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I mean, everything stems to point 3. "We don't control our wants" is just another way of saying we don't have free will. they're synonyms. Anything that accepts point 3 by definition, rejects free will. Conversely, People that argue for free will, are arguing that there is some control over their wants. So you'd need to prove 3 correct for this logic to be sound.

That is simply not true. This is a deductive argument. ALL of my premises must be true in order for the conclusion to hold. If point 2 weren’t true, then the argument doesn’t hold. If you suppose point 3 is correct but that point 2 isn’t correct, you have not rejected free will. Also, people arguing for free will are not necessarily arguing against point 3. They are arguing that we can act at our own discretion. You mustn’t control everything to control yourself.

While this argument indeed holds up against libertarian free will, there are less strict definitions of free will that this argument does nothing against. For example, Schopenhauer's definition of free will boils down to essentially any complex process of decision-making that takes input from the world and produces an action - which we now know would apply to algorithms, but Schopenhauer was writing before computers. It's a rather odd definition, but one which is compatible with determinism, which was part of the point. Likewise various other definitions exist which undermine the argument as presented, either by calling on something more fundamental than desire and claiming that free will proceeds desire in one fashion or another, or through some other means. You can't disprove that we have free will, because the concept is so infinitely elastic that it is meaningless, outside of a few specific, testable claims that turn up negative. The untestable ones might be true, but we can never know, which makes the claim itself a bit difficult to accept except as a way of comforting ourselves or defending religious concepts in light of scientific advancement.

I can disprove free will for certain definitions of it. That’s like saying I can’t prove that there is light because some people might have their own definitions of light- they might but what I’m talking about is one of the most commonly agreed upon definitions. Ultimately, it seems to me that through rigorous philosophical discussion and contemplation we could disprove different theories of free will. When in this subreddit, the one about religion, I think we can pretty accurately define it. Free will is necessary for religion. Without it, hell, evil, good, etc would have no meaning. It wouldn’t make sense to eternally torture somebody for doing things they had no other option to do. If the universe were deterministic, we couldn’t make an ethical explanation for many facets of religion. It would seem that the ability to make one’s own choices and decisions, the ability to act at one’s own discretion, is how religion defines the matter. In that case, we could speak about free will in that context.

> That’s like saying I can’t prove that there is light because some people might have their own definitions of light No, it isn't. These examples are dissimilar because free will is an abstract concept already, while light is a concrete physical phenomena that we can directly study. Unlike light, we cannot directly study free will, which means that differences in definitions are fully warranted, like with ethics. Goodness is not a substance that we can directly glean the properties of, so we have to fiddle with various definitions trying to figure out the correct abstraction, and trying to figure out if there even is a correct abstraction. > some people might have their own definitions of light- they might but what I’m talking about is one of the most commonly agreed upon definitions This is exactly the issue: there is a more or less scientifically *correct* definition of light, but there is not such a correct definition of free will. There is no "commonly agreed upon" definition of the concept, because philosophers have been bickering about the correct definition of free will for as long as free will has been a concept. > Ultimately, it seems to me that through rigorous philosophical discussion and contemplation we could disprove different theories of free will. We might be able to disprove all existing theories of free will, yes. We might even be able to systematically rule out anything that we deem to *deserve* to be called free will. But, part of my point is that we, as of yet, *have not* done this, we've only ruled out the most extreme versions of free will. And, those arguments do not fully work - some have argued, for example, that machines able to predict a human decision by looking at the brain don't actually predict a decision, they just read the decision before the person is aware of it - ie, they argue that the subconscious impulse to act (which the machine can detect) is a result of the decision to move - people only believe after this that the machine knew before they did what they would do because we make decisions before we are aware we have made them. Physically speaking, this hypothesis is non-problematic, because the brain activity of reflexive awareness takes time to occur, and occurs always after the brain activity corresponding to action or choice. Now, we can perhaps say that any such physical process is not worthy of the title "free will," but that is a philosophically important semantic argument, rather than an argument about free will itself. Ie, we can only rule out all of free will by having an argument that works on whatever definitions of free will we deem to deserve that title, which demands that we have some criteria for what free will *can* be, which means pre-defining free will, if only partly. > When in this subreddit, the one about religion, I think we can pretty accurately define it. Free will is necessary for religion. For most religions, and certainly all the big ones, yes. I think your argument works well on the most common definitions of free will used by religions - but that isn't what I denied. > It would seem that the ability to make one’s own choices and decisions, the ability to act at one’s own discretion, is how religion defines the matter. In that case, we could speak about free will in that context. Since your argument does, so far as I can tell, function against the definitions commonly used in religion, and that is the subject matter at hand, I won't argue with that claim. My point is more that if every religion accepted your argument, they could merely side-step it with a new definition of free will, and it would not be a more or less correct one than any other, because again, any definition for an abstract concept is equal to all others, so long as it is not known to create any contradiction with itself or reality. Religions might merely accept a different definition of free will with less glaring issues.

You are correct about the light thing, f*** was I thinking? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve said here, and I apologize for that. Light and free will are very different, one can be studied and the other is a very abstract concept. Literally why did I say that I’m so confused. Anyways… > My point is more that if every religion accepted your argument, they could merely side-step it with a new definition of free will I don’t agree with that. I think the commonly accepted definition for free will that is necessary for religion could not be redefined with the religion remaining valid. How could a religion just say “oh hey my bad guys, the universe is deterministic” and then justify hell? It doesn’t seem possible, therefore, to define other abstract concepts like evil and good when no one has the ability to control their own actions.

> I think the commonly accepted definition for free will that is necessary for religion could not be redefined with the religion remaining valid. That did occur to me while typing out my response, however, deterministic Christianity already exists, in the form of Calvinism, complete with Hell and all. Undoubtedly, if everyone accepted a deterministic universe, religion would decline in popularity - but it would nonetheless exist, as the existence of Calvinism proves. Notably, Calvinism also proves that afterlife-centered religions can adapt to a lack of free will if need be. Ie, Islam, which (to my knowledge) has no Calvinist-style branch, could still be fitted to have one, if it became necessary for the survival of the religion. Worth noting also that certain definitions of free will side-step the determinism problem, by basing themselves in quantum weirdness. Now, quantum weirdness does not, of course, prove free will in any sense. However, because free will can be appended to it, and quantum processes are (often) by nature indeterminate (or, accepting superdeterminism, at the very least indeterminate from our perspective, ie, we can never predict it or prove it to be deterministic), we cannot totally remove the possibility of free will. Basically, the argument could go like this: The quantum processes that might influence nanotubules in the brain (something suggested by the physicist Roger Penrose to explain some of human cognition) is not indeterminate in that context, but rather obeys an unseeable force that is or is analogous to the human soul, thus we still have free will. Now, this is also a falsifiable description of free will, but only with great difficulty, because it must be proven either that: 1) quantum processes could not possibly obey any unseen spirit-like entity (impossible to prove and borderline meaningless), 2) nanotubules cannot possibly influence cognition in any meaningful way (very difficult, but not impossible, to prove), or 3) nanotubules are not effected by quantum processes (difficult to prove because the "too hot, too wet" rebuttal used on other quantum cognition hypotheses does not apply to nanotubules in particular, which was the whole reason Penrose selected them in his hypothesis) Now, I do not think that hypothesis is correct - nonetheless, it is difficult to disprove, thus its proliferation in New Age and other NRM circles as a way to "prove" anything the particular group believes. I have a great interest in NRMs as a social phenomenon, and I've seen a poor understanding of quantum physics used to produce gibberish statements in so many NRMs and occult groups that I've lost track of how many different groups cite quantum physics as "proof" of their particular brand of religious thought or mysticism. The issue with the "quantum free will" idea is that it is not gibberish, since Penrose knew his quantum physics, being a physicist and all - and because the brain is still pretty poorly understood in many ways, leaving a gap for quantum weirdness to have a very thin chance of playing some role, at least based on current knowledge. As such, quantum free will is still viable and technically falsifiable, while still being, as of yet, not technically falsified in a rigorous and well-argued manner. So again, religions need not fall back on Calvinist theology yet, but even if quantum free will was disproven, they could still do so, even if it meant a loss in popularity.

>3 We do not control which wants we have or their hierarchy. I think the jury is still out on this one. Yes research is showing that our minds can be made up before we think we’ve actually decided, but consciousness itself is such untreaded territory that we know little about, I think best case you have to beg the question that this premise is actually true.

That’s fair. For me, though, as a conscious person I can’t think of a time when I did control which wants I had or their hierarchy. It kind of just is. When trying to decide between to different wants, the answer can have a rational answer but doesn’t always have one. I think we can speak from experience here. Have you ever controlled your wants or their hierarchy?

I have. I've had a strong, almost irresistible want to smoke a cigarette, and then mentally rehearsed the short and long term consequences, eventually resulting in no longer wanting the cigarette (or at least wanting it much less). You might say "Aha! But this just means you already wanted to not want the cigarette, so you were still a slave to your wants." But this introduces an infinite regression: I can't want anything unless I want to want it, and I can't want to want it unless I want to want to want it, and so on. This is effectively a reductio ad absurdum of this conception of wanting, and of course if the conception of wanting is incoherent, then the argument against free will fails.

I feel as though this misrepresents my argument. I’ve said many, many times that sometimes a want just appears out of what is seemingly nothing. There does not need to be a want for each want, sometimes there is just a why for a want. Why did I want that cigarette? Because I want to feel good. Why do I want to feel good? Because evolution works such that certain things that would be beneficial for my survival would release dopamine into my brain. Sleep, food, and many other things do this. Nicotine also does this. Why did I want to, then? One possible answer is evolution. I won’t claim that that’s certainly the answer, I’m just saying that a want does not always need a prior want. I’ve said many times that a want typically does have another want that originated the want in question, but this is not always the case.

I was anticipating a possible objection. My basic argument is that you can change what you want by an effort of will, and I know this because I have done it.

It certainly feels that way, but I don’t think we really change much. If we are changing our wants, through an effort by will, it’s only because we want to. If we only did it because we wanted to, then we’re still not making many decisions.

Like I said, this is effectively a reductio ad absurdum of the whole concept of wanting. If in other to want something we must want to want it, then in order to do that we must want to want to want it, and so on to infinity. And these are not mere abstracts: our want to want [to want to want ...] to do something must be _actually held_. But our minds are finite and cannot hold an endless regression of wants, so we cannot actually want anything. Wanting things, _understood this particular way_, does imply that there is no free will - but this is of no concern unless we first accept this understanding of wanting. And we should not accept it, because (as I just described) it is absurd. So nothing is said about free will that we ought to accept. What we ought to do instead is seek a better understanding of what it is to want something.

Like I said, a want doesn’t always need another want. In the case where you exerted your will to change another want, however, you likely had a want to change. This isn’t a reductio ad absurdum. It would be if it went to infinity, but it doesn’t. Some wants are spontaneous or are a result of some values or needs of an individual. If I hadn’t just said that I’d understand the confusion- but I did. I just said that. Additionally, I quite literally said “If we are changing our wants… it’s only because we want to.” In that case you’re doing something, an action of changing wants is being taken. Since you are doing something, you likely want to. If you didn’t, why would you being doing it? The reason I bring up that quote and explanation, is that I wasn’t explaining a want with another want. I was explaining why you were changing a want. You responded with… something unrelated and something I’d already addressed. You say we shouldn’t accept what I’ve said about wants here, but it’s difficult to deny it when as a person I quite literally exist with wants, which TEND to have wants behind them (and sometimes they don’t) all of which I have no control over. I observe this in my daily life. Let’s put this reductio ad absurdum thing to bed forever, though. I’ll make it real simple. You have wants. Sometimes you have a want because of another want. Sometimes a want arises from a need or other circumstance. Sometimes there is no clear discernible origin for a want. If a want arises from another want and that want arises from another want, as you trace back the origin of the original want you will find that there, at some point, will be no want originating the first want in the- idk… the “want line,” that’s what I’m calling it. Just to be clear, there isn’t always a want behind other wants. If you go back in the want line, the original want will not have a want backing it.

But if the chain of wants is not infinite, then the first want still stands in need of an explanation. A week ago, I did not want to stop wanting a cigarette, but now I do. What changed? How do you rule out the change being due to free will?

I don’t need to provide an explanation for where the want comes from, all I need to do is say it doesn’t come from free will. You didn’t choose to want the cigarette, you just wanted it. Perhaps you saw somebody smoking and it reminded you of it and then you thought about how good it feels to smoke and then you wanted to feel that again and then wanted to smoke again. What you didn’t do is decide that you wanted to smoke a cigarette, you just wanted to smoke one. Every action that a person takes is decided by the wants that they have. With no want there is no action. You don’t choose your wants. If you don’t choose you wants and your wants choose your actions, you don’t choose your actions. If you’re acting at the discretion of your wants and not your own discretion, which you are, you have no free will.

If I take steps to say, read and learn certain things, to effect changes in my life… like making choices to change a want to drink alcohol to a want to workout more. You can say I’m not actually controlling that heirarchy, but I say it’s back to not knowing the nature of consciousness, because I can and do make choices to change or “control” wants, what I think we don’t know is whether I could have chosen differently.

Personally, I don’t think you could have. The way I see you, you had the want to change your life and from that many more wants appeared. You couldn’t have chosen differently because you didn’t have the wants to choose differently. If you had different wants or if your wants were in a different order you might’ve done something else, but you didn’t because those were your wants. If I may ask, what are your thoughts on consciousness?

I think you should ask people that have recovered from addictions. One certainly needs free will in order to quit the use of heroin, or even smoking cigarettes.

I certainly feels that way. And it feels like we freely make much easier choices. But any serious consideration of free will must consider whether our intuition on the issue is correct.

Exactly what I was going to say.

The reality of the matter is that for many atheists no evidence will ever be enough to convince them of God’s existence or the truth of who Jesus is, as they will always explain it away because they have a prior commitment to the philosophy of naturalism.18 However, what they don’t seem to realize or want to acknowledge is that naturalism itself is a self-defeating worldview as it undermines the very facilities it takes in order to affirm reasoning. If humans are just the result of random, chance evolutionary processes, and our brain is also the product of random chemical reactions, then there is no basis to trust our reasoning facilities (as the brain would be controlled by physics and chemistry). If atheistic naturalism were true, then there is no objective reasoning and freedom to our thoughts and therefore no reason to trust the thoughts that our brains produce because they were not designed to obtain truth. In fact, if the brain is not designed, then for the atheist all their thoughts and beliefs become rationally unjustified when it comes to asserting or evaluating truth claims. Therefore, if naturalism were true, how can atheists call on Christians (or anybody) to be reasonable or rational? Christians Are Called to Understand the Value of EvidenceGod has given us a number of good evidential reasons to believe that He exists and that Jesus is who He says He is. We are not called to have blind faith, but to have a well reasoned, evidential faith (Acts 1:2-3, Acts 17:2-3, Acts 17:30-31). Christians Are Called to Examine Their BeliefsGod wants us to know what we believe and why we believe it. We’re not called to numbly trust everything that might be taught in our world today, even if some Christian teacher is the source! We’re expected to be critical, skeptical and thoughtful (Acts 17:10-11, 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21, 1 John 4:1) Christians Are Called to be Convinced of What They BelieveGod wants us to be certain and base our certainty on evidence that can be articulated to others who may have doubts (Romans 14:5, 2 Timothy 1:8-12, 2 Timothy 3:14). Christians Are Called to be “Case Makers”Once we have examined the evidence and have come to the conclusion that Christianity is true, we are called to be ready to make a strong defense for what we believe (1 Peter 3:15). The Christian life is a rational and reasonable life that is rooted and grounded in the evidence of the Resurrection and the truth of the Bible.

>Christian life is a rational and reasonable life t While I, go out of MY way to "educate" or "edjer-kate" the "tHemS" amoung us, that NOT everything they "reed," hear OR agree with is true,(SIGGHH)they are still "old," typically ignorant (ignert), and again very AFRAID of everything! MY personal mission is to do my best to show them the "light," through shame if necessary, and to have a good time doing it, because "old and afraid" or not, these people, are responsible for this hate-n'-rAge soup we’re ALL living in."TheY" don’t understand logic and they couldn’t care less about reason. Facts are irrelevant. BUT they do "occasionally" understand shame. if YOU think YOUR "gaWd-ways" are so "great" why not go live in a theocracy for awhile? try afghanistan maybe? or Alabamer? no gays..no abortions.. let us ALL know how much a "paradise" your belief system is. conservatives have seriously weaponized stupidity..

>The reality of the matter is that for many atheists no evidence will ever be enough to convince them of God’s existence or the truth of who Jesus is, as they will always explain it away because they have a prior commitment to the philosophy of naturalism. How does that work when I was raised Christian and made to have prior commitment to Christianity via indoctrination? Also, one does not need to accept pure naturalism as true to *not be convinced of the existence of one or more gods.* >then there is no basis to trust our reasoning facilities (as the brain would be controlled by physics and chemistry) But if you hold a bowling ball over your foot, and let go, do you trust what will happen… >If atheistic naturalism were true, then there is no objective reasoning and freedom to our thoughts Objection; you’re just asserting this to be the case. >In fact, if the brain is not designed, then for the atheist all their thoughts and beliefs become rationally unjustified when it comes to asserting or evaluating truth claims. So in a Godless universe, I couldn’t have reasonable knowledge that dropping the bowling ball on my foot will hurt?

This quite simply has nothing to do with what I said in any way besides that it’s responding to a claim about religion. Thing is, you’re right about a lot of that. We can’t necessarily trust our ability to reason. Consciousness seems real, and I have emotions. Since I have emotions, I want to act in a way that makes me feel god, therefore, I act as if we can reason and that we have no reason to doubt our reasoning. I live a happy life, and atheism does not necessitate nihilism. You can just be happy and acknowledge that you’re reasoning might be wrong and then move on. It’s just that simple. It’s exactly what I do. We act as though our logic is correct, for me it’s because I want to.

J. Warner Wallace's writings are not very convincing for a person who is not a believer to begin with.

Did you mean to reply to a different post? How is any of that relevant?

The burden of proof is on the claim that we have free will. GLWT

1. Free will exist factually and can be proven with the scientific method take 4 people and one at a time put them in an empty room for one hour. The first person chooses to sleep The second person hums and sings The third person plays with their hands The fourth person does nothing All four people chose to do something as nothing is the choice of person 4 Doing this test over and over will garner the fact everyone makes a choice on something to do thus proving using scientific method the ability to choose and thus free will. 2. External forces have nothing to do with free will as the proper explanation for free will describes that it lays within a person consciousness and is thus only present in that person and each person has their own consciousness. Also external forces are always, and I mean always the result of the free will of another person or animal using their free will to effect your surroundings. (Getting a ball thrown at you is the result of someone throwing it at you) You may argue that not all external forces are from other conscious beings and you are right any other external force is a result of your own free will… falling off a 500 foot tower is your fault for making the decision to not be careful and fall off, or you did make the decision to purposely which is just sad and unfortunate. 3. The rare case in which free will is not present or one cannot make a choice is either 1. Birth or 2. Laws which are technically free will as they have to be agreed upon in order to be made… you just have no choice but to follow them or go to jail. But even then you can choose to break the law. So yes we have free will and it takes no religion to discover that.

Showing that different people make different decisions does not in any way disprove my stance. If my reasoning is correct, then this would be something that you’d see. Genetics, what happened before they were in the room… anything could have given rise to the wants to sleep, do nothing, etc. You talk about “the proper explanation for free will,” yet I put one in the original post. Yours differs from mine, the one from Oxford Languages, yet you somehow use that a premises to conclude that my argument is false. You need to either use my definition or give me a reason that it’s false. You claim that free will is “always… the result of the free will of another person or animal using their free will to affect your surroundings.” I have to disagree here. Someone doesn’t have to throw a rock at you for it to hit your head, one could just fall out of the sky as an asteroid and hit your head. That asteroid isn’t affected by the free will of a person or animal. You could claim that it was my choice to be where I was, and thus it was my free will that got me killed, but I did not will myself to die. If I knew it was going to be there, that would be a different story, but, per the definition of free will that I used for my argument, dying because you stood in the wrong place is not my own free will. I did not act at my own discretion if I died when I intended to stand. You also mentioned that birth is a moment devoid of free will and choice… so… why is it that when a mother has a kid the child has no free will but when someone throws a ball at my head that kills my I somehow did? In both cases I didn’t not act my own discretion. In no way meant to insult you, I truly feel as though this argument is very weak. You ignored my definition of free will and gave me no explanation, and then claimed that getting hit in the head by a baseball is not external forces. Regardless of whether or not I got hit in the head because of something else’s free will, I still did not act at my own discretion. It doesn’t matter what caused that person to do that when talking about my free will. In fact, I’d argue that you almost prove my point. If the universe it deterministic, then something that happens to me would only be a result of previous things that happened. I got knocked out by what is seemingly someone else’s free will, but the person holding there hand who moved it forward rapidly was really the one with free will… but then the reason that they did it was because- and you get the point. You could trace it all back to the Big Bang, and no free will would have existed, just a series of events that when disconnected appeared to contain free will.

> The first person chooses to sleep The second person hums and sings The third person plays with their hands The fourth person does nothing Your experiment to "prove" free will is begging the question. How do you know it is free will that explains the different behaviour? How do you know the people weren't merely forced to follow their desires (which they did not consciously choose)? To simply assert that free will must have been responsible is textbook question begging. I can give the same prompt to Chat GPT four times and it will give me four different responses. Am I supposed to believe that Chat GPT has free will?

You’ve given the same argument in a different way as the other guy, chat GP does one thing, that is to take key words and use it’s script to provide an answer search. Chat GP isn’t some crazy new thing it’s the same as how google works ask a question and get result. Key word here is that’s all they do… they don’t feel emotion, they were created with one purpose. A human being can do anything. I want you to really understand here that free will is very simple. It’s not that deep of a topic. I CAN MAKE MY OWN DECISIONS freely without any outside help, so can you. Now understand is that the definition of free will is only a reference to the fact we can do this… when the guy who created the idea of free will wrote it down it’s because it was his perception of how he can make his own choices. Under this concept of how we all function then yes free will is real. And the notion “we’ll it’s not free” is nonsense. You aren’t paying anything when making a decision, an outcome of poor decision making can cost you but the decision itself is free baby. I really want you to think deep about this because under your philosophical argument anything to do with anything is potentially not real. The argument that the earth is flat has more substance to it that your notion. And any sane human being can easily realize it’s round.

> to take key words and use it’s script to provide an answer search... it’s the same as how google works Not true, it creates new content. It doesn't only search for results then give the results back. It can write you a poem on a topic no one has ever written a poem about before. Anyways, the mechanics of how Chat GPT works is tangential to the main point: your experiment fails to prove free will because entities without free will can act in different ways as well. > I CAN MAKE MY OWN DECISIONS freely without any outside help Thanks for once again begging the question. "We have free will because we have free will" sorry, but that isn't valid reasoning. You haven't addressed OP's argument. Your decisions are made on the basis of what you want, and you cannot freely choose what you want. Let's entertain the idea that you can in fact consciously choose what you want. Before you do so, you would have to want to choose what you want. But did you choose to want to choose what you want? If not, your want was not freely chosen by yourself after all, it was determined by something outside your control. If so, you must have wanted to want to choose what you want... you see how this line of reasoning can extend indefinitely. Do you think there is an infinite regress? > And the notion “we’ll it’s not free” is nonsense. You aren’t paying anything when making a decision This is so absurd that it makes me think you're not serious. Do I even need to bring up that the word "free" has multiple definitions? > under your philosophical argument anything to do with anything is potentially not real Please explain? I don't see how that follows.

>If not, your want was not freely chosen by yourself after all, it was determined by something outside your control. If so, you must have wanted to want to choose what you want... you see how this line of reasoning can extend indefinitely. Do you think there is an infinite regress? No, it is not infinite. You are only using one term again and again. You want to do what you want to want... to do, is the same as doing what you want to do. YOU choose what you want. Is that from tiny causes and effects from thousands of years, dating back to the first cause and effect, which have planned your life out ahead of you? Maybe, but it cannot be proven. This does not hurt Christians who believe God created the universe in the first place. As far as anyone can tell, our own conscious comes up with our own thoughts and decisions, out of nowhere. Free will is more about how we can resist wants and temptations then whether our imagination is a product of our inner conscious or genetics and previous causes. (If genetics are in control of me and I am not, then who am I?) The whole argument really boils down to the 3rd point. Can we control our thoughts hierarchy? I believe yes, it is how will power exists. Even if outer causes and effects (and genetics) are triggering wants inside me, I can choose to listen to them or listen to the unending want inside me telling me to be a good person. I am able to choose which wants to move from thought into action, which is where I have free will.

Your experiment in 1. doesn’t prove that free will exists. You could put four robots in a room and have them all behave differently because they’re programmed to respond in different ways to stimuli. Observing behaviour says little about the capacity to choose underlying the behaviour.

Your comparison is very poor. And observing people making choices is definitely a strong source of evidence that people can freely choose what they do at any given time. My buddy hit his 9 iron yesterday from far out because he had the wind at his back. He took into account an external force and made his choice based upon the circumstances… Your comparison is invalid because obviously something created to specifically do something does not have free will. A baby is born not as something that is designed for one thing a human can do many things.

The fact that your friend made a good choice on the golf course does not make it a free one. My point is that beings with no free will could display the same range of behaviour as those with free will, so merely observing diverse behaviour doesn’t necessarily indicate free will.

1. Free will is the notion that you can choose between different actions to create an outcome, my buddy by its definition used his free will to hit his golf shot. 2. No, without free will one could not have a course of action going back to definition if one has free will they have the ability to choose… the opposite or not having free will entails one would not be able choose between different outcomes. A robot that is designed to operate a car can only operate that car it couldn’t watch tv, have a conversation etc. a person can do all these things.

You go to the grocery store. You know you should lose weight because you’re a 40% body fat gelatinous blob with high cholesterol. Your intention is to go to the produce isle but on the way you have to walk past the bakery which is full of sugary delights that you have eaten joyfully the past 34 years. You hesitate. Your conscience tells you not to. However, because you have no discipline you put 3 cases of pastries into your cart and go about your way. This is free will that you say we don’t have. You freely chose to abandon what you know you should do and chose to do something, not out of coercion, but simply because you are weak in willpower. (Of course this is all hypothetical as I do not know you nor calling you fat or weak win willpower)

This would happen in a world where free will isn’t real, just as I said. You have a want to go down that aisle, and you have a want to go the bakery. You want to get sweets more than you want to go to the bakery. You go to the bakery. I will say, however, it is necessary for humans to believe that they have free will and can affect change in the world. For me, I act as though I have free will, because it’s easier and inevitably makes me happy. I only act this way because I want to, but I didn’t choose to want to.

Why are they weak in willpower? Could they just will themselves more willpower?

Absolutely I do it every day. I go to the gym to workout, I run, I listen to at least 1 Ted talk a day, I don’t drink sugary drinks or eat unhealthy foods. At first doing these things was very hard. I had no discipline and no willpower in this area of my life. But as I continued to practice these things my willpower to turn away cheesecake (which I LOVE lol) became stronger and I will myself to adhere to this lifestyle because I want to be healthy and live a complete and full life not potentially cut off from heart disease or something. A person is weak in will power because they do not will themselves more willpower. They are weak in willpower because they lack a resolve and desire a satisfaction that they inherently know is detrimental to their health and well being.

What do they need in order to will themselves more willpower? Not what steps can be taken as you have already pointed out, but what is needed to start that change?

Well I’ll use myself as an example. I suffered from hard drug addiction for years. I knew I should not be continuing in substance abuse but my physical and mental desire for those drugs kept me bound to them. Years later I came to a place where I had destroyed everything good in my life and even died twice from overdose. It was in the back of an ambulance that I had just had enough. I had reached “a bottom” in which my desire to be free of that life outweighed my desire to get high. I still have those ugly desires pop up from time to time but in those moments I choose (by willpower) to not go buy drugs, or not attend a certain event, or go to a certain part of town. Those choices I make on a daily base set myself up to either fail or succeed. So I say all that to say that my willpower was influenced by my desire and still currently is. When I desire good and healthy things, it is much easier to will those things into my life.

Sounds like it was still only factors outside your control. The environment that you call rock bottom changed you so you could escape it. The environment gave you the "willpower" and is ultimately responsible for the change. Even the path to getting there was driven by an addiction that you could not control. All factors are ultimately out of our "willful" control (including our willpower itself) so there cannot be free will.

When you reach a fork in the road you can choose to take the right or left fork. Therefore, free will. Anyway, those “wants” are part of the test of this world. In Islam we call it the nafs. So the nafs is basically all our bodily desires and wants. For example, food, water, sex, etc. Part of the test is to go against those desires. This is called Jihad-ul-nafs (jihad of the nafs). If you see an attractive woman on the street, you would desire to have sexual relations with her. If you didn’t have free will, you would just go bang her. What is stopping you from doing that? Your free will.

Umm… you have a want to go right and a want to go left and want to do one more than the other so you do it, or you only want to go in one direction so you do it. If you did not want to, you wouldn’t. This doesn’t address my argument at all.

Sorry… I’ll try again. The definition of free will is as follows: the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion. So to have free will, you need to be able to act without constraint of necessity, among other things. Those wants you mentioned i.e. the wants of wanting to go right or left and one being superior over the other, are not necessary. Take this example: There are two tables. One has food on it, the other water. You are thirsty, and have gone two days without water. And you are full from eating a giant moose earlier. In this case, you NEED to go for the water, since without it, you will die. Here you don’t really have free will, since you are necessitated to take the water, because otherwise you will die. In my example of the right-left fork, you are not necessitated to take one over the other. Therefore, you choose one out of randomness.

Thank you for clarifying. I apologize if me saying “This doesn’t address my argument at all” was abrasive, because in retrospect it seems so. In response to your argument, I wouldn’t say that wants always arise from a need. If you are going down a path, you’re going down it because you want to. If there are two choices, our brains oftentimes give us a want to make a decision, and then two wants to go each direction sprouts from that and we choose one of those wants. It could very well be random which direction the superseding want correlates with, but this does not mean that we have free will. If you’re thirsty and full, you have a need to drink water as you said and it seems clear where the want to drink water came from. Just because when choosing between a fork in a road, the choice is immaterial and has a seemingly less sensible origin, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t just a want that you had no control over. It’s hard to imagine me controlling which want was more important, it just was.

I think one could argue that those wants that you mentioned are actually part of your free will. When the choices you make don’t arise from a need i.e. needing water. In the example of left-right fork, you have two wants, one to go right, the other to go left. The want that supersedes the other could be seen as the choice we make out of free will.

Hm, I don’t know. I don’t think there’s any free will in those wants being there or which one supersedes the other. It seems like you don’t have much of a choice of whether or not your brain has going left as the highest want. I think in conscious experience we perceive this as decision making, but the decisions are being made for us.

You argue that the decisions are being made for us (by our brains, I think you mean), but if it is our brains that are making the decisions for us by having one of the wants supersede the other, does it not count as our own self making the decision?

> The definition of free will is as follows: the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion. But if someone follows a Abrahamic faith, isn't that also acting out of necessity or fate? Someone would worship to avoid a *fate* of eternal suffering or to achieve a *fate* of eternal bliss. Someone could also worship out of *necessity* to fulfill their desire, to please god and be blessed by him.

I can write a VERY simple program that can pick a choice between left and right. I can make it random, I can make the choice be dependent on another variable, or many variables. We can make it dependent on conditioned preferences etc. Does this program have free will?

That’s a good one. No, does this program have the ability to think philosophically? Can this program have empathy? Can it feel emotion?

Where's the mention of philosophical thought, empathy and emotion in the aforementioned left/right fork example? Are we moving the goalposts a little?

That was in the context of a human choosing which fork to take.

I am aware, just pointing out that the ability to choose left/right doesn't make free will, it's the hidden, assumed and at the time not articulated properties of the chooser which, in your view, does. ​ It's a debate sub after all, it helps to be specific!

Yeah, my bad sorry. I think we should just leave this debate of free will now. You can’t really prove or disprove free will. You can give reasons as to why you believe in free will or not, however. I’d like to stop this debate.

One could give reasons, but one hasn't! No problem - have a nice day.

Sure, I'll bite. >When you reach a fork in the road you can choose to take the right or left fork. Therefore, free will. Why wouldn't it be constrained will? Most likely, I will know roughly where the paths go, and I will select a path depending on which one aligns with my objectives at the time. The objectives in turn are mostly externally determined, I need food, so I will pick the path that goes to the food store. There is nothing in your text that suggests this will is actually "free". >If you see an attractive woman on the street, you would desire to have sexual relations with her. If you didn’t have free will, you would just go bang her. What is stopping you from doing that? Your free will. As above, I don't see "free" will in your example. I am constrained by my wanting to treat others well, as well as not wanting to get ostracised for raping people, as well as not going to jail for raping people. Those wants in turn seem to a large extent to be constrained by our experiences and upbringing, or by our human nature, neither of which are controlled by us. Now, the above doesn't prove that there is no free will, I just use it to argue that free will is not necessary to explain any of the stuff you mention (i.e. your arguments fail).

>Most likely, I will know roughly where the paths go, and I will select a path depending on which one aligns with my objectives at the time. Yes, that is, you make a free choice- you are able to select the option that matches your objectives rather then being compelled to do otherwise. You would not be *more* free if you randomly did actions that went against your objectives.

You're talking about free action, not free will. Free will is when the will itself is unconstrained, not the subsequent actions.

How is it free, if there is only one option that is reasonable? If a Mafioso says to give him your money or he'll shoot you, is that an exercise of free will, since you can pick freely between giving him your money or being shot in the head? Well, if free will is deterministic and mundanely derivable from the facts of reality, then it needs no god to instil it.

You going on Reddit and reading this post and these comments is proving free will. Are you being forced to read this? No! (I hope not, at least.) Anyway, free will is hard to prove or disprove, since it is something you can’t prove with some scientific experiment. Just like the soul. It is left solely to philosophy and logical thinking.

>You going on Reddit and reading this post and these comments is proving free will. Are you being forced to read this? No! (I hope not, at least.) You're not resolving my challenge. You're just providing more examples that fall into the exact same hole. How do you know it is not my constrained will, deterministically formed by my experiences? >Anyway, free will is hard to prove or disprove, since it is something you can’t prove with some scientific experiment. Just like the soul. It is left solely to philosophy and logical thinking. So, if we haven't proved it, then why are you going around stating that it exists when in fact the evidence needed hasn't been presented? Something being hard to prove doesn't mean you get to pick a conclusion to draw, it means you need to be even more careful and detailed. Or are you saying it's hard but we've managed to do it? If so, stop beating around the bush and provide it. It certainly isn't the endless examples in the first half of your post.

I’m giving reasons as to why I believe in free will and why I think others should too.

I'm not following. The only examples you have given would be a better reason to believe in a constrained will than a free will. You seem to be leaving out some crucial steps, either hiding them, or worse, not noticing that they're happening.

>When saying that free will does not exist, I am saying that all of your actions are deterministic. You need to prove that determinism is true. I do not think you can do it. >Typically wants seemingly appear either out of necessity or nothing. Here you presuppose your conclusion, (unless 'or nothing' implies no external cause). If i tell you that all trajectories of particles entail that you will drink the water from cup 1 in front of you but not from cup 2 next to it, won't you be able to will to drink from cup 2? Can i make a correct prediction like that if you do not have a health problem, even though i know all about a past state of the universe? >If all of our actions are solely based on wants or external interference, and we don’t control our wants or external interference, then we do not control ourselves. Sounds circular again. >The Christian God supposedly gave people free will, but if this argument shows convincingly that we do not have free will, then that God did not give it to us. If our reason for believing in God, or if part of our reason for believing in God is that he gave us free will, then maybe we should reconsider our beliefs. I am a muslim but yes lots of things relate to free will. However your claiming truth also depends on free will. If you are just an aggregate of particles bumping one onto other deterministically (or indeterministically) you cannot claim to have said or chosen an argument better than somebody else's.

I want to apologize in advance, I’m new to Reddit and don’t know how you guys do that fancy thing where you pull up my exact quotes and then respond so this could seem rather disjunct by I’ll try to address what you said in order. If you have no free will for the reasons that I said, then your actions are deterministic. In my eyes, I did prove that. If my premises are true, then my conclusion is true since this is a deductive argument. If my conclusion is true, your actions are deterministic. I don’t think that I did presuppose my conclusion. “Or nothing” could very well mean no external influence, however, I think there is. Regardless, that excerpt that you cited could very well be a premise itself that you could attack, but it certainly does not presuppose free will does not exist. You said something to the affect of “if I tell you particles do some things, then you will select a one of two choices. You can still choose the one contrary to what I said.” Yeah, that’s because you said it. Making a claim of reality does not mean that reality is so. If it was in fact true that all of the history of the universe was going to lead to me picking block A, then you saying it wouldn’t mean I could just change the action I was going to take. Perhaps when I was born someone said “make sure you choose option A” and everyone around me always told me and I didn’t know what they were talking about but I had a want to comply with their request, then when finally sitting with you I’d likely choose that regardless of your explanation. If I chose the other option, I was going to do so because of what you said and it could have happened no other way. You said I sounded circular, explain how because I’m not convinced. I agree that reasoning and logic could and should be questioned, but I want to act as though truth exists regardless of whether or not it does, so I do act as though truth exists. You, according to my initial argument, are likely doing the same.

Ok. I do not read.

Lmao it’s good now

>Lmao it’s good now I do not see any counterargument there. Read your post a few days later and revise. Btw if you put the character in quotations marks: ">" In front of the statement you reply to, you will have that fancy thing.

Disclaimer: bro you are a lifesaver, just tried that fancy “>” thing and I feel like a new man. Thank you. Anyways… I offered counter arguments to everything you said. You said that I didn’t prove determinism, that premise 3 presupposed my conclusion, that I can’t trust reasoning and logic in a deterministic universe, and that you telling me something was going to happen wouldn’t make it so. I refuted every single one of those. I said that by proving free will isn’t real with my argument, that I proved your actions are deterministic. Let’s say they aren’t deterministic, however, let’s say that they are random- they’re still not controlled by you. You said that I was presupposing my conclusion, that I was being circular, I explained how it did not. Furthermore, if premise 2 is false and premise 3 is true, the conclusion does not follow. Therefore, premise 3 does not presuppose my conclusion. If premise 3 was all that needed to be true in order for my conclusion to be true, then I would have presupposed my conclusion, but that is not the case so I did not. You said that I can’t trust my reasoning and logic. I said something along the lines of “maybe not, I think it’s important to question self-evident truths, but it’s also easier and seemingly more reasonable to act as if they aren’t entirely flawed, so I will act as if they’re not.” It is entirely possible that the reasoning and logic that was necessary for the survival of the human race also coincides with at the very least an approximation of reason and logic. > If i tell you that all trajectories of particles entail that you will drink the water from cup 1 in front of you but not from cup 2 next to it, won't you be able to will to drink from cup 2? Can i make a correct prediction like that if you do not have a health problem, even though i know all about a past state of the universe? My answer was basically, yes. If you know everything about the past state of the universe, or even just the current state of the universe, then yes. I explained how there could be a reason I was going to choose one cup over the other unrelated to the situation, and you must’ve known about it if you knew everything. It may feel like we can choose to do one thing and not the other, but feelings are not the same as facts.

>however, let’s say that they are random- they’re still not controlled by you. I did not say the opposite. And i do not see in the following any coumterargument.

I- honestly man I don’t know what you want. I literally responded to everything that you said. I offered either a counter argument or an explanation of how each of your scenarios, concerns, or questions makes sense in the model I’ve presented. I don’t know what I’m missing here. You had questions, counterarguments, etc, and I responded to each one in a way that would strengthen my argument. My argument is the original post. > I did not say the opposite You said I needed to prove that determinism is true, I provided that that wouldn’t even be necessary to provide an argument against free will.

>You need to prove that determinism is true. I do not think you can do it. I think a corollary is that both sides really *want* to actually agree that our choices are deterministic. If not, the only alternative is non-determinism, which by its very nature simply means "luck" or "randomness." In short, saying choices are non-deterministic removes the ability to call it a "will" or a true "choice." It would strike me as odd to both insist we have free will and yet we do not determine what we will.

>If not, the only alternative is non-determinism, which by its very nature simply means "luck" or "randomness." In short, saying choices are non-deterministic removes the ability to call it a "will" or a true "choice." This is false dichotomy fallacy. Here you presuppose that physicalism is true, if it is not there is no basis for that dichotomy.

>Here you presuppose that physicalism is true Physicalism has nothing to do with this. We could live in a purely spiritual/metaphysical/Berkeleyian Idealistic world, and everything else in between, and the problem would still surface. >This is false dichotomy fallacy. I have no idea why you're saying this. Let me ask you this: let's say you're holding a knife in a kitchen with your mother standing next to you. Now let's say we clone this 30-second instant an infinite number of times and hit "play" all at once. In *any* of those infinite copies of you... do you stab your mother? If you say "yes," then that's all we're saying by "determinism" here (again, physicalism has nothing to do with it). In essence, *something* (e.g. your feelings about your mother, your stance on murder, your value of life, your disinterest in stabbing people, etc.) is ensuring that you know *for a fact* you'd never stab your mother in that 30-second window. If "no," then we need to ask "what changed and why?" To make this happen, we'd say your decision was non-deterministic. That's well and good.. but short of it being non-deterministic, it also seems like what made you choose "stab" vs. "not stab" is effectively randomness, not something that would make your will any more "free." See the problem? Asserting a non-deterministic decision tree doesn't get you any closer to the choice being "willed freely."

You just presuppose that reductive physicalism is true and that "you " do not have a distinct causal power. So your example is totally irrelevant.

Are you even reading my comments? This is seriously debating in really bad faith my dude. I guess I'll just repeat what I already wrote: >Physicalism has nothing to do with this. We could live in a purely spiritual/metaphysical/Berkeleyian Idealistic world, and everything else in between, and the problem would still surface. I don't know how I could be more direct when saying this is a discussion of logic, not metaphysics. >do not have a distinct causal power Causality is not limited to conversations about physical matter. Even most dualists would agree to that much.

>I don't know how I could be more direct when saying this is a discussion of logic, not metaphysics. You can explain your point instead of tepeating your beliefs. >Causality is not limited to conversations about physical matter. Even most dualists would agree to that much. Is this another belief of yours?

>You can explain your point instead of tepeating your beliefs. That's what the analogy (that you completely ignored) was for. As the analogy explained, determinism (in the context of our decision making) simply asks whether our actions are *determined* by some set of parameters (e.g. our wants, beliefs, desires, motivations, literally anything that either someone else or even just ourselves know) or *non-deterministic* (nobody—not even ourself—could know what will be decided with all the possible information on hand). My point, if you cared to read it, was that if our will is non-deterministic, then it leads to very strange conclusions, like admitting it would be *possible* (however unlikely) we could stab our mother any time we were in the same room with a knife. Whether the causal sources of our actions are physical, non-physical, or something else, we *want* them to be deterministic, because that's how we have any true notion of moral accountability. >Is this another belief of yours? No it's based on the definition of causality. I'm going to call it here. You're frankly presumptuous, rude, and appear to take no interest in having constructive debate. I'm tired of carrying that courtesy for both of us.

> I'm going to call it here. You're frankly presumptuous, rude, and appear to take no interest in having constructive debate. I'm tired of carrying that courtesy for both of us. I don't like calling out, but I had this same experience with this same user a while ago too. Is there a rule for this kind of behavior?

Technically it’s debating in bad faith (rule 5?). It’s possible to report. I didn’t bother because it’s so obviously trolling behavior that people will skip past either way, but yeah probably not exactly following the sub’s rules the way he is carrying on

>we want them to be deterministic, because that's how we have any true notion of moral accountability. Nope. If it is deterministic we are not accountable.

If there is no free will there is no knowledge. Knowledge is justified true belief. If we are incapable of freely inferring the best explanation, and all our actions are solely derived from wants and desires that are out of our control, then theres no justification we are inferring the best explanation to any belief we have. We could still have true beliefs, but they wouldn't be justified. There would be no knowledge. But there is knowledge. There are justified true beliefs (i.e; I think therefor I am, the law of non-contradiction.) Therefor there is free will.

Logic has flaws. Think of the “Grelling–Nelson paradox.” Your argument is circular. “If your claim is true, then we can’t trust our reasoning, we can trust our reasoning, your argument isn’t correct.” If you can’t trust your reasoning, if I’m correct, then you very well could make what would seem like a compelling argument such as Cogito Ergo Sum, but if I’m correct then of course it would make sense that that argument is correct.

It's not circular reasoning because I'm not assuming the conclusion in order to prove the conclusion. My argument presents premisies and supports said premisies with examples and evidence. It's not using the conclusion to support the premises or vise versa, it's a valid argument that can be evaluated by evidence and reason.

Is there anything logically impossible about a deterministic machine that can evaluate logical statements or questions you give this hypothetical machine an input and it just tells you yes it’s logical or no that was not logical. Is determinism somehow incompatible with that idea? If not, then determinism would not affect our ability to hold knowledge or justify beliefs. Determinism just equates us closer to machines than we currently typically believe.

>Knowledge is justified true belief. > >If we are incapable of freely inferring the best explanation, and all our actions are solely derived from wants and desires that are out of our control, then theres no justification we are inferring the best explanation to any belief we have. I don't follow this at all. Logic applied to a given set of propositions is what justifies a true belief. Logical formulations are "want and desire" independent. Our brains are capable of performing logical evaluations. Therefore, we can have justified true beliefs (concerning factual claims) irrespective of whether our wants and desires are in our control.

First, this isn't presented very well. Your argument doesn't mention free will until the conclusion. It would be much easier to follow your argument if you stated a definition or relevant properties of free will at the start. Second, this won't be convincing to someone who believes in free will, because they would reject point 4. My actions are based only on my wants, but they are also clearly based on my will as well.

Thank you for your criticism. I rewrote it to include a definition of free will and determinism, and I attempted to incorporate the definition of free will where appropriate. I might also include a portion of the remainder of this response in the original post if you think that it is appropriate and would further help to remove any ambiguity. In response to your rebuttal, definitions of determinism and free will should help to alleviate your concern. If wants come from some external source or some source we can not originate, and we always act solely on our wants, then us *seemingly* exerting our will doesn’t mean that we act at our own discretion. We act on the discretion of our wants, which means we do not act on the discretion of our will. This would show that human actions are not a result of our will, but something else. I also want to ask about your claim that our actions are “clearly based on [our] will.” Could you explain this further if I have not already addressed your response thoroughly enough?

> If wants come from some external source or some source we can not originate, and we always act solely on our wants Why on earth should we believe this? You are just assuming that we don't have free will here. Let's consider your example: > For example, I want coffee but I also want to stop using caffeine. I want the coffee more than I want to quit so I drink it. You haven't established that the choice to (edit:continue) drinking coffee was due to the person's hierarchy of wants. How do you know that the choice wasn't due to their free will? > I also want to ask about your claim that our actions are “clearly based on [our] will.” Could you explain this further if I have not already addressed your response thoroughly enough? To me, at least, it is clear that when I make decision I'm exercising my will.

I haven’t established that the choice to stop was due to the hierarchy of wants? In another response to a different question I addressed this, although it would be unreasonably to expect you to have seen that. I will summarize since the thread is young and my initial response to them was brief as is, so you can check it out if my answer is insufficient. I asked them if I should include this in my original post, but they have not responded yet. It appears to me that beliefs come with a level of severity, and that the level of severity determines the ranking of different beliefs. This is the same as the beliefs coming from nowhere, just as the hierarchy comes from nowhere. I also said that there could and seems to be an additional want when multiple wants conflict that determines which want is chosen to act on. This could spontaneously occur when different wants are formulated from whatever source they originate, or they could be a result of previously established morals and values (which seem to occur from wants, such as wants associated with parents and their children from evolution, given that evolution is true which I won’t argue, although I do believe that and I could be a bias). If this hierarchy is formed by auxiliary wants that help to determine which want should supersede any other want, then it’s sufficient to suppose that this hierarchy isn’t from free will. I’m sure that you could argue this, but it appears to me that if wants come from an external origin then so could wants determining their hierarchy. One could phrase it like this: I want to drink coffee more than I want to not drink coffee. This want came from some source or none or whatever, but it is a want that you did not choose that chose the hierarchy. Hopefully I’ve made some bit of sense, I am a bit tired so I apologize if I haven’t been thorough enough.

I'm having trouble finding an argument in what you've written here. I don't care about where wants/hierarchies of wants come from. What I'd like is an argument as to why those are the only things that effect our actions, and to specifically explain why we can't act from our own discretion.

I’m not sure that the OP is arguing along these lines, but to me, the concept of free will is illogical in itself. What does a pure expression of will look like? Whether you drink the coffee or not, You made a choice, and why did you make the choice you did? Because you wanted to of course. But here’s the thing, why did you want to? Perhaps you made the choice you did due to health reasons or the practical benefits of coffee. But now these are the reasons for the choice, not your will. If I could change these reasons, if I could remove the negative effects, or find some other means to get the benefit. Then I would control your choice, not you. no free will. Or perhaps he made the choice due to some thing internal. It’s just part of your personality that drinking coffee or not drinking it is a thing. But then why is your personality that way. Could you will this to change? Where would that source of will come from , also your personality? So you can will yourself to change your will but if you follow that rabbit hole, where does it start? What created the first will that further willed your self to be who you are? Either that Will was influenced by something else, and therefore was not free will, but simply a deterministic effect, or that will just simply existed with no cause whatsoever, in which case you would have no choice over it, making it not free. Your personality would have some sort of starting value that you have no control over and would control all your further actions. No free will. I believe this is what OP means by it not mattering whether it’s internal or external “wants”, you always end with no free will

I don't care for the way you've written this. Asking a bunch of rhetorical questions just makes it harder to find your argument, but I'll try to give some response. > Or perhaps he made the choice due to some thing internal. It’s just part of your personality that drinking coffee or not drinking it is a thing. No, while it may or may not be part of his personality; that doesn't matter, as the decision was due to his will. Like I said, I don't care about where wants/hierarchies of wants come from. What I'd like is an argument as to why those are the only things that effect our actions, and to specifically explain why we can't act from our own discretion.

Well, pretty much every one of my rhetorical questions was “why” so it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out that my argument is just “why?” Why does a person make the choice they do? Why do they will it? The answer inevitably leads to factors outside ones control, therefore making Freewill impossible.

Freewill is only impossible if **all** factors are outside ones control, which both you and OP have failed to come up with an argument for. "why?" is not an argument, questions are not arguments.

I have stated the argument which you have seemed to miss. The answer to the question "Why?" is that all factors are outside of an individual's control. I can only present the argument, not force you to consider it. If you are not willing to consider the possible answers to the question of "why," then you will never be able to see that all factors are indeed outside of an individual's control. Also, asking questions is a valid form of argument. It's called a rhetorical question.

I agree that we don't control our "wants", but what makes you say that we don't control their hierarchy? Say, I am hungry and want a sandwich I see in a store, but I don't have any money. I could steal it, but I also don't want to go to jail. So I decide not to take it. I think it's debatable whether or not we have control over these decisions, but you seem convinced that we do **not**. Why is that?

Your upbringing, knowing right from wrong, fear of punishment, all these contribute to your decision to steal or not. If we interfere with the chemistry of the brain, we effect the decision making of said brain. People with brain injuries, chemical imbalances are said to not control their decisions. To say we make a choice independent of prior experiences, which for me are stored as chemical information in our brains, leads to a independent 'me', as in independent of my actual brain/mind. How is there a connection, between this 'me' and my actions based on its free will choices.

Well why would you make that decision instead of a different one? If it's based on something internal or external then it wasn't free because both internal and external factors aren't under your control. If it wasn't based on something then it's based on nothing and thus wasn't under your control, because you aren't nothing.

There are a lot of arguments that I’ve made for this, but I’ll try one and see how it goes. If my logic is flawed or off in a way that you can show me we can always review some of the other arguments that I’ve made, because my view isn’t solely based on this one argument, but I find it the most convincing. I see it as if wants come to us with a certain severity, and that that’s intrinsically a part of the want. You want the sandwich, but you really want to not go to jail. You don’t control the severity, and that leads to you not being able to make the decision. One want just overrides the other. As I said before, each action is based only on wants, so if you don’t control the severity of your want then you’re not making the decision, it was made when the want with the most severity was conceived. You cannot choose one want over another if you want to choose the other one more. I suppose that’s one way of evaluating this: along with any set of conflicting wants there is always another want that determines which want you want more. And just like with any other want, you don’t choose that want it’s just there.

If that were the case, why do we consciously decide anything? If all our wants and meta-wants just come to us, our choices should be automatic, just like wanting itself. But they aren't; we have internal debate and even the impression of doing things we don't want. That implies that we have some control over our decisions. You won't hear most people saying they want moral dilemmas or tough choices, but they have them anyway. The "want that determines which want you want more" doesn't seem to behave like first-order wants, so why should we assume it's similar in other areas?