How can we truly have free will if we don't chose the conditions we're born into?

Question

We don't chose our genetic makeup, our parents/family, our starting socieconomic status, or the kind of society we are born into. With all of these very important factors being totally out of our control, how much freedom is really left for us to have? Even our personalities and decision making processes are the results of the aformentioned factors and social conditioning. It seems to me that we only percieve that we have free will because we don't have the time or brain power to really understand how all the deterministic factors interact. Free will is our mental shortcut.

But I know there are many many people who do believe in free will, that the ultimate decision of who we are and what we do lies solely within us. So I ask them, how can you reconcile the concept of free will with the very important life factors that are out of our control?

kickin...

That's an interesting perspective. Care to elaborate?

Answer 1

It is only the naive who believe that they are able to rise much above the station in life of their family. Genetics and social status are more predictive of behavior than anything else.

Answer 2

What is free will is one of the big questions of philosophy.

It is a form to define human consciousness. A stone, under certain conditions, will behave in one way. So will do any other stone. A particular human, in a certain condition, will behave in one way. Other humans may behave differently, choose differently. That said, if you know enough of a particular human being, you would be able to predict his choices. Still, in any situation, there will be others who would chose differently. Whether such choices are wise is a question to study.

Such choice is never unlimited. Like the stone, we are restricted by natural laws. Circumstances are nothing but an elaboration of those natural laws and the fact that we live in society. Choices do not depend merely on rational factors, and you have to take other people into account.

Answer 3

"it style of feels to me that we basically come across that we've loose will via fact we don't have the time or suggestions ability to fairly comprehend the way each and every of the deterministic aspects work together. loose will is our psychological shortcut." properly stated, and that i could not agree extra. Heisenberg Uncertainty significant would not in fact say that the universe is genuinely indeterministic, purely that we lack the skill to degree it with out affecting it. To us, for all intents and purposes it *seems* like we've loose will, yet in fact each and every action we can or will ever take would already be desperate from the beginning up of the universe.

Answer 4

The term free will as we know it really has very little to do with religion today. When the term was first coined people simply meant the ability to make one's own decisions. But as you can see from this forum no one really has the choice to make a decision today. You are either right or wrong in most peoples eyes.

Free will essentially ceased to exist when currency and economical class began to exist.

Answer 5

free will is the ability to make choices. obviously the things we have no control over, we can't decide on. even a slave has free will, he can run away, or serve his master, or start a rebellion, etc. sure the choices may have dire consequences, but there is still a choice. If our forefathers said they had no free will and must serve England, we would not have a United States. they chose to rebel, they had free will. just like all of us now have it. it's not whether we have free will, it's whether we choose to exercise it.

Answer 6

congratulations on your question,i got your point, but i think that each one can struggle to do which besides the life seemed being because we can not quit what we have illustrated as our system of live because it happens normally,we may not deny that sometimes many things seems fight against us,but how we would live without dreams,plans and lack our chance to create new patterns of live,I think each process comes but we give to it our contribution,every society,group,or even families remain it woun system,and the best is to belive in a nice future because we are able to do the best as much as we can when we take it intensity and carefully so man free will really may exist when we make it happens.good luck! would you like to be added to my contac i am looking for friends abroad, would you?

Answer 7

we are free moral agents that means we can decide to do something or refrain, we can decide to not do a particular thing because our conscious says it might be wrong, we are naturally born with a sense of conscious, we can ignore our conscious or obey it, and yes a wrongly trained conscious can lead you down the wrong path but once you realize this you can use your free will to decide to continue or try something else.

and free will is also exercised continuously, shall I eat pizza or spegetti today? or shall I wear this out fit or that, you can decide where you live to some extent, what to buy if you have money or how to go about solving problems. you can decide whether you want to spend your day off fishing, boating or just sleeping in.

you can reconcile that free will concept when you realize we can choose to recognize a need for God's help or not. we may be born into say a pagan nation like china where we don't have free access to information in order to make informed choices so the liability is on the government for preventing you from choosing. we still have that inborn desire for justice and fair play and we know when we are being trampled on and when injustices are being inenacted in even these nations because of the inborn sense of justice we have.

but for those poor people in dictatorships they risk death if they try to exercise their free will in these ways, such as speaking against abuses of power, or of questioning the beliefs systems that sorta thing. if you speak out your dead, you can exercise your free will to do it or refrain to avoid death, it is a shame that is the only extent of their free will exercise.

but here is the thing, God doens't hold it against you if you are unaware of your choices, your situation is taken into consideration. he will punish the religious system, political realms and big business for their oppression, and cruelty.

So eventually all will have free choice of whether to serve him or not and live in his beautiful system of things (new earth). these people will all get a chance to learn about him either now or when in the resurrection.

RRRRR

Answer 8

'Free will' doesn't mean that you can decide to be 7 feet tall and the Worlds best B-ball player and have it happen. Free will means that, when a decision is presented to you, you have the capacity do decide which of the available courses of action you will follow. But it isn't even a guarantee that you -will- have a choice.

Doug

Answer 9

Most things in life are out of our control, your looks, your parents, many circumstances you may find yourself in, the actions of others, the effects of the actions of others etc., but free will is inherent in every creature as it not only pertains to action or inaction but also to perception. the way in which you view your circumstance and the action you choose to take toward that circumstance is completely to your own choosing.

you can say that our perceptions are largely persuaded by factors like socio-economic status, peer pressure, social conditioning, but in the end it is up to the individual to take what they believe to be worthy from these factors, and take responsibility for their own thoughts, actions and in-actions. you always have the choice of what type of person you wish the world to perceive you as.

Answer 10

We can't. Free will doesn't even make sense. It's only definition would mean that we are somewhat random and the universe is not causal. Making choices does not have to be perceived as free will. It's not a mental shortcut, it's just denial.