# Debate on Free Will



## Shawn_Morgan11 (Mar 23, 2017)

Hello, I am not suffering from Depersonalization or anything like it, but I need people who do to help. I am in a high school debate class and I am working on a topic about Free Will, and I think the answer is in this disorder. If you don't feel like your controlling your body but it's still functioning properly then it's proof that you have no Free Will, because an actual conscience or detached decisions don't matter. This can't be true though. I don't know much but I know the disorder is not black and white, it's pretty gray. Being detached makes some things a little off in the body, like lack of feeling. So what i'm asking is, based on the disorder and nothing else, do you think you have Free Will over your body, or just your mind?


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## tfiio (Nov 10, 2016)

there's a difference between what a person perceives and what is "true", more often than not. most of the time the difference is so minute that it doesn't really matter, but there are a lot of illusions based on this gap between perception and reality.

a person perceiving that their body is just moving without them is simply perceiving it that way. there is a lot more going on in the human mind than straightforward conscious thought, although most things defer to conscious thought in the end.

really what you base your position on depends on how "free will" is being defined. it's important to come to a consensus about the subject before one can take a position on it if you have to defend your position to another party.

I think many people may perceive that they do not have free will, but based on my own education and my own hypothesis-testing, this does not truly appear to be the case.


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## soulsearcher86 (Feb 8, 2017)

I'm going to agree with the above post in that it definitely depends on how you define "free will."

Generally in my opinion there are two ways of looking at it, in that either you DON'T have free will because your brain is for the most an organic computer of sorts, and will always react the same way in certain situations. Or you could describe your actions as being the totality of your personality and thought processes, and whether or not you would do something different from what you did do is irrelevant, because you simply are who you are and regardless of how the choice is made, you are the one who made it and thus you have free will. Like you said it's really not a black or white issue, I think the question is really subjective.


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## eddy1886 (Oct 11, 2012)

When it comes to DP none of us on here can control what enters our heads (as regards intrusive negative thinking) So from a mental (psychological) aspect we generally dont have free will to control how we are thinking or feeling....On the other hand we can still make logical decisions regarding our physical actions and are very aware of what we are doing at all times...

This is what makes DP different to something like schizophrenia or psychosis etc....

We never act strange and are never unaware of what we are doing or where we are (Our reality testing always remains in tact)

Basically DP like most other mental health conditions removes the normal feelings of happiness and contentment and getting on with life and replaces them with feelings of sadness and fear and an inability to function as normal....So in that sense it does take away your free will and ability to function normally....When you become psychologically ill you CANNOT control the way you feel (which is normally disturbing and negative)

You are getting into the territory of chemical imbalance in the brain here....When there is a physical chemical imbalance going on in the brain that leads to mental ill health, being able to control how you are feeling (and often thinking) becomes impossible...You cannot just change your attitude and start to feel better a little while later...Your free will basically goes out the window as regards being able to make yourself feel better...(FACT!)

This is why healthy people can never understand why a mentally sick person cannot just "Think nice thoughts" or "Snap themselves out of it" etc etc...Normal people still have the ability to calm themselves down and relax and move on with their day after something bad happens and as a result cannot grasp why somebody would want to remain in an unhappy state (They think its just a bad attitude) Thats Stigma!....Mentally ill people lose the ability to calm or sooth themselves and as a result feeling depressed and fearful becomes a constant.....

Mentally ill people CANNOT control their negative feelings and thoughts with free will....They lose the ability to feel happy and contented....The chemical imbalance thats going on in the brain removes that ability and hence removes your FREE WILL.......


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## Billy D.P. (Apr 12, 2016)

Like all things in life, free will is relative. And like tfiio mentions above, you need to define it before you can agree on features.

That said, if there's one thing I've learned about DP its that you're only in control as much as your mind and body allow you to be. Technically people with DP have the free will to go anywhere and hold conversations and get jobs, but sometimes these tasks are made so difficult by our condition that they're nearly impossible. So in this regard, how much free will do we really have if our brains prevent us from acting on it?

For a more detailed and scientific breakdown of free will you should listen to a few episodes of the podcast "Hidden Brain." It's basically about how we perceive ourselves to be in control of everything we do when in fact behind the scenes our brains have been wired by society, our genes and upbringing to behave a certain way without our being conscious of it.

So again, free will is subjective and often times relative based on where you live, your body, brain, etc., but in the grand scope of humanity I'd argue we're actually much less in control than we'd like to believe.


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## nikosmar (Apr 21, 2017)

MOSTLY BEING IN DP DR I FEEL HAVING NOT ENOUGH OF THAT FREEDOM OF WILL COMPARING WITH WHEN I AM ALERT IN HERE AND NOW........IS NOT ABOUT ALL OR NOTHING THOUGH .


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