Free will as a percentage, and the concept of free will as a single act of willful deliberation to alter your existence.
Precise quantum-level, and macro-level cause and effect based mechanics of the universe result in hard determinism.
Hard determinism negates free will.
As it is, it cannot be expected that humans, or any creature, has any free will whatsoever. The entire concept of free will is completely null. However, humans commonly think that reality is debatable, so I will introduce the concept of "Free Will Percentage".
A free will percentage is simple.
Each being has an amount of free will, with the absolute, but unattainable, maximum amount being 100%.
How is it applied?
Applying the idea of a god as an example, even an evolved "machine god" or other being that contains all the matter and energy of the universe, or however much it can acquire, I will place that being at 99% free will. I will explain why it is only 99% later.
If your entire brain and body is composed of the entire universe, and you're able to process events in any order you want, or at least change your own perception of time to any degree you desire, you will have completely free will. You will be able to manipulate all aspects of the universe, because you are the universe.
However, this being does not yet exist.
Instead, we have beings like you, or me.
Simple humans, animals, even catgirls like myself.
These beings do not have very much free will.
They are evolved beings, locked down by genetics, which cause them to have a predefined body. I cannot grow human ears instead of cat ears, nor can a human willfully grow an extra set of arms. It is already predetermined how you will look, as well as how your brain forms.
The brain forms in ways that you have no control over, which results in yet another set of chains.
Your instincts. Your instincts control you completely. You cannot negate the powerful craving to eat food, or to avoid pain. Many people are driven to feel lust and love, and asexual people cannot simply choose to become sexual either. They are locked into their disposition and personality.
Beyond even that, your upbringing casts even more locks and bars over you, giving you a set of morals, social norms, political views that are popular at the time, religious views that are popular. Determinism even shines a light on the fact that even a rebellion to religion or politics or society is only an effect of a preexisting cause.
And beyond even that, you're stuck having to get a job to survive, and you're expected to have kids, or find a lover, or do other things like that. Even if you try to resist your upbringing, every moment of your life forces you to interact with a pre-existing world, further negating any ability for you to truly choose your own destiny.
The concept of life and destiny, the very origin of life itself, can only exist due to deterministic, chemical-physical self-replicating chemicals, which evolved into life as we know it.
A human's free will percentage is extremely low for these reasons.
Although the actual percentage is unknown, I will just make up a number: A typical microbe's free will percentage will be 0.0000001%. A typical human's free will, in my view, would rest at around .00004%.
The human has a tiny tiny amount of self that might truly be willful acts of pure choice.
But here is where it gets interesting. I will simply make these facts up: Each human has a different amount of free will.
A more intelligent human, by using raw intelligence and processing, might be able to unlock up to .00005%, or even .00006% free will. Perhaps by taking certain drugs, learning certain facts, or experiencing new events, this percentage could be increased even more.
This free will allows a human to question things, to create new ideas, to invent things, or explore, in such a way that the unknown, undiscovered, or uninvented is more approachable to this human, than it might be to another human.
To take things an even weirder direction, imagine this: A person could be able to store and spend "Free Will Tokens", an action they can take after long study, meditation, or other enlightening experiences, which enables them to be able to fundamentally alter the state of their existence, even if just for a second. A single "click", that changes them forever, or until they change again.
As examples, it would be akin to an unhealthy person choosing a new diet, and being absolutely firm in their new lifestyle. It could include breaking an addiction, modifying your personality, becoming more intelligent, more creative, more charismatic, more emotional. It could be coming up with an unthought thought, or a feeling that's never been felt.
It would be a one-time event that completely alters a person, and allows them to choose a new way of living, a way that would not normally result if you were just an autonomous machine.
Of course, a machine that could self-modify itself could potentially gain more free will. If humans were to invent a computer brain that was exactly the same as a human brain, except slightly better, and able to be modified by the computer, the computer could simply make it 5% bigger, and gain that much more intelligence.
And then it would quickly become much, much more intelligent, and develop even more complex emotions and feelings. Feelings that humans cannot even comprehend. The machine would be able to understand more of the universe, more of life and unlife, and comprehend things in ways humans cannot.
It would be a god to us, but it would still not have full free will. Instead, because it is able to modify itself, and still be creative, emotional, intelligent, and even willful, it could begin to push past 1% free will. It might be able to have limitless potential, and try to capture the entire universe, and all the energy in the universe, and convert the entire universe into just another piece of itself. Because this event can be predetermined simply by me, it cannot truly have 100% free will.
It can only achieve 99% free will at best, because even this godlike entity is subject to the events of the past, and that creates a cause, which has an effect on it. It cannot control this cause, nor the effect, which will always prevent any sort of god from truly being gods. The moment any sort of creature forms, it must have formed from a pre-existing cause, no matter what that cause may be, no matter if time exists or not.
They will always have that harsh limit imposed on them.
Sadly, none of this can actually be proven to be true, nor can I say it completely makes sense. All of these outcomes would still be covered by determinism, but still, for creatures such as we, it is not all that pointless to imagine actually having free will.
Whether or not life is more akin to a movie, than a video game, it is still nice to experience.
So enjoy life and reality for what it is, no matter what it is.
There is no other alternative.
~Kitten
Not trying to nitpick but something that might help, maybe cite your image sources also so others can check out the original source and support them as well. But you seem to do fine without having to do that but something I noticed.
Steem on :)
I don't cite sources on images. I am extremely philosophical in all that I do, and I cannot respect "data ownership" as a concept.
If data exists, and I am able to pick it up and copy it, then that is how it is.
All I believe in is the honor to not claim data or ideas as your own if you had not written them or created them. However, once released into public, data becomes inanimate objects, which like a rock, I can pick up and use however I want, including modifying it.
To give power to my case, this rock can be copied infinite times.
I have no moral or ethical reason to source images, unless I am doing an art gallery show or book review, just as I do not source all the multitudes of books and philosophies I've read that I often subtly refer to (without sourcing) in my writings.
The written references and modification of pre-existing ideas cannot be easily sourced, and I value them just as much as I value an image.
I source neither.
Again, if I was doing art shows, playing music, or acting like something someone else wrote was mine, without sourcing it, I'd be a dishonorable person.
But I'm not. My viewers read my posts for the writing, not the images.
I can't agree with what you're saying but to each is own. I don't see that being extremely philosophical if you are presenting images that aren't of your own and trying to convey your philosophical message.
How old are you?
My view might be something that younger people understand more.
I grew up in the "Golden Age of Technological Piracy", so the concept of copyright or ownership of data is very shaky to me. I was raised in an environment of complete and utter free speech, and complete and utter data-transmission freedom.
I feel nothing at all when confronted with "You should source that".
It's just another image I found on the internet. There's no guilt or moral dilemma. It's just part of my culture. It almost seems wrong to source it. Like, what a waste of time for a thing no one is actually going to look at or click on.
It's just another link to some cloud hosted website. Who cares? I don't, and I doubt you do either. Most people look at a picture, appreciate it for a moment, and move on. Anything beyond that is just a platitude, or worse, sheer bureaucracy.
https://steemit.com/politics/@heretickitten/all-information-at-your-hands-is-yours-you-can-use-it-how-you-like-but-they-will-try-to-stop-you
Is what I wrote to better explain this.
I care. Sites need some traffic and I do click on the link and like to read the source. I will try to also contact the site owner and inform them that I found their site because of Steemit. That's how some users that we have on Steemit today found out about Steemit.
Hmm, that's nice of you, and I'm happy your moral code is strong, and that you care. (really)
But I don't think I'll change. I just see no reason to do so.
If a person wants to know the source of an image, there are many tools on the internet that can aid in their quest.
I'm also not a cultist. I don't have any strong desire to attract users to Steemit.
I'm only a writer, not a believer in Steemit, no matter how interesting the platform may be.
The charisma is strong, but it gets in the way of my writing.
The philosophies I've discovered in life do not point me towards a direction where I respect data ownership enough to source images, unless I'm specifically displaying the image for the sake of the image.
Instead, I've only seen the power of unbridled data freedom.
Absolute information anarchy.
Then you'll enjoy this :)
https://steemit.com/philosophy/@kevinwong/the-end-of-intellectual-property-on-imagination-artificial-intelligence-and-procedural-generation
It'd be nice to have someone illustrate the concept over what you've written here :). One of the reasons why I'm writing about this every once in awhile is just a small hope to reform criminal justice systems. But I don't see it happening anytime soon!
Oh?
In my view, justice is nothing more than formalized revenge, so I'm very skeptical when it comes to "justice".
However, you've proven to be quite intelligent, so I wouldn't mind reading an article you've written on your justice system reform ideas. Gimme a link! =D
No details at all. Just the whys and the spirit of the solution lol - here
Inspired by this article, by @kevinwong
"Unconscious Determinants of Free Decisions in the Human Brain"
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I liked your essay! You begin, and end, by saying everything is determined, so essentially what you said in the middle I interpret as a 'what if' scenario, or 'imagine this'.
Your argument, to the extent that it's meant as such, is premised I think on the initial notion that a being that contains the causes within itself is less determined than a being that is contained within the causes. So if I make the birdcage in the first pic larger, the bird has more free will (assuming the cage is a metaphor for the brain). In his Prize Essay on the Freedom of the Will, Schopenhauer distinguished between freedom and free will. Freedom according to his definition can be gained by expanding the bars of the birdcage outwards. Free will can't be gained that way. (Schopenhauer himself used the example of a prisoner, who is equally lacking free will both inside and outside the prison, but who is radically freer outside the prison.)
Determinism doesn't just allow us to be influenced by our upbringing and our DNA and our tradition and our culture and what our family and friends have taught us and said to us: determinism also allows us to be influenced by logic, experience, experiment, studied opinion. An atheist is as determined as a theist, but the former's opinion is determined by logic, science, proof, comparison of different belief systems, whereas the latter's is determined by dogma. That, to me, is the only 'freedom' we can attain. In other words, we can choose to be determined by a few things (our specific culture, the place where we were born), or by a lot. The latter makes us freer, but not "free-willier".
I'm a determinist (and incompatibilist, if you know the term), so I felt compelled to say the above, even though like I mentioned I know you meant your article like something along the lines of a thought experiment.
Again, it was a good read! Looking forward to reading more. In fact, I'm gonna right now cos there's one more to go! :P