So, who here believes in Free Will and why?
Some have said that we function the same way as single-cell organisms do by responding to external stimuli, the only difference being that our CPU is more complex.
At what point in the evolutionary process did living beings develop free will, if there is such a thing?
Can free will be proven?
I do not believe in free will but I'm a Sociologist so there you go in a nut shell. We are sociolized into our environment no matter which enviorment that may be by social reprocussions for precieved bad behavior and rewards for precieved good behavior. To develop true free will you would have to live on a island alone from birth and we all know that can't happen.
Ok, I know....absolutely nothing is for sure. No one "knows" for sure they exist. It could all be a dream of some anti matter non being. etc etc. True enough. Within that context we can never "know" if we have free will (or anything). But it seems to be a bit cumbersome to preface every statement with "As certain as I can be". So I simply say "I know" that I have free will because I experience it.....just as I "know" I am in the grocery store when I walk through the door. (the door that I "know" actually exists). To all the "experts" who talk about cells in our brain randomly colliding to make random thoughts about random actions, I say "stop trying to count the number of angels on the head of a pin, and get in touch with the real world".
We are compelled to breathe, hydrate, eat, sleep, mate, stay warm, etc. Yet, we seem to have free will. We can rationalize things, like gods, that aren't real. How would we act differently if we have free will vs no free will? What is free will? I am agnostic about it.
I'm confident that there is "NO PLAN", but I've come to think that we also do not have much choice/control in our individual lives. Things that seem important decision/choice wise seldom actually are. What tends to have the most impact on our indiviudal lives seems to be "non-choices" or seemingly trivial choices/decisions. We are prisoners of time; we can only live in the "moment". Although, this is not really how time is. In the "great" scheme of things we are but an insignificat speck of dust on the cosmic timeline; and all time has already happened -- we just can't "see" it. The only thing that makes us "special" in the Animal Kingdom is that we are aware of our own ignorance and that we are going to die. Anyway, my two cents.
I don't know about free will but I did see Free Willie. It was kind of cheesy.
Stop there will be no freeing of willies here.
@HeathenFarmer well played
Free will exists. I've seen it. I don't have it. I have children.
After dealing with people, and keeping up with current events, I have figured out the mechanism for human behavior. It isn't free will.
Everything, people included-- is analogous to the ball in a pinball machine. We all bounce from incident to incident, until we fall back into the machine (die).