How much "Free Will" do we actually have?

Question

How do we define our understanding of "free will?

Answer 1

Leilani, free will is very very hard to define.

In terms of our daily existence (i.e., going to work, driving home, going to the store, talking to people, learning a profession), we feel as if we do have free will and we are constantly making choices that seem to be meaningful.

However, all of our choices come from the desires we have at the time (we have an inner inclination to make the choice we end up making), and those inner inclinations come from both our (1) innate personality and biological factors and (2) our outside environment, which limits the choices we get and makes some seem better than others, and (3) our past, which has "taught" us and shaped us to become the person we are right when we are making this choice.

So some people think, in a way, that the choices we make are not free at all but inevitable, because of our individual qualities and the way we have been shaped by our environment. Similar to what the Oracle said in "The Matrix Reloaded," we've already made our choices and simply are trying to understand them.

It's a little confusing, for in all practical respects, we feel as if we have free will, and we are making choices, and maybe that's what matters and the level we should be operating at in order to live meaningfully.

Certainly if free will didn't exist, people would have no responsibility for their actions... and I think even the majority of "determinists" (i.e., "no free will") folks believe that people should be responsible for what they do. We could no longer justify the "right way" for people to treat each other, and anything would go.

Anyway, defining "free will" is part of the difficulty as you have pointed out.

Answer 2

Good question. You have the free will to hang up your own calendar about remote viewing.Or maybe you were programed to do that. Sorry. But this is just another simm city for someone else to control. If you were truly a remote viewer you would already know this answer anyway.And by the way remote viewers are also controlled to believe they have free will. Hmm, did I just make a free will statement or was it programed? This is a multiple choice test but you still have limits to your answers don't you? Alternate realities within the limits of reality? I'm so confused. Does it show? Have fun!

Answer 3

I believe "free will" has everything to do with recognizing what is within our control and what is not. I can choose to do as I am told by a boss, parent, government, etc. or I can choose to do differently. I'm responsible for the personal outcome of those decisions, they are not. They, however, are responsible for the rules and expectations they set and for how they choose to respond to my decisions. Another challenge to recognize is that I'm not responsible for how you feel, but I have free will to decide how to treat you. Similarly, I'm not responsible for your actions, but I am responsible for my responses - emotional and otherwise.

And, for the big existential questions... I have the free will to believe in a divine power or to not believe. I have the free will to believe in fate or not. Of course, I also have the free will to believe that no one definitively knows the answers to these big life questions.

Mostly, I think it comes down to the degree of personal responsibility we take for our lives. If you want to believe that your boss controls you instead of believing that you have the choice to go over, around, or seek a different job, well, I guess that's your call, but it seems pretty limiting to me.

After reading Fortunado, who has good points, I want to add that there are real boundaries and constraints in life. A heterosexual can live an unfulfilled gay life or exercise the free will he has to accept that he is straight. Same thing for other predisposing physical conditions. A child born to poverty may be conditioned to believe he cannot rise above it and be extraordinarily challenged to secure a means to do so, but he has the free will to recognize that his life can be different. Lots do. Yet others don't, and it may be that they were stomped on one too many times to have enough faith in themselves to recognize that they still do have a measure of free will. Anyway, the point is that there are boundaries, some of which are more limiting than others. That's life, though. There are virtually no absolutes.

Answer 4

free will is the liberty that we should all have to be able to make the choices we think are best for us based on the information we have, our upbringing, our own individual character, our own individual reactions, ways of perceving things.... ect ect
some people would say that free will is relative but as long as we are free to make choices and can use our intellect and our own unique personality, our own cultural background ect then we DO HAVE FREE WILL ...
to deny the fact that a person does not have free will is to deny him the most basic of human rights.. the rights of freedom of thought and choice...
yes its true maybe we would be able to make better choices if we had more information ect ect but people can only make choices with the information they have and by considering advice... but at the end of the day it is their free will which chooses which path they will take...

Answer 5

You can exercise as much free will as you like. If any decision you make as a result of your free will happens to contravene a law or upset someone, then you have a problem. Go well, and God Bless!

Answer 6

we have a lot of free will. When I get up, I have the choice of what i want to wear, where I want to go, who I want to talk to, what I want to eat, and when I want to come home at night. I can get a job in any field i choose, and I can live anywhere in the country I want. I can go to my country's capitol and see the leadership in action,and If I don't like what I see I can speak out against it, and enact changes. i can vote, I can protest. I have the freedom to do what I will with my body. I am free.

Answer 7

free will means doing something on your own without the impressions or orders of anyone else. So someone who only does things there boss or parents tell them have little to no free will.

Answer 8

A lot more than most people think. Although sometimes things happen to us that we can't control (for example, a tornado hits us), we always have complete control over how we react to it.

We suffer the conseqences of all our decisions, but most people don't understand the the unfortunate things that happen to them are the result of their own actions and decisions. Most people are too quick to blame someone else (or even God) for what happens to them when they really brought it all on themselves.

Answer 9

Ah! This is the age old conundrum between how much control does God have verses how much control we have over ourselves. And the answer is .... We have all the free will we need, or in other words: yes, you are responsible for your actions.

Answer 10

specific I do understand this. interior the FAA there's a announcing, "no longer something ever happens as long as no longer something ever happens." this implies that in case you carry a nicely hid firearm right into a gun unfastened zone, there should not be any project. although, if somebody sees that gun or in case you need to use that gun, then you certainly would nicely be arrested. individually, I confer with "gun unfastened zones" as "criminal protection zones" because is the only individual who might experience secure in that ecosystem.