Decisions/choices are made because of reasons/reasoning, regardless of whether we are conscious of it or not. Reasons are the result of knowledge, and knowledge of experience.

We do not (apparently) choose our parents, our country of birth, or the level of wealth that we are born into, but these factors certaintly influence who we are, how we behave and the decisions we make. Thus is there such a thing as making a decision, or is destiny predetermined?

I would say, first, that we can not choose or make a decision about something over which we have absolutely no control.

It may be that we are "thrown" into the world as the Existentialists remind us, and it may be that some of our choices are, in a sense, limited, but we certainly have choices. And these choices are not limited to reasoned ones, but include, I would suggest, a variety of different kinds, or ways.
Man is by nature and uniquely among living beings always living with one eye to the future, whether immediately in front of him demanding action or whether merely a distant and undefined outline in the form of goals.
Z

Good decisions require concrete evidence and sound reasoning.

Allan

Z, what evidence is there to suggest that we actually have this 'free will'? I'm also curious as to what other types of decisions there are apart from reasoned ones (when I say reasoned, this includes reasoning which takes place on the subliminal level)?

JohnWho, Do we have control over the environment and the experiences which provide us with reasons/knowledge?

This post has been edited by My Invisible Thoughts: Jan 16 2008, 02:12 PM

I am never sure what people understand when they consider events pre-determined, outside of saying something like "this event happened and I can construct a chain of cause and effect to its outcome" or like "things happened as they did in fact happen."
(Aside: does the concept of "having an accident" throw light on the discussion?"

Second, it seems to me that reasoning implies an activity that is conscious, a weighting as it were of possible actions or branches in a decision matrix, and a choice about which of these to choose (whether the choice is wrong or in one's best interest after the fact is another difficulty). Are not choices made by "unconscious reason" really something other than reasoned, for example, habit or instinct?

Having free will means: "well, Z could have chosen other than he did, poor soul, and now look at him." And don't we commonly accept this? And don't we commonly think that under most cases, one can be held responsible for his actions and decisions?
Z

I wanted to add here: how would one go about determining if a choice were predestined or free? Are there objective ways to do this? Subjective? Is it a matter of all choices or some choices being determined or not? Are we confusing a picture of a possible way to explain an event or a picture of the event itself?

This post has been edited by Zarathustra: Jan 17 2008, 07:47 AM

We have over some, but not all.

Decisions, whether because of reasoning/instinct/habit, are the result of conscious/subconscious processes, and of genetics. Ultimately, we are conditioned by nurture and nature, therefore, can there be such a thing as 'free will' (decisions based on something other than nature and nurture)? I would have thought that it's the will of nurture and nature.

Evidence of the fact that destiny is predetermined can be drawn by the fact that wisdom/science, in many cases, allow us to make certain 'predictions'.

This post has been edited by My Invisible Thoughts: Jan 16 2008, 04:19 PM

Let us assume that if predestination means anything, it means that it applies to all events.
Let us assume that it was Dickens's "destiny" (we will use destiny and predestination interchangeably to avoid awkward phraseology) to be a novelist. Now this would mean some sort of argument as: if we carefully analyzed Dickens' situation at birth, and through the many stages of his development, his schooling, his social interactions, and if we also considered the milieu in which he was born and in which he lived, then we could either 1) understand that he could not have been otherwise than a writer, or 2) have predicted from birth that he would write novels. Certainly (2) is very debateable, and (1) implies the kind of knowledge that seems impossible to achieve, no matter how clever the historical analysis, and a causality so complex as to be un-understandable.


Suppose, then, we continue our assumptions about Dickens, and say it was his destiny to write "Tale of Two Cities." We could point to his conversations with friends about the French Revolution, what books he read, the question about the FR currently debated around the time he wrote the novel, his own letters to friends, and so on. Could we get further than to say with any plausibility that conditions were rife for his choosing just such a novel? What destined him to take up just such a story and locate it in just such a time period?

Are we then to say it was his destiny that he began the novel with his famous "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...". I think not, and for good reason.

For it seems that the further into particulars we go, the more implausible predestination becomes, and that best gesture towards the "destiny explanation" is only applicable (AT MOST) to very broad generalisations. If there is any ability to predict at the general level, it is the ability to predict general actions based on induction and categorisation of specific kinds of actions.
One can say, for example, that generally workers behaved in general ways before the Russian Revolution; but this is far less than saying that if one were to locate Ivan in the working class, that he would consequentlybehave as other workers did in every situation, or that he would be motivated to perform the same acts as his fellow workers. It may be very LIKELY that Ivan hated the Czar, but we know from many concrete examples that it was not NECESSARY (read predestined) that he would.
Z

This post has been edited by Zarathustra: Jan 18 2008, 07:09 PM

Nature and nurture gives us a bunch of needs and fears and so on; our motives. They also give us the faculties which we apply to our situation and our motives to make a choice. Without nature and nurture we would have no motives. No motives means we would have no reasons to make choices. No choices means either that we would take no actions at all or that all our actions would be by pure chance. This isn't free will, this is no will at all. Nature and nurture is our will. That our choices follow from our reasons is will. This is free will. If our choices didn't follow from our reasons, and something else was controlling them, that would be non-free will.

Alpha,

No choices means our actions are predestined, and as you say, this is not free will. As to whether it can be nature and nurture's will, that's subject to another debate. I agree that nature and nurture is our will, and this implies that it is impossible, or contradicts the possibility, for us as indiviudals, to have such a thing as 'free' will.

In relation to your last sentence, choices do follow from reasons, but reasons are controlled by nurture and nature, so as you have said, this is not 'free will'.

Z,

Are you asking me to quantify the processes of the conscious and subconscious mind? This would be impossible since no two minds in this existance are 'exactly' or 'absolutely' the same. If everyone had exactly the same mind, humans would be as predictable as robots.

D.

This post has been edited by My Invisible Thoughts: Jan 18 2008, 01:08 PM

My point in my last post was that if one is to accept that events are controlled by destiny, then one is obliged to accept that every event is controlled, down to the words I write here tonight, by destiny or that each word or phrase is predetermined. I think common experience from everyday life refutes this, not to mention that it would be impossible to provide proof why I write precisely the words that I do.

************
While every mind, and every cluster of experiences, are indeed unique to individuals, there is also a part of the mind (which many would call Reason) which is also common to humans, and is manifested in language. Mind cannot be completely unique or communication would not be possible. One could, as yet another example, point to mathematics and logic, which seem to indicate commonality.
Now I would suggest that, in common language, reason, attention to the world, and past-present-future time characterises the existence of the conscious self, and that unconscious (known primarily through dreams) is different in nature. I would further suggest that the unique unconscious is unknowable except through consciousness, and thus problemmatical, or at best akin to poetic truth.

Z

This post has been edited by Zarathustra: Jan 20 2008, 10:14 AM

I guess the more virtuous one is, the more 'free' will they can exercise.

I have difficulty believing in "choice," considering that I am one to believe that we evaluate all possible decisions based on previous experience, and ALWAYS choose what we believe to be the best choice at the time.
How we evaluated our first choices simply sprouted from genetics.

The biggest mystery to this whole thing is that why would a certain configuration of atoms give birth to reason?

Certainly most people will evaluate possibilities based on previous experience, or more precisely, what they chose to understand as applicable experience; just as easily, they may reject previous experience as leading towards the "wrong direction." And included in previous experience can be all sorts of advice which one must take into consideration and accept or reject.

And whatever "first choices" are, how are these different in kind from later (or other) choices, that might lead one to conclude that these are due to genetics?
Z