I don’t think one needs free will in order to be in control of one’s decisions. As a material being I am the one who is making the decisions, my will is determined by who I am, what I value, etc.
We generally like people who are consistent, dependable and determined. I don’t see how free will adds any additional control.
Peter, there is a somewhat subtle point concerning natural laws and determinism that is peripherally relevant here. Modern physics has with progressive insistence taught us that nature, at the most basic levels at which she has been probed, is apparently chaotic. The laws that we have found that govern macroscopic phenomena – for example Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics, electrostatics, gravitation, etc. – are valid only as statistical aggregates. That is, no individual particle will obey any of those laws with any predictable degree of certainty. It is only when you put increasing numbers of them together that those laws gradually start becoming more and more constraining. There is thus slightly less certainty in the predicted trajectory of a bullet (as accurate as it may be) than in that of a star. Another way of putting it is to say that there’s more chance that a bullet will behave unexpectedly than a star.
The broader implication is that there remains in all physical phenomena a degree of uncertainty, however small, about exactly how they will develop (cue “chaos theory” theme here), and this observation is fundamentally inimical to strict determinism. Thus, if thought too is a purely physical process (and we have little reason to suppose that it isn’t), it will also be subject to such fluctuations and essential unpredictability.
I think it would be fair to say that when we think abstractly of “free will” or “choice,” we invoke a picture of facing a number of options from which we ultimately pick one, either because we have to or because we want to. This means that we would work over the problem several times in our head. But each time we contemplate the problem, our thinking will proceed differently, perhaps only marginally so, because (a) we are aware of prior options, and (b) because of the aforementioned fluctuations and essential unpredictability in the physical process of thinking. When we are satisfied that we have explored the options, we make a decision (or revise a prior one), and again those influences come into play, rendering it effectively impossible to predict which choice will be made. Perhaps it is precisely such occasional unpredictability about our own thinking processes that we perceive subjectively as free will.
It should be clear that none of what is tentatively suggested above is in conflict with determinism as we normally understand it. The element of randomness may be instrumental in formulating options and in selecting one of them, but this cannot be taken to mean that the options and the choice are entirely unconstrained. Thus (and taking into account much of what has been argued here), it occurs to me that we disagree because of a semantic misunderstanding: “free will” is not the same as “I have unrestricted choice, irrespective of the reigning circumstances and parameters.”
I hope that I have shed a bit more light on my own position and haven’t misrepresented yours.
'Luthon64
Yes it is basically an argument about semantics, but a small semantic difference can lead to much mutual misunderstanding. I would not call any element of randomness in selecting an option a choice. For a choice to be meaningful it would have to be determined by something. If the presumed element of randomness was actually determined by some immaterial soul then I might call that a choice as well, but I would be unsure exactly who was doing the choosing. If I confine the ability to choose to the real material world then determinism would be the only mechanism left by which it could be reliably achieved.
Compatabilists try to coax meaning out of free will but I think it does more harm than good to ideas like freedom and choice.
Thanks Mefi, love it when you take me seriously. ;D
oh very nice. Thank you.
@cyghost I take it you also equate randomness with free will. Do you think that this randomness is really random or do you think it is somehow immaterially caused?
Peter mate, I am on the fence with Free Will. I wanted to say that earlier but got distracted. I am not sure how free my will is, I do seem to have a will but it is certainly contained within constraints. I can will myself to fly but it ain’t ever gonna happen. I can’t will myself to rape or rob or murder but then I don’t have any desire to either.
So I have the freedom to will it but sometimes my will is just not enough. I certainly feel I have choices and are free to make them but a lot of the times my choices are limited and what seems like choices aren’t. For instance I can do a b or c but given who I am, I am most probably going to do c every time. Or just about so. And when I don’t do c, some other factor would play a significant role.
When I look at the dictionary definition:
1 : voluntary choice or decision
2 : freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention
I am there with 1 but far less sure of 2. I guess I am currently here but acknowledge that even with 1 it may just be an illusion.
mefiante went a long way to clear up for me that should we roll back the film and re-ignite the Big Bang we wouldn’t see exactly the same universe as we now do. I need to think more on that but will need copious amounts of whiskey and with the new born I haven’t been drinking at all. It will have to wait. 
As an aside I was busy reading a very very very long thread on Free Will over at dawkinsnet just before it went ballsup and haven’t managed to find the thread again. There was some interesting points of view there. For me personally I don’t give a rats ass most of the time and live my life as if I have choices and make those freely. For me this comes into play when theists grasp at this card as if it is the end all and be all answer to the problem of evil.
Much of a philosopher, I ain’t. Only where the religious discussions invariably turn to philosophy I have to struggle along and try to make sense of it all, the term navel gazing always seemed so apt to me.
Awesome response cyghost, thanks. ;D
This is what bugs me as well. By making evil somehow mysterious they are giving up all hope of solving the problem.
They do the same with morality - some kind of mysterious “inner holiness” coming from “being washed in the blood” (ew). Really annoying and quite useless.
Well, balls. I’ve always believed in determenism in my decision making, hence I’ve had an easy time living with no regrets. My rationale has always been:
Given the circumstance I was experiencing at that time, my knowledge up to that point, and the "state" of my brain at that moment, If I could go back I would always make the same decision. Hence, regret is merely me postulating I could've done things differently, when in reality, everything would be exactly the same.
Now this thread is starting to make me question that assumption. However I have to guess as to whether quantum effects, etc. are only really non-determenistic because we don’t understand the mechanism by what they operate. Are we to state that, given exactly the same moment in the universe all over again, the quantum would behave differently? I’m not sure there’s a clear answer to this, but it does seem evident that I’m rationalizing.
It shouldn’t. There is even less reason to feel guilty about a random decision than there is about a determined one. With a determined decision guilt might help prevent you from repeating the mistake, if the decision is random your feelings will have no effect.
Strange how religion seems to often get it almost right. If one considers that morality must be an evolved trait, then it is interesting to reflect that its history is written in the blood of all those who weren’t quite moral enough.
A controversial psychologist Julian Jaynes postulates (The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind)1976, that man’s bicameral mind only started becoming aware of its consciousness some 3000BC…his theories are now getting some more attention. Here’s a link you could read and it seems to answer some of the questions asked (maybe raises new ones) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind concerning ‘free will’ which may be something of a red herring. Dawkins discussed Jaynes’s theory in his recent book The God Delusion. In his chapter on the roots of religion, Dawkins writes: “It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between!” and as the philosopher Daniel Dennett suggested that Jaynes may have been wrong about some of his supporting arguments, especially the importance he attached to hallucinations, but that these things are not essential to his main thesis.He wrote that:
“If we are going to use this top-down approach, we are going to have to be bold. We are going to have to be speculative, but there is good and bad speculation, and this is not an unparalleled activity in science. Those scientists who have no taste for this sort of speculative enterprise will just have to stay in the trenches and do without it, while the rest of us risk embarrassing mistakes and have a lot of fun.” --Daniel Dennett
I used to understand consciousness is simply being aware of your surroundings. A Jewish friend then told me that before Moses brought the tablets with the ten commandments from the mountain, humans had no consciousness. I asked him if he did not mean conscience, but he insisted that he meant consciousness.
In medical practice consciousness can be measured by reaction to stimuli, which is what I always understood by the term, but in philosophy there are more interpretations. Jaynes refers to “selfawareness”, which he appears to equate with consciousness.
For example, he asserts that, in the Iliad and sections of the Old Testament, no mention is made of any kind of cognitive processes such as introspection, and he argues that there is no apparent indication that the writers were selfaware.
I find it hard to understand how one could write an epic poem or book without “any kind of cognitive processes such as introspection” or being aware of oneself.
Selfawareness can be measured by the display of attributes such as pride and embarrassment. We see clear evidence of those displays in animals. I reject the idea that selfawareness is unique to humans or that it arose only a few thousand years ago.
Ooh, I’d forgotten about Jaynes. I was meaning to read his book, thanks for reminding me. 
I must say, I quite like the idea of consciousness as a relatively recent human invention rather than something which evolved in our distant past. If one defines consciousness as “that which is introspectable” then it is plausible that individuals who became self-aware would be able to outmatch and manipulate their fellows and that their genes would spread much more rapidly.
Individuals that became self-aware of what exactly Peter Grant? According to naturalism, consciousness is just a trick brains accomplish, just an illusion constructed by the memes and the self does not exist.
I’m inclined to associate introspection with conscience rather than consciousness.
Aah, but what selective advantage does this illusion of self provide? That is the really interesting question. 
Well that’s probably useful too, but it’s Jayne’s definition not mine:
Jaynes defines consciousness — in the tradition of Locke and Descartes — as "that which is introspectable." Jaynes draws a sharp distinction between consciousness ('introspectable mind-space') and other mental processes such as cognition, learning, and sense and perception — which occur in all animals. This distinction is frequently not recognized by those offering critiques of Jaynes' theory.
The really interesting question is still how anything can be self-aware if consciousness is an illusion and the self does not exist. Please explain how this can ever be a coherent view any person can hold.
We each might only be partly self aware, some more so than others.