Do humans have free will? If so, does it have limitations. How do you define free will?

Question

Please refer smile4763 to any good books you know of on this subject. Thanks, WW

Answer 1

God gave us free will to make our own decisions to do as we choose. If we believe in God then we know what he wants and that's what puts the limitations on us.God might now always agree with the choices we make but he loves us just the same.

Answer 2

Yes, humans have free will when they make choices and decisions in life. However, people do not choose how they are born and raised. Free will is the belief or the philosophical doctrine that holds that humans have the power to choose their own deeds. Humans have free will. free will may imply that individuals can be held morally accountable for their actions. Carl Marx loved this subject. We as humans are defined by the decisions we make, choices, and consequences of our actions.Most philosophers suppose that the concept of free will is very closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility. Acting with free will, on such views, is just to satisfy the metaphysical requirement on being responsible for one's action.

Answer 3

The principle of free will has religious, ethical, psychological and scientific implications. For example, in the religious realm, free will may imply that an omnipotent divinity does not assert its power over individual will and choices. In ethics, free will may imply that individuals can be held morally accountable for their actions. In psychology, it implies that the mind controls some of the actions of the body. In the scientific realm, free will may imply that the actions of the body, including the brain, are not wholly determined by physical causality.

The existence of free will has been a central issue throughout the history of philosophy and science.

Answer 4

We certainly do not possess anything called metaphysical free will. Human behavior is governed by brain processes and the brain is composed of material substances subject to all the laws of logic and science, including the Law of Universal Causation. Every event in the universe subsists in a cause-effect relationship with other events. The current state of the universe is the ineluctable effect of the most recent previous state of the universe and the cause of that which is to follow. There is no room within this scheme for anything you might term free will. The very notion itself is incoherent. It makes no sense to say that "you" (your sense of ego, self, identity), CAUSE, your own behavior. It seems passionately intuitive, I know, but it is not so. You are not an unmoved mover.. an uncaused causer of your own behavior. Your behavior, as all scientists know full well, is determined by a combination of genetic drives and environmental stimuli. Given a certainsset of genetic drives, your upbringing, your past experiences, etc. you react in certain ways when confronted with new stimuli. Your senses are provided with input which travels into the brain, gets processed, and eventually generates behavioral output. I realize that you have the distinct feeling that you cause what you do.. but I ask you to resist this emotional reaction and think deeply about the matter. Do animals have free will? Does a gorilla? Does a shark? Does a cat? Does a worm? Absolutely not, I say, they merely react to their respective environments in the manner I just described. You feel that you cause what you do.. but this "I" "myself" is only a sort of shorthand for your own body and your own sense of awareness of self in relation to other, including myriads of brain processes. Think about something you "chose" recently - perhaps for lunch yesterday. Your behavior, your choice (which was caused) was the result of your past experiences, your natural tastes, and the environmental stimuli with which you were presented. I know you FEEL as if you really had a choice.. but that was just your cognitive process weighing the various options at your disposal.

Does the denial of free will necessarily mean that people are therefore not responsible for their actions? Some say yes. Some say no. What seems clear to me is this: belief in free will, even though it is ultimately illusory to the discerning thinker, is necessary. For if you DID NOT BELIEVE in your own ability, you could simply lay back and say "I'm waiting to see what the universe has in store for me today." You need to believe that you can make choices.. that your willing can have efficacy.. you need to motivate yourself. It's difficult to motivate yourself when you don't believe in your own power to make things happen.

Many of you have relied on religious notions, like that of a soul, in order to support your (emotionally intuited) belief in free will. I do not accept such "explanations" since they are based on problematic, unprovable propositions of "faith." No serious researcher of human psychology or consciousness really takes the idea of an invisible soul that inhabits and drives the body very seriously anymore.

Just because you are acutely aware of your "options" and have the distinct feeling that "you" can chose whatever you want, the choice is still the result of neural processes. If you present any animal with such conflicting environmental stimuli, it will hesitate, and then it will go for something. Did it "freely choose" one option over the other? No, it responded the way it is programmed to respond. And, believe it or not, so do you.

Answer 5

We do have free will, but some of us take some time to learn how to exercise it properly. For one thing, we are always being influenced by forces in our environment. It takes awhile to realize that your own free will involves deciding what you will allow to influence you. Secondly, we need to accept all the consequence, both foreseen and unforeseen, of all our actions, in order to exercise true free will. That is, if you take responsibility for the decision, you necessarily take responsibility for its consequences. That's hard, because you always want to make excuses for yourself when the decision proves to be a bad one, and take credit for the very same one if it goes right. Fact is, your choices are your choices, even if that is the choice to be swayed by someone else.

Answer 6

1) No.
2) Non-existent.

Answer 7

No, basially. We have free will in that we are free to be good little computers and run what ever programmes are put into us.

This is a good question. Got any books in mind that refer to it?

[e-mail]

Answer 8

Yes, we have free will. But, can we use it? Sometimes we can. many times we can't. We chose what is good for us and what is logical to chose, but not what we would really like to do. If your boss asks you to work the long hours without getting any money for that, what would you like to do? You would like to tell your boss to take those hours ans shave them up his ***, but instead you smile and say "Sure, no problem." thinking of your children who need new clothes for the next winter. Free will? Yeah, free...

Answer 9

I believe our creator gave us free will. The only limitation is our conscious. We should choose for good and Karma will return to us threefold. If we choose bad, it is the same. Karma returns to us threefold. Free will is the ability to make choice.

Answer 10

Not really because Your free will, Is going to take away someone elses free will away if not used carefully. They will be pissed off.