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Free will, the doctrine that an individual, regardless of forces external to him, can and does choose his actions.
The existence of free will is challenged by determinism. Every event is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. We, as humans, are determined through our society, religion, ...

What does it mean to make a choice?

I'm a fatalist, so IMHO there is no such thing as free will...everything happens for some demented reason, regardless of what or how stupid it is.

It’s pretty much inevitable that you will walk across a street at some point. How you cross it is determined by a number of factors, including your desire to cross it safely. Although it’s not inevitable that you will cross the street with your eyes open, it’s a good bet, given your desire not to be injured or killed.

What if you come to believe that all your behavior is fully determined: that in any given situation you couldn’ t have done other than what you did, given all the factors operating? How might this change, if at all, your approach to crossing the street?

If determinism is true, then the way you cross the street next time is fully a function of various factors coming to bear at that time. If you cross the street with your eyes open, that’s determined, if you cross it with eyes closed, that’s determined too.

But then, as a fatalist, you might say: "The future is fixed: I’m either fated to get across the street safely or not. If I am fated to be hit by a car, then it doesn’ t matter what precautions I take. Since the future is fixed, it doesn’ t matter what I do."

I believe in free will but I also believe if sh*t can happen, it will and generally does!

free will doesn't exist ppl made it up

^^ true...I agree with FM and everybody else who posted so far , free will does not exist, choices we make are simply a result of so many factors that we cannot possibly willfuly affect them all, only then would the choice be free...

Christ, you people are gloomy...

I take it u believe in free will Ush ?

Yup.

I also believe that people do not necessarily operate for intrinsically selfish reasons, which is the other gloom-a-thon thing that I find a surprising amount of people believing in.

I believe in free will.
Just because our actions are the result of noumerous factors, that doesn't mean we couldn't have acted differently. I also don't believe in fate -we make our own fate.

well, evy_o... I do not

Yay! And Evy is Greek so we have to listen to her.

(nods)

Imo, we are both determined and, in some aspects, free-willed.

Oh, how no fun!

hehe, you believe in it, and I sometimes do

some things you can deceide for yourself (the famous "I'm free to run outside and get run over by a car, no one can forsee that, so it's my own free will to do it) and some things are set (big things)

I still think all our decisions are influenced a great deal by a million other factors to such an extend that you can not talk about free will anymore.

I do agree with ush that not every decision we make is based on selfish reasons

I think the question should be more like this "Does free will arise freely" is it that our consiciousness is influence by the things we see? Can our minds escape the overpowering force of the will? Certainly! They are two ways (those of you that are familiar with Schopenhauer might recoginize this) One is Ethics and the other aesthetics. By denying the passions and desire that influence freewill a human being can think clearly and rational.

Idd, there's jealousy, anger, desire,... too.

Errr... as if satisfying any of those three is not selfish?

compassion, love, loyalty...

honour

Errr... surely wanting to be honourable is a selfish motive?

I am not doing very well for my own point here...

yerss> you do not... what?

IMHO, how could we know if some things are set? We can only guess. We see things happening and we say they were meant to happen. But how can we possibly know that? It is and will always be one of the big mysteries of life... no matter how many theories we produce about it, no-one can know for sure.
And since we can't be sure, there are two options: Either believe you can change your life for better, and fight for it, or just sit and accept your fate passively, believing what is going to be done, WILL be done, no matter how hard you try.
I'll go for the first.



Exactly
Besides, ancient greek were wise people

depends on what u understand by honorable....
I understand the three things FM mentioned earlier, love,loyalty and passion I think...

it was compassion love and loyalty

and indeed honour can be interrupted in various ways

I think that free will is an illusion, but that doesn't mean that I just sit around to see what happens. I go ahead and operate under that illusion, knowing that in the end, I will have done exactly as I was supposed to do. Everything/one has a purpose and can't be outside of that purpose. I think some of the stuff that M. Night Shayamalan (sp.?) has hinted at in his movies is really good in regard to this idea. Of course, I cannot prove any of this - it's just what I believe.

there is indeed a difference between knowing your path and doing what you are supposed to do

But then again,neither one of us can say for certain that they are doing one or the other...

Biblicly speaking, everyone already has a predetermined fate. Think about it...if God already knows what you are going to do before you do it, and he has your entire life mapped out in front of him, then you really have no free will at all. While you're on this Earth, you make choices, that is true...only because there are different decisions you can make. But God, apparently, already knows what you are going to choose, thus making our "choice" no more than fate. I'm not sure I believe in God or the Bible, but I know enough about both to back up my opinion.

In our evolutionary worldview, there always is a choice: a variety of possibilities, some of which are retained by selection. Because of their capacity for thought, people are not only free to choose between given possibilities, but able to conceive novel possibilities and explore their consequences.

^^ you copied that from a website


Anyway, i do believe in free choices. I believe we are free to chose, and there are million possibilities indeed.

I know I did, but it's relevant right?

Did I need to state that I'd copied it? Soz......

I was reading the exact same thing at the time, thats why i mentioned it.



Free will...exists. I used to think it was an illusion, but when you think about it more and more, it does exist, we do make our own choices.

OK, I'm not trying to pretend it's my view, I'm quite willing to admit I copied it. I just felt it held relevance.....

The world will respond to what and who you think you are in your heart. Pain in your heart will reflect as struggle and hardship in your life. You will receive it because you ask it from the world. You get what you give. With our actions we express that giving or lack of. Our expression in the world is how it will be reflected back at us. If you're free, unguarded, and completely giving, invested in the expansion of love, growth, fun Then the world is a playground and you are a child in it without a care in the world. Everyone remember how that felt? (heh heh heh) That is how I would see choice as important or what it means to make a choice. Life/death, love/pain make your choice and accept the reflection.

The last thing anyone should ever strive to be is a person with the mentality of a child without a care in the world.

Almost everything in our lives is controlled by choice. It's just that people many times don't notice that they are making choices, because it seems so blatantly obvious that one choice is much better than the other. For example, when I take a shower and wash my hair, I always have the choice to not wash the shampoo out of my hair. Even if there was somebody standing there holding a gun to my head, I would have a choice. But I don't want to leave the shampoo in my hair because it makes my head itch and my hair looks dull. In the scenario with the guy holding a gun to my head, it could get me shot. There is always a choice that we make, even if we are not aware of it.

That's not what he was getting at. I don't think he said once that he'd like to have the mentality of a child. I think he meant that he'd like to be able to continue to breathe easy, to not see all responsibilities that come with age as weights. By "without a care in the world" I think he wanted to say that whatever decision we make, as adults, we should be comfortable with. As children, when we make a decision we feel pride and satisfaction, no matter how small the consequence. I'd like to keep that pride no matter my age.

Well the stricture imposed by society (ie everyone else) is very limiting indeed, but within that I expect there is free will.

Its not that limiting. You can go and run arround naked in the street, you can go on a killing spree, you can make up a sect, you can pretend you can fly, you can do anythng, its the consiquence that would be not so great for us.

Social structure imposed on society doesnt limit our free will.

Sod social structure. Free will is down to the individual, not society's perception of how we should act.

Well the dogmatic views of those above me were always constricting - and are still.

I believe in free will.

All those in agreement say "Aye"!

Now!

Aye!

Well the mods are deciding how YOU should act on KMC

*cough*

The Mods are deciding how I should act?

Pffft, they know I'm a Rebel.......

Well I can't work out how to get round them

That's where you're going wrong. It's not about getting round them, it's about working with them to make KMC reach it's full potential. They're here for our benefit, not to piss us off. So why should we go out of our way to mess them around?

*cough*

Damn, I'm good diva

Well said babe. It's all about freedom of expression. Freedom from outside judgments and the choices of others. They're not our choices, so why hold onto them.

Ps: and Sy...damn you're good

You could be MADE to be influenced by external factors. It is really not such a remote possibility.

Free will certainly does exist. Only my opinion though. Without it, I probably wouldn't be posting here. Someone tell me to do something, and through free will, I say "F*ck off."

I think this question is answered best by one of my favorite movie characters.

"I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think maybe it's both, maybe both happening at the same time." -Forrest Gump

That is the theory I choose to believe in. I also believe that fate is something like a sketch of our life. It controls the main idea of who we meet and what we do and who we become. It is our choices that influence the final outcome.

I believe in Free Will, rather the choices are from some sort of factor or not, the fact is, we made the choice. No one can take the choice from us.

let first have a definition of freewill,
some think just by making our decision we have freewill, but others may say that though we make the decision, that decision came about because of other factors than our own wanting it, for example god already make it for us, we just don't know we are choosing what we were always meant to choose, or maybe we make that decision because of how we are made up, genes or something in our brain or whatever, so infact we don't have freewill. so freewill here will have to be a choice made that is not inflenced by anything at all but our wanting it.
if you see freewill as just a simple matter of being able to make choices then i think everyone of us do have freewill.
as for latter, well, for myself i don't believe in god, and it's just too complex to even try to figure it out.
but i think on the most basic level, our choices are really govern by our survival instinct and the desire to pass on our genes. but that don't really explain why a fireman would run into a burning building to save a stranger,so.......

This is my theory of "faith," if I can call it that.
There is not a moment in life a human don`t do an action. Evry thought we think, is an action. Now, there is not one action without a consequense (gee, my writing...). Evry thought we think, wourd we say, move we make has a consequense. So, evry single secund, 100 percent of all the time, we are changimg our future.
This way, I say that there is no souch thing as a Faith, wich has planned our life completely. You can`t see in to the future, becouse nothing is decided yet. the road are changing each step we take.

Thank you for you`re attention (Just had to write that one down...)

Originally posted by debbiejo
But imo we do have absolute free choice, this is why I have a problem is Karma..............If we are part of the creation with all its force, then we are also capable of all our choices of cause and effect..........It's called free will....
I feel external forces and circumstances sometimes make the ability to choose impossible. That out of 2 or more options, I have no choice but to go for that particular one. Determinism not necessarily entails that all future events have already been predetermined, and will necessarily happen.

We all agree that Free Will should be taking actions responsably, without trampling over others' liberties, right ?

I think that anyone who sides with determinism should read this essay

It must be observed that those learned professors of philosophy or psychology who deny the existence of free will do so only in their professional moments and in their studies and lecture rooms. For when it comes to doing anything practical, even of the most trivial kind, they invariably behave as if they and others were free. They inquire from you at dinner whether you will choose this or that dish. They will ask a child why he told a lie, and will punish him for not having chosen the way of truthfulness. All of which is consistent with a belief in free will. This should cause us to suspect that the problem is not a real one; and this I believe is the case. The dispute is merely verbal, and is due to nothing but a confusion about the meanings of words.

- W.T. Stace

To what extent, how free to choose are you when you' re, for example, allergic to a certain ingredient in one of the two dishes?

I wrote an essay for philosophy on free will last year and I think I remember agreeing with compatibilism

Originally posted by Storm
Free will, the doctrine that an individual, regardless of forces external to him, can and does choose his actions.
The existence of free will is challenged by determinism. Every event is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. We, as humans, are determined through our society, religion, ...

What does it mean to make a choice?

Free will is a misnomer. Agency is a better term.



Free will implies the ability to act without external influence. Such a state is impossible. There is a modicum of choice, but it is only between the available options, there are choices, but not complete freedom, in reality.

To make a choice is the act of doing one thing and not another when both are possible. Possibilities are limited by the external influences and our history of experience with possible actions.

I believe that man is instrinsically feekle and has a tendency to do bad if he/she knew that there were no consequences. I always said that if laws were abolished right now, the entire planet would be left in a state of global choas and worldwide lawlessness.

I personally would continue on as a good person regardless of what a law might or might not tell me.

If we truly had free will then we could kill someone without worrying.
That is bad. There has to be rules or else we would be exstinct. But how come we dont have free will to break rules but when a country goes to war people in charge have the will to do anything. People with power only truly have free will. Power = Free Will

Originally posted by §pearhead
I'm a fatalist, so IMHO there is no such thing as free will...everything happens for some demented reason, regardless of what or how stupid it is. Yeah, because that makes perfect sense.

I think the ability to define free will for ourselves, independent of what anyone else thinks it is, and contingent upon only what we know to be true, is evidence of free will.



Also, to fox: There is a distinction, a large one in fact, between free will and morality, in particular the remorse most humans would feel upon murdering a fellow. It is true that in some cases, people murder without remorse, and in these cases, sadly enough, I believe we see free will at it's strongest. Independent of laws that wield severe consequences, we have people killing other people, simply because they want to.

You might make the argument that these people are insane, and thus have no free will ecause they themselves are taken over my a disease. To that I would say this: it's more comfortable to label our fears as monsters, but it hides us behind lies.

is there such a thing as free will?? brilliant question, the answer is the same as the answer to this -
Is a slave a slave, IF he doesn't know he's enslaved?

no i'm not saying where slaves, its just we're weren't born out of chioce, thus nothing is truely of our will, but all we can do is make the best for ourselves, no, no one will ever truely have free will ever, but whats within our power we can be free in our own right..... just my two cents

Free will is being a slave to your desires

Clock strikes twelve and moondrops burst
Out at you from their hiding place
Like acid and oil on a madmans face
His reason tends to fly away
Like lesser birds on the four winds
Like silver scrapes in may
And now the sands become a crust
Most of you have gone away

Come susie dear, lets take a walk
Just out there upon the beach
I know youll soon be married
And youll want to know where winds come from
Well its never said at all
On the map that carrie reads
Behind the clock back there you know
At the four winds bar

Hey! hey! hey! hey!

Four winds at the four winds bar
Two doors locked and windows barred
One door to let to take you in
The other one just mirrors it

Hey! hey! hey! hey!

Hellish glare and inference
The other ones a duplicate
The queenly flux, eternal light
Or the light that never warms
Yes the light that never, never warms
Or the light that never
Never warms
Never warms
Never warms

The clock strikes twelve and moondrops burst
Out at you from their hiding place
Miss carrie nurse and susie dear
Would find themselves at four winds bar

Its the nexus of the crisis
And the origin of storms
Just the place to hopelessly
Encounter time and then came me

Hey! hey! hey! hey!


WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAAA great song .............and listen to what is kinda said................religion is based on astonomy.............

Religion was invented to control the masses with fear, they thought if they didn't live in a certain way they would go to hell and be tortured for all eternity. It was and is just a form of control thats now out of hand.

Originally posted by Kaled
Religion was invented yep .......it sure was.

i'm retarded

Yup, there is free will. Its impossible to predict everything, you would have to know everything with infinite precision(what is impossible according to physics btw), for this reason to reject free will is a completely metaphysical and non-empiric approach made by people who thinks they are being empiric and concrete.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Yup.

I also believe that people do not necessarily operate for intrinsically selfish reasons, which is the other gloom-a-thon thing that I find a surprising amount of people believing in.

agreed

Religion fails because it takes your free will away.........

Originally posted by debbiejo
Religion fails because it takes your free will away.........

No it doesn't.

Originally posted by AOR
No it doesn't.

it sorta does, if the religion was never introduced to you, would you behave differently?

Free will is there, itsd just most people are too scared to take it, instead they choose to believe that they are being controlled because if that were true... well, why don't you figure it out?

Originally posted by Kaled
it sorta does, if the religion was never introduced to you, would you behave differently?

Free will is there, itsd just most people are too scared to take it, instead they choose to believe that they are being controlled because if that were true... well, why don't you figure it out?

Of course. All religion does is bring you to terms with your actions (i.e. allow you to recognize that each action has a consequence and your are responsible for those said consequences). It's like looking at the world (i.e. no religion) and then the world with glasses (i.e. with religion). Either way (good or bad) your view is changed and you see the world differently.

Religion doesn't take away free will. As AOR said religion changes the way we view the world. It gives consequences to our actions that (in most religions) transcend this world. It's not because an action gets consequences that you can't decide to take that action. Religion might 'forbid' you from taking a certain action. But it can't physically stop you from doing so.

Originally posted by Fire
Religion doesn't take away free will. As AOR said religion changes the way we view the world. It gives consequences to our actions that (in most religions) transcend this world. It's not because an action gets consequences that you can't decide to take that action. Religion might 'forbid' you from taking a certain action. But it can't physically stop you from doing so.

Well this is the icky bit.

While it's true that religion cannot physically prevent you from doing any one thing, it can make you disagree with the proposition of doing it, while another person would do it.

Plus take into consideration wars that have happened over religion. Truly they did it because they wanted it. But religion was the direct cause of the desire of those actions.

What one could argue, is that a person would do something that normally they would not, because they believe in the religion, using praying as a minor form of an example. Which when one comes to question is not something he is not truly doing of his own will IF the religion had never been introduced into his life.

But then if you argued over all the IFs and BUTs in the world the possibilities multiply into an infinite amount of possibilities.

It is my opinion on the matter religion does affect our free will, thus anyone who believe is not as i see it, truly themselves.

"Nothing in life is more dangerous than a man who has found his God."

Thats not to say religious people are more dangerous than anyone else. In fact any person who is convinced that they know the truth has conviction enough to be extremely dangerous.

Originally posted by Kaled
What one could argue, is that a person would do something that normally they would not, because they believe in the religion, using praying as a minor form of an example. Which when one comes to question is not something he is not truly doing of his own will IF the religion had never been introduced into his life.

It is my opinion on the matter religion does affect our free will, thus anyone who believe is not as i see it, truly themselves.

To me that seems to imply that every way of life, every culture and so on affects free will. I don't agree to do that. I can see your point of view. But in my opinion you still have free will as long as you aren't forced to do or not do something.

Originally posted by Fire
To me that seems to imply that every way of life, every culture and so on affects free will. I don't agree to do that. I can see your point of view. But in my opinion you still have free will as long as you aren't forced to do or not do something.

Yeah i get you, Free will is had by all who are not easily intimidated by <whatever>.

Utter free will, like the kind i was orginally talking about, is had by few, very few. I mean think of all the little things you do each day and why you do them. Questionably would any of us really live our lives in such a very if we had been brought up <where ever> certainly not.

So in my opnion this discussion really only extends as to how minor or major a thing people want to focus on.

Idd, but if you take it like that than (imo) Nobody in earth has free will.
except maybe the few people who don't live in any kind of society.

free will is an illusion. Even when he consciously make decisions, a higher force is presiding over it all. In the end, we are all pons of some cosmic, divine joke. Actors in the gread divine theater which is life.

Life is the cruelest joke of it all!!!!!Yet we are fearful of death

Originally posted by LordFear
free will is an illusion. Even when he consciously make decisions, a higher force is presiding over it all. In the end, we are all pons of some cosmic, divine joke. Actors in the gread divine theater which is life.

Life is the cruelest joke of it all!!!!!Yet we are fearful of death Now I understand how my Sims characters feel.

I'd like to think that free will does exist.

The remote controls out of your reach while you're sitting on your sofa, and you don't like the tv show currently running, do you

A: Get up and grab the remote and change the channel

or

B: Stay seated on your sofa and live through the program.

Life is full of choices.

Originally posted by Member.
I'd like to think that free will does exist.

The remote controls out of your reach while you're sitting on your sofa, and you don't like the tv show currently running, do you

A: Get up and grab the remote and change the channel

or

B: Stay seated on your sofa and live through the program.

Life is full of choices.

and ultimately we are not in control of whether we sit on the sofa or change the channel

Why not?

If free will is an illusion, and illusion is our only reality, then free will is our only reality.

Most people are not ready for freewill. They require stribg leadership.

I wouldn' t want absolute free choice, as it would lead to infinite possibilities, and infinite complications as well as no inherent destination in life.

Originally posted by Storm
I wouldn' t want absolute free choice, as it would lead to infinite possibilities, and infinite complications as well as no inherent destination in life.

I suspect you are the sort of person that secretly desires strong leaderhsip from this post. In fact your desire for strong leadership may not be so secret to some

Originally posted by Storm
I wouldn' t want absolute free choice, as it would lead to infinite possibilities, and infinite complications as well as no inherent destination in life.
With choice comes power, responsibility and (preferrably) perspective. With perspective comes direction.

Originally posted by Storm
I wouldn' t want absolute free choice, as it would lead to infinite possibilities, and infinite complications as well as no inherent destination in life.

Well in a sense we all have absolute free choice, problem being is with every choice we make their are various factors and outcomes beyond our ability to control.

Originally posted by Thundar
Well in a sense we all have absolute free choice, problem being is with every choice we make their are various factors and outcomes beyond our ability to control.



Then it's not absolute free choice...



Our choices are not absolutely free. They are conditional. Free Will is an illusion. We must pay for every choice we make, and every choice we make is influenced by our necessities and desires.

IF choices were alone dictated by desire, they would STILL not be absolutely free....closer to free, but no quite. For even our desires are shaped by environment, culture, influence, and possibly genetics.


Our choices are dictated by both desire AND necessity. These are conditions....Necessity drives people do eat, drink, steal, fight, sleep, etc. We do not freely choose these things.

A choice can only be absolutely free if there are no conditions or debts to consider before or after. But since there ARE conditions and consquences for and with every choice, choice is not absolutely free.

Free choice is the idea that you choose to get a drink of water because you feel like it, it is not destined that you feel like it and it is not destined that you get it, but we feel like getting something and never do when we are fully capable of getting it does that mean it is our choice not to fulfill our wants?

I believe that everything happens for a reason, this reason is there already so this thing has to happen, i feel hungry so i eat, or i go hungry, those are the two possible things to happen what does happen cannot be gone back upon so it must have happened and stayed that way, death for instance everyone dies its not our choice because if we had it our way we wouldnt die, its not our choice that we get cancer, its not our choice to survive it, it obviously comes because of something else, this is the continuation of time, life is not chosen it is cause and effect, you do something small as a baby or as a teenager and it can effect your entire life, habits for instance are constantly there, it takes great strength to over come them, or another effect to bring about the cause

Originally posted by Storm
Free will, the doctrine that an individual, regardless of forces external to him, can and does choose his actions.
The existence of free will is challenged by determinism. Every event is the inevitable result of antecedent causes. We, as humans, are determined through our society, religion, ...

What does it mean to make a choice?

More then often it means to make a mistake, uncontrolled free will is very dangerous. Much like many aspects of life, it's best in controlled doses, because in almost every case, free will is corrupted by human greed and selfishness. Only under a controlled enviroment are we forced to consider others along with or even over our own petty desires.

Originally posted by Eclipso
More then often it means to make a mistake, uncontrolled free will is very dangerous. Much like many aspects of life, it's best in controlled doses, because in almost every case, free will is corrupted by human greed and selfishness. Only under a controlled enviroment are we forced to consider others along with or even over our own petty desires.

Good point. So if evil didn't exist within this world, then yeah -"uncontrolled free will" would work out just fine. I can imagine that without evil - life would be a utopia of sorts.

I believe the uncontrollable aspect of our free will in this world has to do with the outcomes though, and who we can really effect with it. We have a limited ability to effect others with this type of free will(in positive or negative ways), but it seems as though the main person we really effect with it is ourselves.