Posted: 08/December/2006 at 21:52 | IP Logged

It's about time I asked this question. Do we have a free will, or at least the potential for a truly free will? What about causal chains? Everything has a cause, something else always predates and causes the choices we make in life.

From the Marrakech II travelogue:

"Perhaps this is what I've been looking for all along:

What is the ultimate freedom?

- Death, perhaps.

Then what is the ultimate freedom in life?

- To be your own cause.

(That can interpreted in a myriad of ways, and I like that. Still, to specify: To be able to cause, and to be able not to be caused. Or at least to be caused voluntarily by fully understanding and actively choosing not to break a certain causal chain. Perhaps human freedom only amounts to the ability to choose which causal chain to continue.)"

From Wikipedia:

"In philosophy, a causal chain is an ordered sequence of events in which any one event in the chain necessitates the next."

A causes B causes C causes D....

A Wikipedia article on Causality!

A banal example:

John takes a sip of his water because he is thirsty. He is thirsty because he'd been playing football. He'd playing football because he wants to keep fit. He wants to keep fit because he wants to have a good body to impress women with. He wants to impress women because he wants to get laid. And so on.

Then you might say:

John could choose not to have a sip of his water even though he was thirsty. But why? He would surely have had a reason. Anything from "because he thought it might be poisoned by his gold-digging wife" or "because he was reading about cause and effect and wanted to carry out a thought-experiment" to "because he suddenly remembered a childhood trauma when he nearly choked to death on a glass of water" or "he simply forgot about his thirst when the doorbell rang".

So the question is this: Can a "sane" human being carry out an action or make a choice for NO reason? Can an action or a choice not be caused by something else? Can human life escape causality? Could you give an example? If no, then how can we claim that we have a free will?

Thanks!

Martin - Marrakech

Posted: 29/December/2006 at 18:54 | IP Logged

That's essensially what I'm saying - we all need to drink more water in order to get laid. The proof is there. Perhaps I should start selling tap water as a "love potion". With this ground-breaking discovery I wouldn't be breaking advertising laws.

Seriously - my example is perhaps not so great. It's actually in this format:

D is caused by C, which is caused by B... etc.

And you said it, Joey, if Wiki is right and each step NECESSITATES the next, then John WILL drink his water because of his need to get laid. But it seems hardly NECESSARY that John should be drinking water and not orange juice. So perhaps free will revolves around the lack of NECESSITIES?

But maybe a whole string of other causal chains NECESSITATES that there will be NO ORANGE JUICE in John's fridge that day, so he WILL have to drink his water no matter what... or that the whole history of what he has consumed throughout his life NECESSITATES that on this particular day he WILL prefer water no matter what.

Martin - Marrakech