Have I solved the problem of free will?

Many people are determinists: they believe that everything, since the Big Bang, has been absolutely determined by causality (cause and effect) and, therefore, free will is impossible because our choices are determined already by heredity, experience, education, morality, circumstances and other causal factors. I'm a compatibilist: I believe in causality too but also believe free will is compatible with, but limited by, determinism. I'll explain why and how. YOU decide if I've explained free will.





From his high-rise Miami condo, an aspiring photographer sees dark clouds gathering in the distance. He remembers that a thunderstorm had been forecast for the evening. He sets up his camera and tripod on the balcony, checks the battery in his remote control, and waits for lightning.





A young couple have 10% of their paychecks automatically deposited into a savings account for their baby son’s college fund.





A family stares out their car windows at the rubble that was once their seaside neighborhood. They arrive at their home, which is still standing and undamaged because they made sure (at great expense) it was


constructed to be hurricane-proof.





A little boy hears his brother coming down the stairs and hides behind a door, ready to jump out and shout, "Boo!”.





What do these 4 scenarios have in common? They all involve plans for the future: whether that be in 5 seconds or 18 years or even some unknown, indefinite, period. We all routinely make plans and execute them. Most of the time, our plans succeed. Sometimes they don’t. We often have to adjust our plans to accommodate new circumstances. If our plans involve competition, there’s greater risk of failure because our competitor(s) might out-maneuver us with a better plan.





We’re so inured to plans and planning that we take them for granted. It might well be that almost everything we do involves at least a little foresight; even if we don't normally realize it. What are plans, really? Plans are goal-oriented schemes. We consider the variables involved and extrapolate cause and effect into the future to predict the best strategies to achieve our goals. We can even pursue multiple goals and plans simultaneously. This uniquely human skill is hard wired into all our brains.





The human brain is a mass of neurons and synapses passing electrochemical signals around. It’s the most complex object we know of. Even so, it’s still a natural object and, thus, subject to the laws of nature: not the least of which is causality. Our brains, like everything else, are subject to cause and effect. But we understand causaltiy. Causality is a cascading chain reaction of events. A cause creates an effect, so an effect becomes a cause when it, in turn, affects something else.





One of the causal effects of the human brain is imagination; perhaps the most amazing skill we possess. Creativity is a hallmark of human intelligence because it’s a form of imagination. Planning is also a form of imagination: we imagine future goals and the scenarios to achieve them. Imagination is, by nature, a temporal skill – we don’t imagine what’s actually happening right now – we imagine what could happen, later. (For the purposes of this essay, I’m separating imagination from fantasy, so I won’t discuss imagining the past.) But what about the decisions we make in the present? Aren’t they governed by causality . . . by deterministic factors?





Absolutely. Of course. Everything is determined by causality.





Including our imaginations. Because creativity and planning are causal effects of the brain, they serve a critical role – along with heredity, experience, circumstances, and other causal effects – in determining our decisions.





What is the effect of imagination on our decisions? The effect of imagination, particularly of planning, is to give us a temporal advantage over causality. Our imaginations (figuratively) take us where causality can’t go: the future. When we go to the future, we take our understanding of causality with us and make our best estimate of what we can expect in the future. In other words, we plan. By planning, we will (hopefully) be prepared for causality when it arrives. Plans, in a mental feedback loop, are mixed in with all the other causal factors that determine our decisions; then they exert a unique effect on our lives . . . they select potential futures – and, thus, guide the "causal paths" we take through life. The causal effect of imagination is, literally, self determinism: free will.





This is how free will can exist in a deterministic universe and emerge from causal processes in the brain. To the extent that we actively anticipate causality, free will is a causal effect – a consequence – of our human imagination. Thus, not only is free will compatible with determinism, it's a natural, causal, effect of the human imagination. They're not antithetical at all.





When determinism meets human imagination, the effect is self determinism. No hocus pocus.|||Very well written my friend.





So you are saying that free will emerges from our mental faculties but also is compatible with determinism. Because we are capable of imagining and planning, all events are determined by laws of nature AND our ability to imagine. Free will is our nature and it is determined that we have free will through the laws of nature.





I wouldn't say you solved the problem of free will but you gave a good argument for compatibilism.|||the brain knows what you are going to do before you even become conscious of it...


all forms of self-determination are comforting myths...


we are machines driven by forces beyond our comprehension...|||Expecting things yet to come is your understanding of past experience as well as background knowledge. Picking up on trends and patterns is pretty definitively deterministic (past experience determining future course of action).





Storm proofing my new orlean house isn't free will, it's my knowledge that a storm is GOING to come through here some day and my desire to not be homeless.








I share much the same views as you and I wanted to believe your argument but it just doesn't stand to reason, sorry.|||Okay first of all my lack of a tooth fairy is not a PROBLEM.





Second, plans seldom work out 50% as desired. People heavily insure their hurricane-proof their houses and routinely forget FLOOD INSURANCE.





If planning is so great why do I keep slipping on my front door step? Smarter people I know make MORE mistakes, so save the "Hiram must be an idiot" jokes.





SHOW ME A NON-CAUSAL EVENT and then we will even talk about free will.





Where does this free will stem from, and how does it mitigate the effect of DURESS from the weight of a zillion natural laws known and unknown?





Human inventiveness is an EFFECT of a larger brain. Not a cosmic lacuna of non-causality!|||Too big question to read ! PASS......|||Actually you have not shown determinism or free will. And part of the problem is that you are trying to prove a fatally flawed concept. What you are missing also is that the idea of determinism is fatally flawed also. Neither concept is valid, nor are they opposite positions.





In order to have determinism you must be able to predict accurately the behavior of the complex human in advance for ANY action, not just the easy ones, on the basis of neurological phenomena, which must be predicted on the basis of lower level molecular behavior, and so forth all the way down to the quarks. Such a job is far to complex to do even if it were theoretically possible, which it is not. If you cannot "determine" the future, then determinism is not possible. If you cannot determine the future on the basis of everything that is knowable then you cannot have determinism.





On the other hand free will is also a silly concept as what is free, and what does free mean? The idea of "will" is an archaic concept that has largely been replaced with "intention" in modern phenomenology. What we do know is that we have a SENSE of free will. But a sense is all we have. Certainly nothing more than an illusion that crumbles as soon as you start probing and asking questions.





I hope I've shown that determinism and free will are not the opposites of each other as most people think. They are two unrelated and equally flawed ideas about how the world works.





So what do we have if we don't have free will or determinism? Well, we have the opportunity to address more interesting ideas and abandon problems that have puzzled minds since the religiously dominated dark ages. For the debate about free will and determinism only make sense if you are concerned about how a non-physical soul has causal interaction with the material world. When you realize there is no such thing as a soul, the problem evaporates.|||How can you solve "free will" when it is so unpredictable? There is nothing that even dictates free will is consistent, planned, or casual. One thing is that free will is like DNA. It is unique to the individual. However, free will has an impulsiveness that makes it totally unpredictable and may not react the same even if the exact situation is duplicated. Each time free will is exercised, the surroundings and disposition of the brain at that moment will influence the outcome and it may not be the same outcome. There is not a solution to free will as it has always existed, however can we solve the problems that come with free will? And that would also beg the question, who would be the judge?|||You haven't answered anything. If we are just the product of energy and chemical interactions, then even the perception that we might free will is flawed, because it's the product of known, predictable processes.





In order for free will to exist, one must first accept the premise of a spirit that resides outside the physical universe. There is no other way to argue for true free will.|||I agree with the idea, but your argument relies on there being some unknowns. If the future is determined, then it is 100% evident in the present. There is no unknown to the Universe (because it is 100% predetermined), so there is no way to have a "temporal advantage." If anything, determinism has the advantage, because it sees clearly where we cannot.





I also agree things are not determined the way many people seem to believe. There is variability and chance built into the very fabric of the Universe at its smallest scale, and while this variability tends to even out into predictable patterns on the human scale, we still feel the effects.





But free will is still a paradox. How do you know if it was truly willed by us, or if we only suffer a delusion of free will? The knowledge of coming weather is in the present, so it is acting on us before we make our choice.|||Leonardo Davinci said if mens imaginatins were entertained and satisfied they would never get out of bed. LOL anyway your a thinker and so am I.. So I ask you is a war at this time justified by love?


Or does peace at all cost enslave and satisfy? Which is the greater evil?