I don't believe in free will but nor do I think it matters much. I think that everything you do is determined by a combination of your genetics and your environment and that if your life was run again everything would be exactly the same. I was thinking about this because I vaguely remember reading something about a study that showed that given a choice between two cakes the people participating would start reaching for one before their brain had registered a choice.

So what do other people think and does anyone know anything about the study I mentioned?

I think we all live in the illusion of free will, that the brain rationalizes what would be the optimal choice, which we think is free will. Or "free will" is just the brain making calculations of what is good for the mind, and taking risks are merely the brain making approximate guesses of ohw big the chances are that we will get the most optimal result. It takes the weight of the outcome versus the chance of success.

Free will is a nice concept but I don't think it exist. The closes thing to free will is complete apathy.

Everything that ever was, is, and will be is decided by the quantum behaviors of subatomic particles and has been since the Big Bang. The world as we perceive it and our own thoughts, opinions, feelings, and existence are the sum of an essentially infinite amount of these quantum decisions. Because of this, we are able to live and act as if we had free will, but it is in fact an illusion.

So, there's your theoretical physics lesson for the day. In other news, Greedo shot first!

I believe in the search button...
no, I'm kidding, it's been a couple of weeks, I'm not that much of an idiot.

I don't and never will believe in free will because everything you ever do can be done with lots of math and algebra. I'm going with my theory that the Earth is just one big math problem.

Only the end is fixed. Not the journey.
_{C'mon! Even The Doctor believes in Free Will!}

Our brains are like computers, and probably run off probability when it comes to decisions. Then there are alternate universes where we did/didn't make the decision we did here, and Schroedinger's cat is a zombie.

I dont care really, anything above my concept of free will is far beyond our capability to understand at the moment so why worry about it. Ill live my life like I have it and be happy at that, even if it all turns out to be predictable strings of variables and numbers.

walkingdead127:
Free will is a nice concept but I don't think it exist. The closes thing to free will is complete apathy.

Which is why it's my favourite thing to be :D Take away my vowel and I'm just pathetic :P

Meh. Free will exists, but so does destiny.

Destiny is what DOES and WILL definitely happen, which is dictated by your free will.

A complex opinion that I can't explain that well.

Glefistus:
Schrodinger's cat is a zombie.

But... if that's true, then... then... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

*head explodes*

To quote Forest Gump <Forest Gump Impression> "maybe its both" </Forest Gump Impression> Maybe certain events have been decided by fate but the decision the person makes at the event isn't.

Perhaps.

Best to see whatever drives you as free will now, because if someone finds out that Free Will is actually invisible parrot-ninjas guiding our every movement the idea of free will seems a lot more plesant.

I choose what I do, I may be influenced in my choice by others but ultimately I make the decision.

Even if the reason for your choice isn't apparant (even to you), you still made it.

Destiny? Bah. But this I know: humans are very impressionable and they're almost always incapable to detect when they are or are not doing something upon someone's influence. You can see it best as you grow up, you realise that you hadn't been as independent and impervious as you thought you'd have.

my reasoning is very simple without free will things like justice, guilt and innocence are meaningless if these concepts are meaningless than society and governments are meaningless and we might as well all just go on killing sprees and heroin binges till we die.

I don't think I do. I'm fairly sure that I believe that every single one of our actions are the products of everything that has transpired to put us in the situation that we find ourselves in.
Everything that happens to you shapes you into a specific kind of person, and this person reacts in a certain way in certain situations.

For the sake of my mental happiness I've got to believe in it. If everything was pre-ordained then I don't see a great deal of point to existence to be frank.

Free Will is like Pascal's wager: Might as well believe in it, because you lose nothing if you're wrong.

Free will's simply causality. Every decision you make is caused by something, and that something was caused by something else, and so on in a chain of cause and effect that has gone on since anything has ever existed.

To put it simply, Dr. Manhattan was right.

A random person:
Free will's simply causality. Every decision you make is caused by something, and that something was caused by something else, and so on in a chain of cause and effect that has gone on since anything has ever existed.

To put it simply, Dr. Manhattan was right.

This is kind of my point. It isn't really free will because there is no chance of it being something else since it is determined by everything that has gone before.

most of the things we do is influenced by something else it can be the traffic light telling us to stop or it can be an advertisement telling us to buy something .
I don’t believe in destiny because I don’t enjoy the idea of not being in control of myself (as if we all are)
but yes I do think we have some free will just not a lot of it. even now hear we are not swearing and leaving offensive comments because we are influenced by the fear of being banned.

It does not matter whether you believe in Free Will. The question is: Does Free Will believe in you?

For all intents and purposes, we have free will. Whether or not we really have free will doesn't matter, Cause if your supposed to die and you don't have free will, and you know both of these things, you wouldn't bother doing anything to prevent, but if you did you'd end up failing. But since the person who is controlling you (since you don't have free will) has decided your death will be inevitable, then why would he allow to to try and change it, even though it be futile? I think it all really comes down to (And I quote the Eldar on this) that time shapes us just as much as we shape it, and that while we may not have control of what events come our way, we definitely have control of our responses to them. I don't think any quantum physics stuff is really responsible for the actions we take, our actions are far too simple for that.

Yes free will exists. Of course we make choices based on our circumstances, however we still make the choice. I think that claiming there is no free will is simply a cop out, a way of comforting ourselves, and relieving ourselves of responsibility for our actions. If there is no free will how can we be held accountable for our actions? Would we really let a statement like "I was genetical pre-disposed to killing my spouse for their money, so it's not my fault" go by unchallenged?

Fate is fucking stupid. Sarah Connor taught me that.

I didn't vote; I don't think I'm "destined" to vote no, but I don't really 'belief' in it. I think our brains do control everything there is about us, but that that, in a way, ís free will.

Cpt_Oblivious:
Only the end is fixed. Not the journey.
_{C'mon! Even The Doctor believes in Free Will!}

If it is good enough for The Doctor, then it is good enough for me.

Free Will is OBVIOUSLY true. I mean so what if things go ONE WAY. Honestly, if we didn't have free will, why would we even be typing here? Why would there be a NEED for a community of ANY TYPE? Communities are like the ESSENCE of free will. We willingly CHOOSE to post here, or not to. If free will wasn't existent, than all our vast knowledge, all the collected information of ALL humanity, would have never existed, because we would have acted purely on instinct.

Also, OP's experiment doesn't sound like a test of Free Will, but rather, a test of instinct. If you reach for a certain cake before even registering the two choices, it merely means that your body is choosing one over the other instinctually, because of taste. NOTHING TO DO WITH free will. The fact they can only pick one over the other, that is free will, and they fact they contemplate which one to choose, that is free will. Not because you are given a choice, but because you have an equal probability in "free will" to choose once over the other.

Golden Gryphon:
I don't believe in free will but nor do I think it matters much. I think that everything you do is determined by a combination of your genetics and your environment and that if your life was run again everything would be exactly the same. I was thinking about this because I vaguely remember reading something about a study that showed that given a choice between two cakes the people participating would start reaching for one before their brain had registered a choice.

So what do other people think and does anyone know anything about the study I mentioned?

Well I don't really believe your stated research is acceptable. Reason being, if a person was smart, they'd grab both cakes. I know I would.

Anyways, I believe in free will. Reason being that humans exhibit very different traits than animals - who usually are driven by instinct rather than rational thought. Even the most intellectually advanced animals - like dolphins - are still driven by instinct more than humans are (ie, where and when to have babies, what food to look for and eat, etc.). The environment around us does shape us, and our genetics do have a role, but it's only that - a role. Man has the power to overcome the obstacles that surround them, morphing themselves into whatever they choose to be.

Golden Gryphon:

A random person:
Free will's simply causality. Every decision you make is caused by something, and that something was caused by something else, and so on in a chain of cause and effect that has gone on since anything has ever existed.

To put it simply, Dr. Manhattan was right.

This is kind of my point. It isn't really free will because there is no chance of it being something else since it is determined by everything that has gone before.

The thing is there is a certain uncertainty built into the universe or so it seems so I don't think we can say what will happens is all set in stone from day one. However I am not so sure about free will either. Ultimately humans seem to be reasoning machines, though we don't know the exact rules we run on we do run on rules. Given a set situation at a set point in your life and you will always make the same choice.

Though I guess it could be argued our ability to sort out information and pick the best choice for it is free will of a kind. I am just not sure it is the best word for it.

A random person:
Free will's simply causality. Every decision you make is caused by something, and that something was caused by something else, and so on in a chain of cause and effect that has gone on since anything has ever existed.

To put it simply, Dr. Manhattan was right.

There is one way to break the chain of events though. If you somehow learn what is going to happen you have forced the chain to make a new series of events. Simply knowing whatäs going to happen can drastically change your behavior when the event occurs.

Do you believe in free will?

Of course I do. I have no choice.

Hedberger:

A random person:
Free will's simply causality. Every decision you make is caused by something, and that something was caused by something else, and so on in a chain of cause and effect that has gone on since anything has ever existed.

To put it simply, Dr. Manhattan was right.

There is one way to break the chain of events though. If you somehow learn what is going to happen you have forced the chain to make a new series of events. Simply knowing whatäs going to happen can drastically change your behavior when the event occurs.

Knowing what's going to happen is just part of the chain, but you bring up a good point. I'll just go with the Back to the Future II explanation and say you'll produce a parallel timeline.

Atoms and particles behave in probabilistic ways, but our mind is made of atmos and particles...

How can free will exist?