Determinism doesn't necessitate that there is no free will. Free will choice and determinism are not mutually exclusive. Existence has the natural law of causality in operation. Consciousness has free will that acts as a random input generator into the determinism of non-consciousness operations in the universe.
On the sides of the infographic are free will and consciousness in green, and dark red for causality and determinism. Inside the green of consciousness and free will, is blue which represents the internal expressions of consciousness, while the red represents the external expression of consciousness. Consciousness feeds-back into existence to influence/affect existence and existence to influence/affect us as consciousnesses. It's a causal interchange loop.
Consciousness can also be categorized as a causal power to generate effects into reality, as such we are causal agents. Normal existence without consciousness has deterministic cause and effect, while consciousness can causally create unpredictable effects, making it the random component compared to determinism.
We can create things within our consciousness, such as a fork, and then have a salience and value applied to its importance, where we can then choose to act upon creating what at first only existed in the light of our consciousness into the real light of reality as an actual fork. The fork started as a cause created in consciousness, and then consciousness culminated that creation into an actual effect that was generated into reality through action. The desire or motivation to create a fork was influenced through causal feedback with existence, but the fork would not have existed without free will and imagination to make it.
Free Will Choice for Creating Effects
We have free will choice to create effects into reality.
These are our actions and behaviors. With our free will we can engage in random outcomes that affect the reality everyone else is also in. No one has access to our consciousness to determine what we will do at all times. Despite tendencies in behavior and conditioning to do certain things, we can always change our mind and do something else.
We have the capacity for caring or apathy, rationality or irrationality, and also the power to create great evil or great good in the world. It comes down to our choices, and if we are thinking about what we do, or simply just do things without thinking about them deeply enough.
Things that are a certain way in our world can be changed. They are the effects that we have generated and created the world into.
If we understand how things got this way, we can change our way of thinking in order to change our way of acting and produce a different way of living in the world.
The potential choices we make are the causal forces to generate effects in the world. There are many potential choices and causes that we can manifest. But we choose one each time we make a decision.
We choose one out of the many possibilities to create a future according to how we act. This is the power we have to affect and create the human world around us.
We don't literally create the world, because there was a world that existed long before human animals came along. There is an objective reality that has many preexisting effects that will affect our choices. All of the information in reality is input as knowledge for us to process.
Everything that exists automatically has a degree of effect upon us, by default, through our becoming aware that it is there and exists. This will affect our understanding of reality and our future choices in reality.
What we receive as input matters, and what we care to have convictions about, will motivate us to act.
If we receive low-quality input or knowledge, then we will be processing low-quality information, and producing low-quality understanding, in order to produce low-quality actions. What goes in gets consumed to become what goes out.
Low-quality in, low-quality out. Garbage in, garbage out.
Caring about inputting quality knowledge and truth is important in order to process that quality about reality into our understanding of reality so that we can then output, generate and navigate reality more effectively.
This is why truth, and more specifically moral truth, is what determines the quality and condition of our individual and collective lives together as a society or community.
No Free Will Choice to Experience Effects
The previous section was about us, consciousness, and our free will choice in how we can generate, manifest, and create effects into reality.
When we generate an action into reality, or others generate an action into reality, then that action has been created and has come into existence. We have no free will choice to not experience those effects. They happened, and if we are there, we're going to experience that reality of those effects.
Whatever happens in reality, we don't have a choice over it having happened. We are not the ones who create what everyone does in reality.
Each consciousness is its own random free will choice generator of actions.
Once someone does something, that is a deterministic causal force that manifests in and affects reality, and we are then affected by reality.
This is how there is both determinism and randomness, both causality and free will choice.
Reality itself, is not a human animal, or another animal, and doesn't have consciousness nor free will. Reality itself, existence, is a grouping order categorization to reference everything that is, which can also be called the universe which means everything rolled into one. The universe, reality, existence, and truth are synonyms for that idea of everything as one, all as one.
But reality is not a consciousness. Consciousness exists where it exists as being demonstrable to exist, and that is found in the animal kingdom. Whatever has consciousness, has a degree of free will to operate beyond simple natural laws found in the universe that affect anything that those laws apply to.
Causal agents can create additional stimulus into reality that will act as an additional source of input and generation to affect the causal interchange that existed prior.
Effects manifest, and are. They become what 'is'. The change happened and can't be undone, no matter what you believe.
Once a plate is shattered it can't go back in time to become unshattered. You can generate new causes and glue the pieces back together, but you can't reverse the effects of what happened to the plate.
Effects happen and can't be changed, but new effects can be created through causes generating them.
New effects can be from the natural laws and forces of the reality in universe, or they can be from the random power of consciousness to engage in free will choice and generate things outside of those natural causal forces, that would not have existed had the consciousness of a causal agent not created it.
Everything in the world and in the universe is affected by causal forces and laws. This is action and reaction, cause-and-effect (determinism). But we (as human animal consciousnesses) have the greatest power of consciousness out of all the animal kingdom, to affect the greatest degree of change upon the universe, reality and existence (free will choice).
With great power comes great responsibility. Consciousness is a double edged sword. We have great power to create good or evil.
We must develop the knowledge of understanding ourselves, to comprehend the power we are using now, and the potential power we have to change things.
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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The term and concept of freedom can refer to different things: absence of coercion or psychic ability to choose. Mental freedom seems incompatible with causal determinism, but in reality it is not if both are understood properly.
The freedom defended by liberalism is economic, ethical, social or political: it is respect for the right to property and the absence of aggression or violence; is to be able to choose oneself in a legitimate way, that others do not impose decisions on you by force or through legal coercion; it is to act in an institutional environment with universal and functional norms, without privileges or oppression. However, in economic theory, psychology and philosophy is also important the concept of free will, freedom understood as the mental capacity to choose between alternatives according to the will of the agent, which is usually considered a necessary requirement for responsibility moral or legal.
Frequently, free will and determinism have been contrasted as if they were incompatible, but that this is so depends on how determinism and free will are understood. Determinism means natural regularities, descriptive laws of repetitive patterns in reality, connections between causes and effects. The opposite of determinism is randomness, chance, indeterminism, absence of regular interactions and causal relationships. Reality is deterministic, indeterministic, or a combination of both attributes, but there are no other possibilities: will or consciousness are not alternatives or complements to the regular or random nature of what exists.
If by free will we mean a metaphysical or ontological freedom that overcomes or violates causal determinism, then that free will does not exist or is nothing more than an illusion or fallacy. On the other hand denying determinism implies accepting randomness, and ensuring that free will is not compatible with determinism implies reducing free will to simple randomness: the will would be the result of chance (quantum mechanics is not the answer to this dilemma, and those who erroneously believe that it is so maybe they know about physics but do not know about biology, cybernetics and psychology).
Excuse me if I got excited writing is that I am like this ..
Indeed. Free will is within the law of determinism and causality, but adds random input that wouldn't be present outside of the existence of consciousness and free will to do so. It's not random willy nilly actions, but randomness potential vs. deterministic absolutes. Quantum woowoo is so so sooooo annoying! LOL. Thanks for the feedback.
It's a pleasure for me to exchange ideas .. lol
You express your hypothesis well.
My experiences combine to suggest that "free will" can vary over time. Thirst, hunger, fatigue, fascination, fear, and other states can temporarily reduce autonomy and self-actualization versus habit and various types of influence. Many of us occasionally achieve decisive "moments of truth" when we are far more capable of exercising "free will" than usual.
Sometimes "free will" is illusory, when we are not conscious of the influences affecting our "choices." Some people reject this fact because they imagine praising or blaming individuals would become illogical if it were accepted. However, when "free will" is illusory, humans continue to praise and blame individuals whenever so influenced, partly because we temporarily lack the freedom to refrain, and partly because it remains logical to influence others by means of praise and blame.
Anyway, "free will" is not always illusory. Believers in "conditional immortality," notably G.I. Gurdjieff, have recommended strategies for maximizing our capacity to have moments of willpower and freedom. Lucid dreaming exercises are one such strategy.
Does the freedom aspect of self-actualization derive from randomness? Many great thinkers would answer Yes, and there is clearly some truth to this. I believe that we also can gain freedom from conscious intention, but only when most of consciousness is recruited, instead of when merely shallow, partial selves make their pathetic attempts to usurp the role of the whole.
The fact that there are automatic bio-natural unconscious subconscious motivations and drive, impulses and instincts, doe snot negate the component and potential of free will. One can choose to override the natural unconscious breathing, and stop breathing for a period of time by holding one's breath. Free will is not an illusion indeed. Greater conscious awareness potentiates greater freedom. A lack of understanding things restricts degrees of freedom and choice. Thanks for the feedback.
Determinism casual forces is seen in our daily lives when we do something, our consciousness allows to choose doing the right or wrong. Consciousness differs per individual. The March For Our Life that is ongoing in the US is caused by Determinism causal force and their consciousness sprang in and tell them that they are doing the right thing
Yeah, or a lack of consciousness (unconsciousness) because they are being causally conditioned to engage in behavior without proper thinking. Good example :)
I am traveling an reading this at the same time. But you are spot on. Indeed we do have free will. We cannot change the past. But if we understand it wee can make wiser and more appropriate decisions in the future. This will be growth for us and have a positive influence (let's hope) for others. A win win. You explain it much better. Thanks @krnel
The better we understand ourselves, the better decisions we can make ;)
We need free will at the same time like you say consciousness is indeed a double edged sword. Have you seen the TV series, Westworld?
Yes I have. What did you want to say about it? If we create consciousness in an AI or other body, we will need to treat it with regard, and not disregard, as it will be consciousness... I want humanity to avoid creating such a thing...
I would want us too to not mess with that however when you think about it, it's a fascinating thought! The possibilities and the things that we could learn!
It's a hypothetical philosophy which you described nicely.With great power comes great responsibility here free will comes into play.I believe in free will,without free will human can't do such good or bad did's.If there is no free will then you can't blame anybody for their bad work and even praise some one for his good work.Thank's for sharing with us.
Indeed. We are responsible for what we do, not some unconscious being that is programmed by the universe and determinism to do what we do without choice.
I disagree with you on the notion of free will for consciousness. Consciousness is the result of the interaction between neurons in our brain, and it still falls within all the things that get affected by cause and effect.
Even if you believe that the existence of consciousness is something extraordinary, something different than inanimate materials, an exception to the rule, you still can't disagree that our brain's evolution, memories, experiences, instincts, fears, feelings, are all affected by how things, animate and inanimate, interact around us and have done so since the beginning of the universe.
Which is why in reality, we do not have free will. It looks as if we do though, which is just as good I guess. The reason is that there are so many parameters to take into account in countless systems, that one can never practically calculate all of them. Therefore, they appear random and for us, it feels real. @jsxchemistry has written a nice article explaining this concept.
It is very important to realize that every single decision you take as a human is based on factors such as your childhood experiences, your hormonal levels, the society you grew up in, your parasites, your intestinal bacteria, your religion, cultures and languages you have been exposed to, your parents' ideologies, your genetic predisposition, your mother's practices during pregnancy, your current age, your immune system, environmental triggers and many, many others.
These are what make you unique. So many factors are combined that cannot be replicated, so each of us is different than other people. In that sense you are not "you" and your decisions are not "yours". You are just the culmination of all the above chaotic interactions. So all of these factors have "decided" for you before your conscious thinking did.
I never said consciousness is not affected by cause and effect. I said it is.
That infofragraphic on free will and determinism is helpful.
Free will ends where a marriage begins :D