Considering the premise that individuals' fates are predetermined by a combination between environmental constraints and hereditary, what do you consider it is the importance of free will, individual choice in our developement?
2006-09-08 01:03:24 · 15 answers · asked by queen 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Free Will... not being forced to perform specific actions... being allowed to choose from the choices you have... but it does not mean that you can also choose the consequences of your choice of actions...
example: Let's say someone desperate for money to buy food for his family has a choice to sweep floors in a grocery store for 8 hours make $10 (for the whole night) or the person can work for an hour until the manager leaves and then steal the food his family needs...
Here in the USA the wages offered are not even minimum wage and would barely feed a family...
The person working might feel that it is not right, that he should be paid more...
He has the choice, and every time he works he has the same choice...
If he chooses badly and gets caught.. then he might go to jail or perhaps just get fired...
If he chooses well.. perhaps he might be offered a better job or more pay...
Or, he can even walk out and look for another job...
The more a person chooses right... the more choices they have...
One bad choice can often limit any further choices...
Increasing opportunity.. or decreasing... that is development.
2006-09-08 01:18:59 · answer #1 · answered by ♥Tom♥ 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Environmental constraints and hereditary and push people in a certain direction, but it is individual choice that determines the final outcome.
Two people can be born into the same situation - poverty, "wrong race", wrong side of the track, woring family. One can be destroyed by it and live and die under the circumstances. The other can be motivated to break out of the constraints - get an education, work hard, become a multimillionarie, and give most of their fortune to help and improve the live of others in the same situation they started in.
All because of the chooses they made.
2006-09-08 01:13:40 · answer #2 · answered by dewcoons 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Freewill only becomes an issue when you postulate omnipotent deities. If a god is supposedly omnipotent and omniscient, then its creations have no freewill, which poses some problems with other tenets of their religion.
Other than that, the question of freewill is fairly meaningless. It comes down to the question of whether the universe is ultimately deterministic or non-deterministic. Physicists are now leaning towards a more non-deterministic universe because quantum theory seems to point to multiple possible outcomes from a single cause. Our brains are probably more deterministic, but even then, it is nearly impossible to make a prediction of human reaction based on inputs. There are just too many environmental factors to consider, and the brain, itself, is likely a non-deterministic machine.
Therefore, from our standpoint, we do have freewill.
2006-09-08 01:04:31 · answer #3 · answered by nondescript 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Getting hit by a bus--is that an environmental constraint?
Who we are is determined by heredity and environment. That's all? Textbook psychology/sociology.
Peoples decisions are influenced by everything they experience for sure--but who is to say if the action will be equal or opposite?
Each decision we make takes us in a diferent direction from where we were before the decision whether it is further inthe same direction or at a slightly different angle.
I prefer to believe that there is potential to form yourself into exactly who you want to be by your own free will. And my direction will always be toward God, if I can help it!
2006-09-08 01:11:27 · answer #4 · answered by CatholicMOM 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
sorry that this is such a long answer. i'm trying to be more concise in general but this type of question really gets my mental juices going!
hereditary factors are part and parcel of predetermined factors because we do not choose them ourselves, butare simply given them.
environmental factors are more fluid though. it is possible to change environments with focus and unity. it is also possible to change environments with random acts. the changes just dont usually happen overnight but they do happen and are mostdefinitely effected by free will (collective or individual).
i think free will is an important factor - it can be infuenced and constrained by external factors. some people believe it is influenced by good or evil forces,others think it can be influenced by the company you keep, the media, your lifestyle and/or social category. ultimately though it is exactly what it says on the tin: free.
the value of free will upon the environment around an individual depends upon how they exercise it. in any given situation you can choose to do actions which vary in their degree of value from excellent acts to good acts or poor acts to terrible acts.
in turn free will can earn an individual 'points' (some call it blessings) for cashing in during whatever hereafter the individual believes in. not only this but the weight of the decisions that the individual takes with their free will can also effect the kind of person they grow (or shrink!) to become.
i also think that there are some things which are predetermined but i dont give it too much weight as i think that each individual cannot necesarily know what results are predetermined, chance or as a result of their actions. for example sometimes something that may appear to us as chance at the time it occurs may later appear predertmined (e.g. meeting your spouse to be and sire of your children - excuse the 'ancient' terms but i dont want to be gender specific).
therefore predetermination whilst it is not a clear factor in our daily lives it may be more clear when one studies a broader span of time eg history or personal growth.
the archetypal auto-assessment of personal growth is 'i have no regrets because the mistakes and good deeds i have done have made me what i am today'.
this type of assessment eases the weight of free-will and insteads submerges our responsibility into predetermination. whatever gets some people through their day i guess.
i dont think predetermination is something with which we can justifiably submerge ourpersonal responsibilities, but i know it is a tool that can be and is used in that way. i only think it can be judged by future generations or our own selves when we have come out of a situation.
but i am even myself not too sure about where to measure the balance on this. i dont know if any of us, in truth and sincerity, can be.
2006-09-08 02:10:23 · answer #5 · answered by Chintot 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
FREE WILL is the great deceiver of many Christians.
WE DO NOT HAVE FREE WILL.
The only people on Earth that ever had free will was Adam and Eve. They were the ONLY ones that could choose the life or choose death.
Paul says that since Adam choose death, we are now enslaved in sin. That means we are enslaved in death. It is like a dead man choosing to be alive again. It just can't happen.
The ONLY way we can be alive in Christ is through the Holy Spirit who breathes life into us dead sinners. That life comes from the Word of God, not by our free will of choosing to be alive in Christ.
Just as Christ raised Lazerus from the dead, He also raises out of our deadness (sin) and joins us to be with Him in all eternity.
The great paradox in this life is that while we cannot choose to have faith, we CAN reject it because our sinful nature naturally rejects that which is Holy.
2006-09-08 01:23:43 · answer #6 · answered by MD 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Human's have to be controlled, Moses cleverly devised 10 commandments to control his 12 tribes but in the process he still lost 10 tribes. In modern civilisation we all have freedom and individual choices but at the same time we don't have freedom to do what we want.
2006-09-09 21:05:50 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Genetics can't be controlled, so there is nothing that can be done there (and you can't control who is going to have kids, either). The enviroment as in the weather conditions in an area can't be controlled (however a person can move to another area from the original place they were in)... i think a person has to choose from their experiences and hopefully they make the right choice
2006-09-08 01:07:54 · answer #8 · answered by Redknight 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Free will is good, it lets you be free, lets you be free unlike all those communists and liberals (who are just unaggressive communists). But even so, Satan had free will as an angel, the most powerful being in all of heaven (aside from God, of course), and he fell because of it. Will it happen to you?
2006-09-08 01:11:27 · answer #9 · answered by Display Name 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Have you considered the possibility of not having free will? Or only having it in the sense of choosing evil?
2006-09-13 17:40:03 · answer #10 · answered by ccrider 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋