free will

Do you guys believe in free will?

  • yea free will is very real

    Votes: 22 73.3%
  • nope is an illusion

    Votes: 5 16.7%
  • i dont know

    Votes: 3 10.0%

  • Total voters
    30
  • Poll closed .

Ethyl

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I definitely think free will exists, but there is a difference between will and ability.

But many of us are paralyzed in other aspects of our lives. Low self-esteem can cripple an individual emotionally. Skewed beliefs about ourselves, others, God, or the world can make us feel trapped and hopeless. Mental illnesses such as depression can keep us held in limbo for years, even though our choice would not be to remain depressed.

Spot on.

I've always wanted a happy life, but I did not have the tools to have one until I gained clarity in my view of the world, and gained enough recovery from the hurts of my childhood that although they still affect me, they don't incapacitate me.

Some would say that because I created a painful environment for myself to live in after having grown up in one, I didn't have free choice -- that my emotional conditions took away my ability to choose.

I don't think it took away the ability to choose; rather, I think it took away the ability to carry out that choice. For years, I knew my choice, if unencumbered by other factors, would be to create a different life for myself, but I lacked the tools to do it. I never lacked the will.

Again, spot on. I believe there's a statute of limitations regarding how much one should allow their childhood to map their direction in life, but if the circumstances created untold trauma, then outside help is often needed to gain the tools you mentioned. I desperately needed help at one point in my life, found it, and was able to see my strengths and weaknesses in a different light.
 

JustAsking

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I think we are using a number of different definitions for determinism. I was responding to the strict definition that implies a kind of clockwork universe where there is no choice.

My vote is that this kind of mechanical determinism does not figure in at the level of say, society, traditions, etc.

On the other hand, I do vote for HollyBlue's brand of determinism where our intellectual capacity for logical choice is greatly influenced by emotional states, outside coercion, classical conditioning, memories, experience, and physical limitations.

Just ask your nearest addict if he feels in control of his life merely by working out decisions logically.

I maintain that the addict is just the most dramatic example of the same condition that we all operate under, which is mostly influenced by unconscious forces which we rationalize into thinking that it is all free will instead of perhaps 20% free will.

One of Luther's big innovations was to raise Christian consciousness to the notion that we are all mostly subject to forces beyond our control. There is a Christian buzzword called conscupience, which is man's tendency to be a rat bastard no matter how much he tries to be perfectly good.

His point wasn't to increase our guilt, but to establish the notion that a relationship with God could not possibly be the kind of good/bad reward/punishment deal that was the tradition of the time (and a tradition even now in some circles). Given our conscupience (which is one limitating factor to free will), God could not possibly hold us accountable to be exemplary individuals in order to reap the great reward. If so, the game is already rigged against us. So instead, God rigs the game in our favor. So instead of punishment, we get Jesus.
 

36DD

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Our choices may be shaped or influenced by our experiences or environment but we do have the free will to make the choices we do.
 

D_Kay_Sarah_Sarah

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Lee, I think you misunderstood the question. Free will doesn't mean "do as you please." It means "do you make your choices, or do your choices make you?"

I like to use the example of street gangs in Los Angeles. A determinist who grows up poor in a bad neighborhood in LA would reason, "I don't really have a choice. I have to join a gang, because of the environmental factors of my upbringing." A free will thinker would reason, "I can take the easy way, join a gang, and blame my choices on my fate; or I can do whatever I have to, to get out of this situation, and make my life better."

Yes, determinism may limit your choices, but it doesn't always eliminate choices. Every person is free to make those choices, for whatever his reasoning may be.

Still, looking at it from that point of view free will is non-exsistant. Even if we think we have the ability to choose freely, but there are ALWAYS factors that decide our outcome that we can not control. Age, gender, Race, religion, Nationality. these limit us and stop us from being truly free in our will of decision making.

It is a fact that we do have limits and barriers that we can not over come and that are out of our control
 

Altairion

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I think we all have the capability to choose what our actions are, but there are a lot of factors that influence our choices and options. For one thing, I have free will to make the choice to live a straight life, but I choose not to because there are other factors (me being gay) that influence that choice.

I'm sure this thought process applies to many other things in life in varying degrees.
 

36DD

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I think we all have the capability to choose what our actions are, but there are a lot of factors that influence our choices and options. For one thing, I have free will to make the choice to live a straight life, but I choose not to because there are other factors (me being gay) that influence that choice.

I'm sure this thought process applies to many other things in life in varying degrees.
That's a very interesting view point in light of your being gay...I don't think I've ever heard another gay person say that!
 

Altairion

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That's a very interesting view point in light of your being gay...I don't think I've ever heard another gay person say that!

Heh, well by no means am I saying that being gay is a choice in case that's the way it sounded. I'm just pointing out that there are many gay men that force themselves to live a straight life despite being gay. (I'm sure you can think of a few well publicized Republican examples that apply here...)
 

36DD

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Heh, well by no means am I saying that being gay is a choice in case that's the way it sounded. I'm just pointing out that there are many gay men that force themselves to live a straight life despite being gay. (I'm sure you can think of a few well publicized Republican examples that apply here...)
No, that's not how you sounded, I understood exactly what you were saying...you worded it very well.:smile:
 

goodwood

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I believe that we all have free will, that we can and do decide our own actions. That our actions may have been pre-determined or known, I have no way of knowing. But yes. Definately believe in free will.
 

the_reverend

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i think the fact that people CAN overcome societal limitations or expectations and choose to do something beyond what their circumstances might dictate (not that all people do, but that some people have and all people in my opinion can) proves that there is free will that transcends the influences around us. they're just that...influences. they don't dictate our decisions. they just make certain decisions easier.
 

Mem

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Yes we have free will. We have the choice between good and evil, between right and wrong.
 

B_tallbig

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Yes we have free will. We have the choice between good and evil, between right and wrong.

you are talking about religious free will. i think that the thread creator wanted to start a discussion about free will from philosophy point of view.

that people shape their lives according to thier choices and actions . that we make choices completely free without some sort of influence . i dont believe in that and i would like anyone that believe in free will give here a example of a choice made completely free with any influence.
 

B_tallbig

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i know that believing in free will is attractive idea to make us feel better to give us hope in situations . but because something sounds attractive and even right that dont make it true. iam waiting to a list of examples when people choose 100% free
 

JustAsking

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Yes we have free will. We have the choice between good and evil, between right and wrong.

Again, I maintain that this ability to choose right and wrong is very limited. We are subject to so many emotional and biological forces for us to have complete freedom in this regard. Even St. Paul recognizes this in Romans chapter 7.
For the good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I practise. But if what I would not, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. I find then the law, that, to me who would do good, evil is present. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.

When Paul uses the term "law", he is talking about all those things in the Bible that proscribe holy or good moral behavior. As you can see, Paul agrees with the law, but realizes he is at best pretty weak and mostly bound to screw up. His intellectual free will chooses holiness, but the rest of his humanness is at war with that. Paul is saying he is addicted to being a rat bastard and his claim is universal, that we are all bound by our humanity to not live up to even our own ideals, let alone God's ideals.

This is why Paul, and then more recently Martin Luther (who caused the Protestant Reformation over this point) insist that good behavior could not possibly be the basis for salvation, because our free will is limited by our flawed humanity. God has no choice but to recognize this and forgive us for it, otherwise the situation is hopeless.
 

B_tallbig

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Again, I maintain that this ability to choose right and wrong is very limited. We are subject to so many emotional and biological forces for us to have complete freedom in this regard. Even St. Paul recognizes this in Romans chapter 7.
For the good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I practise. But if what I would not, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. I find then the law, that, to me who would do good, evil is present. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.

When Paul uses the term "law", he is talking about all those things in the Bible that proscribe holy or good moral behavior. As you can see, Paul agrees with the law, but realizes he is at best pretty weak and mostly bound to screw up. His intellectual free will chooses holiness, but the rest of his humanness is at war with that. Paul is saying he is addicted to being a rat bastard and his claim is universal, that we are all bound by our humanity to not live up to even our own ideals, let alone God's ideals.

This is why Paul, and then more recently Martin Luther (who caused the Protestant Reformation over this point) insist that good behavior could not possibly be the basis for salvation, because our free will is limited by our flawed humanity. God has no choice but to recognize this and forgive us for it, otherwise the situation is hopeless.

IAM NOT A CHRISTIAN AND I DONT BELIEVE IN THEIR MAIN DOGMAS BUT
THE WAY YOU REFUTE THIS IDEA USING USING CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE IS BRILLANT
 

HazelGod

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When Paul uses the term "law", he is talking about all those things in the Bible that proscribe holy or good moral behavior.

Proscribe means to prohibit. I'm assuming you intended to use the meaning of prescribe in this case.


This is why Paul, and then more recently Martin Luther (who caused the Protestant Reformation over this point) insist that good behavior could not possibly be the basis for salvation, because our free will is limited by our flawed humanity. God has no choice but to recognize this and forgive us for it, otherwise the situation is hopeless.

No, it only seems hopeless if you buy into the Judean postulate that mankind is inherently flawed and subject to some judgement by a creator entity upon expiration, thus requiring salvation from himself.

If you discard such illogical precepts as mythological poppycock and accept human beings for the intelligent, emotional, social, and most importantly biological creatures that we are, you can understand that there is no cause for such warring with one's own nature. The cause for "good" behavior is a social idea, as is all morality. It has nothing to do with judgement of some intangible soul in an afterlife...this is merely the leverage by which religions have traditionally imposed their standard of morality onto the ignorant and superstitious. It has everything to do with creating and maintaining a viable social order. As such, it's highly subjective and localized within any given society.

I've always been fascinated with the idea of superposition of quantum states, a la Schrödinger's cat, and I tend to believe that such paradoxes would be difficult to conceive in a deteministic universe. When free choice is part of the framework, then every decision represents a branching point in the universe's shape...choose one option, and the resulting reality will be set in one manner; choose another instead, and the result might be completely different. Small perturbations in even the simplest choice might have tremendous and far-reaching effects on manifest reality (the "butterfly effect"). Entire fields of study in nonlinear dynamic systems exist to examine the nature of these phenomena.

If our reality were truly deterministic, such notions would be almost inconceivable.