How do you make decisions?

Question

By this I mean what is at the core of our decision making process? are we the product of our environment or slaves to our genes? If so where (if at all) does freewill come into the equation.

Stupid answers will be derided.

Answer 1

we're crazy logical... that said we make most of our decisions based on our feelings...  

Answer 2

I think we make decisions by thinking about the consequences. Thinking about how things would be if that decision wasn't made or thinking about what would happen if it was.

Sometimes it could be so quick you barely think about it, but at the same time you still do.

Answer 3

It is by our own judgement that we decide on what we choose.

This may be a right or wrong Decision ,but it is ours.

Answer 4

Why   should  you  ask   this??...

you  know  how...

  YOU  just  did!!..  ..........

make     one!!

  NOTE:..  and  what  makes  you decide  if  an  answer is  stupid  ..OR   not...!!!!

*wink*

Answer 5

Knowledge. A store of information which enables me to analyse the facts presented to me, find relevant details and yes, sometimes, a gut feeling, but hey! nobody's perfect. We're all subjective when it comes down to it.

Answer 6

Decisions making is both based on genes and environments..First you need to have all the facts, accurate facts [that's the environment]. Now that you have the fact you either follow your head, logic, or follow your feelings [emotions].that is our genes. I make my decisions based on accurate facts and logical reasoning.

Free will come in place when you know what decision is right, but will you make it? as in I work for a company, this employee is not bringing in anything. If i fire her i can replace her with someone better, but then she won't have a job and no income. if i let her stay, she'll bring the company down...what to do? i can make either choice or i can come up with another: i can let her stay, talk to her about her performance and give her a probation period, then if it doesn't work we will have to aprt ways.

I hope i understood and answered your question

Answer 7

Hello,

(ANS) This is a very good question, it appears a simple question on the surface but at depth is very complex. OK! In my humble opinion they way we make important decisions is really a struggle or type of dance between head (mind & brain function) and heart or emotions, feelings & the intuition that comes from the physical body.

**The concept & action of "free will" is a function of the mind more than anything else, free will is what takes place when the person's ego steps aside from the decision making process. Free will is MUCH more limited than we might imagine actually. We are limited by our circumstances or the specific situation we find ourselves in. In other words non of us make choices in a complete vacuum, we make decisions that always affect our relationships with other people. That's part of the nature of being human.

**The decisions we end up making are often driven more by unconscious drives than conscious reasoning. Even if those unconscious motives are NOT apparent in the short term.

Ivan

Answer 8

I make decisions quickly because I like to have things move along.  Indecision in myself and others drives me nuts - as I see it to be a huge waste of time.  One could state that impatience is in my genes, but it is also environmentally influenced (responsibility level within a job, for example).  

As for free will - I think that comes into play with respect to the TYPE of decisions we make, not HOW we make those decisions.

Answer 9

Depends on the decision, eg. in the supermarket - what's cheapest with the least chemicals. This bias is from my upbringing, hence value for money, and education regarding what additives can do for your system. If the decision is about what house to buy, I would write lots of lists of requirement, a trick I acquired from my mother to help with objective thinking. Slave to genes?? I don't think anyone consciously 'decides' to fall in love/lust, this may be a genetic response stimuli. The free will comes in when we choose to buy the French cheese regardless of cost, the house with the view regardless of the one bathroom, or even reject the lover because they'd flirt with a door post and you know you get jealous. I don't think all of our decisions come from one process, and unless you are a slave to impulse, free will can reign.  

Answer 10

My theory is this - if there was an entity/computer/whatever that existed outside the universe and it knew exactly where every single atom was and what it was doing then in theory it could predict exactly where they were going to be in the next moment.  Therefore they would be predicting the exact future.  Hence no free will.  I've simplified a lot and I have loads moer thoughts in this subject but my fingers hurt!

Answer 11

genes could be a factor because we all think on the same lines as one of our parents.but i largely think our environment is the greatest influence and societal expectations. as much as people like to believe, i dont think there's anything like a freewill . every decision has an influence just that we dont think of what caused us to make the so called freewill decisions

Answer 12

Our decisions are demonstration of our will, more than anything else. When we make decision we apply our will power along the directions suggested to use by our understanding, which is an accumulative knowledge of all our experience that we seek to use for the purpose of our desire to change. Then when we make decisions we suggest a change of a situation or a circumstance following the commands of our desire using the knowledge we may have.

I would say that at the heart of all our decision is our desire for change. If our desires, that basically are crude and instinctive, are refined and sophisticated then they turn into legitimate dreams, ambitions and aspirations to further us into life, or to enable us to seek improvement of our present state of affairs. The greater the refinement of our natural desires the greater would be our need to seek knowledge before we find it possible for us to invest our will power.

Our willpower, unlike our desire, is in fact a spiritual faculty that we apply to do absolutely everything in our life; without our willpower we would not be able to live. Where desires are instinctive, and could be animalistic in beginning, our will power has its origin in the higher mind, where it resides enabling us to make choices and take decision for the sake of all that we might like to do in life.

Answer 13

Decisions are made every day and some are Bad ones /

The decision is best made after all possible facts are known to you and the consequences that might follow the choice you make.

Consider the Time you have to make that decision in. The cost to you particularly .  

Answer 14

There are a lot of reasons to believe that the choices we make are just a result of our genes reacting to our environment.  I think that this attitude (which happens to be my attitude as well) comes from the view of a deterministic science.  

You know, ever since guys like Galileo and Newton most scientifically minded people have thought of the universe as a big deterministic machine.  Einstein himself famously said "God doesn't play dice."  This makes possible the following reductionist mantra:

Psychology reduces to biology.  Biology reduces to chemistry.  Chemistry reduces to Physics.  Now if all physical motion is determined by unchanging laws, then all psychology is determined too.  

**Disclaimer** Quantum physicists are famously starting to disagree with the whole "physics is determined" thing.  I think that this is a red herring, but that is a whole new argument in itself.

Now, free will doesn't have to be left out of this equation.  I hate to reference Kant twice in two answers to your questions (or at all, really), but he had a really interesting take on this.  He thought that we had a soul-type-thing that made all of these decisions before we were even born.  Outside of time, really.  He thought that all of these decisions went into the initial conditions of the world, and our choices are reflected in what happened after.  For more on this, research his "Third Antimony".  I googled it for a bit but couldn't find any good summaries.