Hacker News Reader

Comment by k2xl | Hacker News Reader

Would love for someone to describe effectively what free will means. Because to me the concept itself doesn't make much sense to me and never has.

I don't have free will over my breathing, in one definition (since it can be consider "involuntary"). In another definition I could say I have free will over my breathing because I could hold my breath.

What is an example of free will? And what is hypothetical experiment that would actually prove or disprove it?

View on HN

For me, free will is the feeling and belief that if I want my body to do something I have a pretty good chance of making it do that. Additionally, I can decide to train some reflexive behavior and tailor it to be more of what I want my automatic responses to be. It's a feeling of integration between my desires and my actions that doesn't feel like it's driven from outside my body. For example, if I get a muscle twitch or spasm or a limb falls asleep and I can't move my digits then my sense of free will is lessened. When I walk, talk, etc. then the feeling is reinforced.

>integration between my desires and my actions

how did you decide to have these desires? if it's a good feeling, then you didn't decide that such a desire will give you this feeling; if it's based on a computed most-advantageous outcome, then you didn't decide that either. If it's a choice between the two, then who decides and how (infinite regression)?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com