Everyone's favorite topic, I'm sure. Recent events have caused me to think deeper into what free will is. Freedom has no boundaries. Does free will have boundaries? The physical world is either binding or unbinding, not both. Does free will limit us to the boundaries of the physical world, or is it boundless? I may think in my mind the physical world has boundaries, but by thinking that, am I being bound by my mind? My mind is just as much a part of the physical world as everything else is. So that brings me back to the question: Is free will free, or are we bound to some extent? I've also always wondered whether it is free will that motivates people or whether their original motivation is what wills them to act. Every action we make reinforces the original motivating idea, but where does will come in?
Great thread "Free will" is a philosophical/religious concept while "choice" is the act of picking one out of two (or more) alternatives. For instance: You need to eat, and you can choose what to eat, but hunger, instinct, socio-economic class, cultural heritage and geographical surroundings, etc. still dictate your choice unfreely. When examining free will, we have to look at whether you made the choice independent of any external influence, at the specific time when you made the choice. Free Will do not exists, in a way. Theory is this, this world is made up of endless possibilities, or more scientifically, layers of space, when you make a choice, any choice, you choose, and the one you choose will become the future, while the one you denied will not, vice versa. Meaning that time itself is like a movie, made up of different frames which have millions of substitutes for each other, in other words, there will be a different world for every different choice you make. If you look at it widely enough, we're still constrained by the laws of the world as things that do not exist will not even be thought of. Free will being that we have control over our faculities to reason, but not our desires and motivations. Such as Aristotle and Aquinas suggest that no man can choose his end or the nature of his being, rather he can accept it or reject it, Yet even the rejection of his nature subsists in a false sense of fulfilling it. And thus there is no true freedom to deny his nature, unless he decieves himself.
Suppose someone decided to kill me and he killed me, then suppose that god or some infinite power reset time back There are two cases: 1- If he killed me again (in the same exact way) after someone reset time back in the same exact way then this means that his actions were predetermined. 2-If he didn't kill me after someone reset time back in the same exact way, then this means our actions are random. In either case the killer is not responsible for his action because his action were either predetermined or random. In order for someone to have free will, his action must not be predetermined and not random. But thats impossible, right ? If case 2 is true then this means that all of the criminals in the world are criminals because of luck. Because if we reset time back then there is a chance that those criminals might not become criminals afterwards.
If God Forenew events and new the end from the beginning, why did he punish Adam and Eve? Did'nt he know ahead of time that Adam and Eve would sin? Or in Babel? did'nt he already know the feeling he was gonna feel afterwards? It says; I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; for it repenteth me that I have made them. how can God feel feelings of regret? Are we predestined to serve God? In continuation, was it then really your "free will choice" or was it Predestination? The thing about predestination that bothers me is that if you believe that there is no free will and we are elected by God for heaven then that means that some were elected origanally for Hell? That just sounds cold to me man.
true..but if u knew had known the person and the person had planned to kill you on that exact day..youd have to have time reset back to the incident which caused this persons interest to kill you and then youd have to change that incident so that person would not kill you in the future. just a thought
It's a nice idea, however it's a predetermined ("fate", so to speak) there's no way to stop it. even if you can go back and persuade that person, it won't matter only IF it's predetermined. If it's not predetermined than you could change his mind maybe, who knows.
Do you have a choice in what you find attractive? Can you CHOOSE who you find attractive or are people simply attractive to you and some arent. Can you CHOOSE who you love, truly love? Think about that.
We have no control over how we come into this world, and wherever we are born, in whichever culture and to whichever family, we acquire certain beliefs which combine to define the reality in which we live, but has everything already been set in action by a grand planner? then what is freedon, and what is life? What is will? and what is fate?
What is fate? Are our ultimate destinies pre-determined, the natural consequence of cause and effect while we are merely carried along for the ride, and if so what does it mean to talk of ‘free will’? And whether or not our destiny is already fixed... who or what -can be understood as the ultimate author of our fate? For example, was it Ghandi’s fate to be instrumental in earning <?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = ST1 /><ST1:COUNTRY-REGION><ST1LACE></ST1LACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION>India its independence from British colonial rule, and was it also his fate to be assassinated by a Hindu extremist. Was it Hitler’s fate to found a brutal fascist regime, instigate abominable racist exterminations, and to commit suicide in abject despair in a bunker beneath <ST1:STATE><ST1LACE></ST1LACE></ST1:STATE>Berlin. Was it Mother Teresa’s fate to help many in need, to be celebrated for that charity, and to die of old age, beloved by the world throughout? <?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O /><O></O> <O>But could they not have chosen differently? that there were other paths that could be taken, that what happened was not actually fate, but merely what just happened to occur? But we cannot alter the past. These events have happened. They do not change. But there is also 'Luck', and 'chance'. All random factors balance themselves out in the statistical average,</O> So I'll just shut the fuck up from now on.
care to elaborate on this? opposite of physical being spiritual i presume. does this mean you agree in a spiritual realm? are you mixing physics with religion? also elaborate please. PHP: i may think in my mind the physical world has boundaries,but by thinking that am i being bound by my mind? my mind is just as physical as everything else. are you basing freewill off of your thoughts? what does what you think have to do with freewill? are your thoughts foolproof? either right or wrong? are you trying to stunt the concept of freewill by saying that since you cant jump between physical and spiritual that freewill is infact at a cost? does this actually have anything to do with freewill or is it a mindless idea thought up while you were extremely stoned? we are bound to this physical world yes. i suppose to answer your question in a vulgar sense i could say that you have free will to leave this physical world by slitting your wrists. would that answer your question?
The Free Will vs Determinism issue is one of the hottest debated issues in philosophy. I remember spending nearly a month on it when I took Ethics my sophomore year in college. What I ended up deciding was that there is no way to know the truth of this issue and that we should just live our lives. In the end it doesn't matter if we debate it to our death it is either one or the other so we should live as if we have free will but realize we are effected by everything around us all the time. There are always people trying to manipulate and control what you think. The mainstream media for example. Just keep a clear head, think everything through, and do your research on everything before you accept something as absolute truth. Most importantly keep an open mind.
Free will is an idea & nothing more, we are ignorantly drawn to & chase around objects that we imagine give us pleasure, but these objects of pleasure vary from being to being, so the pleasure is imagined IF you beleive you have free will, then you are bound, when you see that you have no will then you are free, its paradoxical We think that if we do what we want when we want, that is freedom, really it is true freedom to kow you have never done anything & this body is a dancing puppet guided by the hands of Infinity
Free will does not mean the ability to have limitless options and power...if it did, we would all be Gods. Free will is in context of our WANTS. We have free will as to what we want. We are judged by our wants.
So when somebody is really drunk and tries to fly their brain isn't putting any boundaries on them, they literally think they can fly - does this mean that they can fly? Hell no. Mental boundaries don't have any effects on the laws of physics. If I truly thought I could fly to the Sun, would I be able to? There are, of course, physical boundaries.
I made this point in my last post...free will is in terms of our wants. We have free will to want anything...that doesn't mean we get it. We have total control over our wants and are therefore judged on them, since that is all we have total control over.
If free will truely exists then what differs humans from other living creatures such as plants? Why can we roam freely while they are rooted in one place?
Free will has to do with wants...not physical place. We have the free will to want anything we want. Don't confuse this with meaning we attain all of our wants...sometimes we do other times we don't, but we can always want for. I'm a human so I can only think in human terms and not in the terms of another animal. We don't know what goes on in other species minds...
