done unto you" should be all the law we need. After all, most of them are just sensible and common sense.

 

I know that I'm not really in much of a position to post here, because I know nothing of psycology, but nullnaught did say it was for everybody, and this is sort of a different view compared to the others here.

[Double K]

Here's an alternative view that I hold. Free will Is basically being able do do what you want to do without any concequences. of course, this would be slightly complicated if we had complete free will, because this would make laws redundant, which could be rather awkward. someone could murder you and your family without paying any penalty(except your friends might take vengance) under complete free will. there are plenty of people who'd do that too(i know that i have occasionally). So, while having no free will would make us zombielike, we can't have an overdose. all we need is a balance.

 

That sounds like anarchy. I'm not sure this would lead us toward free will it would make us very reactive rather than pro-active. And as you are in a reactive state, you would not be exercising pure free will.

 

From a psychology perspective, there are 3 (well 4 really) aspects to personality. Id, ego, and superego. You could include the subconcious as the 4th, however I think it resides in each of these 3 already.

 

Religion, parenting, social exposure during your life, past success/failure all contribute to these anchoring behaviours, and this is really where "free will" is affected.

 

http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/personalityelem.htm

The id is driven by the pleasure principle, which strives for immediate gratification of all desires, wants, and needs. If these needs are not satisfied immediately, the result is a state anxiety or tension.

 

The ego operates based on the reality principle, which strives to satisfy the id's desires in realistic and socially appropriate ways. The reality principle weighs the costs and benefits of an action before deciding to act upon or abandon impulses. In many cases, the id's impulses can be satisfied through a process of delayed gratification--the ego will eventually allow the behavior, but only in the appropriate time and place.

 

There are two parts of the superego:

 

1.The ego ideal includes the rules and standards for good behaviors. These behaviors include those which are approved of by parental and other authority figures. Obeying these rules leads to feelings of pride, value and accomplishment.

 

 

2.The conscience includes information about things that are viewed as bad by parents and society. These behaviors are often forbidden and lead to bad consequences, punishments or feelings of guilt and remorse.

The superego acts to perfect and civilize our behavior. It works to suppress all unacceptable urges of the id and struggles to make the ego act upon idealistic standards rather that upon realistic principles. The superego is present in the conscious, preconscious and unconscious.

 

 

With so many competing forces, it is easy to see how conflict might arise between the id, ego and superego. Freud used the term ego strength to refer to the ego's ability to function despite these dueling forces. A person with good ego strength is able to effectively manage these pressures, while those with too much or too little ego strength can become too unyielding or too disrupting.

[PhDwannabe]

From a psychology perspective, there are 3 (well 4 really) aspects to personality. Id, ego, and superego. You could include the subconcious as the 4th, however I think it resides in each of these 3 already.

 

Religion, parenting, social exposure during your life, past success/failure all contribute to these anchoring behaviours, and this is really where "free will" is affected.

 

 

Sorry to drag up nitpicks on an old post, but I just saw this one, and I wanted to note a couple of things here:

 

1) This isn't psychology. The id/ego/superego scheme is classical psychodynamic theory--it's Freud, as many people are aware. Ask ten academic psychologists who happen to be breathing at this moment, and you might find one willing to say he really believes it.* Another two or three might say that it has some value as an analogy or metaphor. This is not by any means in the mainstream--it hasn't been for decades and decades. Also, Freud's scheme was tripartite--the subconscious was not regarded as a "4th aspect" of a personality. The id and superego were considered largely unconscious, while the ego was made up of largely conscious processes.

 

2) These aren't "anchoring behaviors." They're not behaviors whatsoever, they're divisions of the mind or person. And religion, parenting, and social exposure do not really contribute to all of them--Freud regarded the id, particularly, as a largely inherited, animalistic set of drives directed at basic need-fulfillment. One's socialization process developed the norms and value of a superego, and the conscious ego was tasked with the difficult job of mediating between the two.

 

3) Getting more to the point of the thread, the idea of psychoanalysis or any other theory of behavior doesn't really militate against the idea of free will, nor does they support it. Free will is a metaphysical concept--it really refers to the real causal efficacy of the agent, the power to actually influence the course of events in the universe. This would be opposed to a sort of determinist viewpoint that we're just a bunch of atoms getting knocked around, and our will is an illusion as we float in this gigantic stream. And as if two options weren't enough, the compatibilists say, "hey, dudes--you're both right. Or at least, you both can be at once."

 

What we might call debates about psychological free will versus psychological determinism really take place at a physical, not a metaphysical level. To say that individuals' personalities are largely shaped by parenting or attachment style, genetic factors, various quirks of brain structure and function, or behavioral contingencies doesn't actually make you, metaphysically, a determinist. I can still hold that people tend to be psychologically the sum of any number of those things, but still exert agentic causal influence over the universe. Conversely, I can be a metaphysical determinist and think that the aforementioned psychological theories about personality or personality development are bogus.

 

So, this debate about free will--metaphysically, which is really what most people mean by the term, cognizant of that or not--takes place on a totally different battlefield. Not to say that arguments about the psychology stuff aren't interesting or anything. They're sorta what I do all day.

 

 

 

Thanks,

DJ

 

 

 

* Though you will find certain quarters of psychologists who are still more into it. Tends to be a bit more alive on the East Coast of the U.S. and in Europe. Even the psychodynamic folks, those who are willing to name themselves heirs to a Freudian system, don't even really believe or focus on the early Freudian view of the tripartite personality anymore--they're mostly far more informed by object relations and attachment. Full disclosure, though: being a cognitive-behaviorist, I tend to regard those two as about 90% and 70% bogus, respectively. Depending on the day.