What's all this talk about free-will? Our directions are dictated by our desires, likes and dislikes, not free-will, right?
2006-10-02 02:46:18 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Correct. Everything every human does has a perfectly logical and reasonable explaination. The problem is understanding the axioms on which a person is acting.
A red-headed guy walks into a bar and shoots every red headed person in the place, including (of course last) himself. Why? Seems totally illogical, right?
What if I told you that he was suffering from hallucinations that convinced him that red hair was a sign of demons and that the only way to get rid of demons was with high-speed lead and God told him to kill all the demons?
From his point of view, his actions would have been perfectly logical - God told him to do something to help the world so he did it.
Your mind is the software running on the hardware of your brain. Since your brain chemistry is determined by the laws of biology which is applied chemistry which is applied physics, your brain operates on the laws of physics. That means the brain's next-state is computable from its previous-state and all its current inputs.
Where then free will? Choices, sure. But computers make choices all the time and we don't ascribe them with free will.
2006-10-02 02:52:03 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Our will, free or not, is directed by our emotions. Freewill has more to do with determinism. Something is considered deterministic if for any given input there is only one output. If something is deterministic, you can predict exactly how it will react to any given situation given enough information about the situation. Quantum theory is pointing to the universe being highly non-deterministic. However, at a macro level, our brains still might or might not be deterministic.
That said, on a pratical level, we do have freewill because we don't know enough about our environment or our brains to predict human reaction. From our point of view, we still decide what we do based on our desires, likes and dislikes.
So, freewill really isn't an issue for people on a day to day basis. It only becomes problematic when you start postulating the existence of omniscient and omnipotent beings who would, theorectically, know all the variables in the environment, have complete knowledge of how the human brain functions, and would not only know exactly all the decisions we make in any situation but also created the situations which would force us to make such decisions.
2006-10-02 09:47:57 · answer #2 · answered by nondescript 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
What do you think free will is? Its your decisions that you make everyday based on your desires, likes and dislikes. The only thing that you left out would be conscious. I believe that when making a decision your conscious plays a big part. This i believe is what directs your path through life. God gave us free will but he also gave(Most of us) a conscious too temper that free will. If he didn't we would all be running amok like animals taking whatever we wanted without any consideration for others rights.
2006-10-02 09:52:06 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No. Our directions are dictated by our choices, which can rise above our desires occasionally. In every moment, the human being must constitute itself in response to the various influences which impinge on it, but the precise nature of that self-constitution is not *determined* by any of those influences. The core of human existence is self-determination -- a self-determination, to be sure, which is hedged about by all manner of conditions, but which is ultimately not bound to any of them.
If you want to read something that really reaches the core of what freedom is, I'd recommend Viktor Frankl's book "Man's Search for Meaning." There is a particular pivotal moment, when he is in a concentration camp, freezing and starving, walking barefoot in the snow, agonized over the fates of his wife and children whom he will never see again, and he suddenly has an existential realization of the reality of his freedom, even in the midst of the most horrific circumstance life can give him.
2006-10-02 09:52:48 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Usually when people are talking about free will it is a Christian thing. Like God does not make us be good we can choose to be good or bad. What you say is true we have many built in motivating forces and beliefs that can control the choices we make. I remember a little story. There was this guy who was late for work on many occasions and my boss says to him, “If I paid you a million dollars could you be at work on time every day for a month?” well the guy said “yes” my boss says, “You have a motivation problem, your just not motivated to get to work on time”. I remember something that Edgar Cayce said. Look him up on the net if you don’t know who he is www.edgarcayce.org
He said, “today is set before you good and evil, chose good”.
2006-10-02 10:32:39 · answer #5 · answered by Roy 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We are born with free will. God gave us free will to believe in Him or not to believe in Him.
If you desire something it is because you have the free will to desire something. You have the free will to have emotions. If you didn't then you would have only emotions and desires that someone told you or directed you to have.
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose freewill.
2006-10-02 09:56:26 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, free will must be earned by overcoming our desires and destroying the ego. This is a core Buddhist belief...
"But when one masters this wretched desire, which is so hard to overcome, then one's sorrows just drop off, like a drop of water off a lotus"
- Buddha -
2006-10-02 14:23:17 · answer #7 · answered by Shinkirou Hasukage 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Your desires likes and dislikes ans what you decide to do with them is part of your free will. You have the will to choose what you are going to do with your life and who you are going to vote for ect.
2006-10-02 09:53:22 · answer #8 · answered by wolfy1 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Your desires do direct but your dicisions. Your choice is your will. Even though you might desire something thats not good for you, your decision on whether you should have it or not is your free will
2006-10-02 09:51:09 · answer #9 · answered by accvining 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ummmm, no, that's the very definition of free will
free will (n.)
1. free and independent choice; voluntary decision
2. The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will.
2006-10-02 09:47:48 · answer #10 · answered by JerseyRick 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋