this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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If you can predict, but not controll what I'll do, I still consider that free will.
Free always needs a qualifier... Free from what? Free from other people, for now... Free from physics? No.
It's interesting, because some people are doomed to say, be evil. But that still counts as free will, even though they literally can't just choose their way out of it.
So now, that means the punishments, and torments we put on those people for being evil, they can do nothing to actually prevent.
So now we have another interesting idea: what's the difference between putting down a bad person for doing something bad, and a "bad" person, for "being" bad. Like say, disabled people, people of a skin color you don't like, country origin...
Neither of them really get to choose, you can argue now that skin color is free will.
Of course, I don't really want this to happen.
I consider free will to be the concept that whenever you make a choice A/B you as in a subjective consciousness have the power to decide any way and are not bound by a deterministic system to always give one output for the same input.
For example if we were to decide the universe is deterministic except for the conscious beings that are humans it would mean the universe looks exactly like it does in all timelines after it's start but those timelines diverge once free will enters, since the deterministic system gets random input from free will.
So now I'm at the mercy of quantum physics. I would honestly just get rid of my free will, and always do the right thing (within my pussy-self's limits).
So free from physics
basically. well you see like you said you can define some higher order that could exert some control over your will and that could be physics or something metaphysical. in case of some religions that is a devine force, while others say devine forces relegate the power of free will to humans and in most cases they don't interfere with the decision making processes of people. i would say if any sort of higher order retains perpetual control over your decision making process that calls the concept of free will into question. if you believe your brain is the sole source of your decisions and is bound by deterministic physical processes then that's not free will in it's purest form. you could say it's free will in the sense that no other being of the same level can accurately predict or manipulate your choices but i would say that only grants the illusion of free will.
i personally believe that the source of consciousness and as such free will is metaphysical in nature and is not generally manipulated by any process, so it's free will as per my definition.
edited in everything after 'basically' because i decided i had more to say
I have proven free will because my brain would never opt to drink as much as I do. check! mate!!
wait till you get one of those neuralink chips and you're forced to like all of elon's tweets
Research and brain scans indicate that your choices are already made and decided in the decision making portion of your brain before you're even consciously aware that you have a decision to make in the first place. The sum total of individual experienced reality is just your brain post-hoc rationalizing your sensory input and reactions.
Even if that's true, there's a bootstrap paradox with that though because the decision was still made in the decision making part of your brain. So what made that part of your brain make that decision?
What it implies is that decision making is entirely subconscious and the whole conscious experience of making a decision is just our brains way of providing a sense of agency where none seems to actually exist. You really wanna bake your noodle look into split brain experiments. There might be more than one person in our heads.
But of course. Not more than one person, but certainly more than one part, right?
If you ever have meditated or attempted to meditate, you see this immediately. There is the portion of you that is trying to get you to concentrate on your breath or mantra, and there are the meandering parts of your mind that are more susceptible to moods and drawing your thoughts to other things.
The same thing goes for reading. Sometimes you'll be passing your eyes over the words on the page but most of your mind has vacated the premises.
There's also things like instances where you drive to a place where you used to live or used to work.
There are different processes running for certain, and the mind isn't a singular thing, but ultimately I'm not sure that anything is. I don't think that any of this says much definitive about free will though.
Think of it like this: once Goku and Vegeta did the fusion dance, there was only Gogeta.
Yeah but when they cut the corpus callosum it's like they're unfused but still one body. We're all Pacific Rim gundams.
Nah that's horseshit, and lowkey is predicated on maintaining the hypercapitalist notion of individualism. If I have a decision premade off of my own sensory input, that's one thing. But to call that a negation of free will is to discount the addition of input outside of my sensory input vis-a-vis other community members. If I packed my lunch, then David comes up to me and says "hey, I got a bogo coupon for wings, wanna come?" I didn't pre-decide to join him. He literally added this information to my life, and I immediately decided to join. Now I have friends, and wings, and the free will to enjoy them both.
Sir, this is Wendy's
Jesse what the fuck are you talking about
Bro, I'm not high enough for that shit.