45 thoughts on “Free will, do we have it?”

  1. jim- says:
    May 3, 2019 at 18:44

    I think we have the ability to fill our minds with things that can guide our thinking. Look at the dichotomy of religious thought. Spend time in it and you start acting it out. Like a rehearsal where we get to adlib a bit.

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  2. clubschadenfreude says:
    May 3, 2019 at 20:04

    we don’t have free will of the kind where we can do anything and everything. However, we can’t know or be aware of every influence, and thus we act like we do have free will. I’m good with that. I can learn to change my behavior if it’s needed. I have free will in the only possible meaningful way, that knowledge of myself.

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  3. renudepride says:
    May 3, 2019 at 20:06

    Or learn to live without it and still be happy! Have a great weekend, O Exalted One! Naked hugs!

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  4. Swarn Gill says:
    May 3, 2019 at 20:09

    Haven’t you asked this question before? Or maybe you have no free will about making a post on this every so often. ๐Ÿ™‚

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  5. grabaspine says:
    May 3, 2019 at 20:30

    I have the will my wife says I do.

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  6. inspiredbythedivine1 says:
    May 3, 2019 at 20:57

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, no will, and I mean NO will can be found ANYWHERE for less than 4 dollars and 50 cents. Sorry. I’ve looked, and it’s just not there. Ain’t nuttin’ free in life, folks, including will.

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  7. maryplumbago says:
    May 3, 2019 at 23:27

    Seems like we do especially on things like do I want a sangria or a margarita? Shall we go see a movie, take pictures of your pets now or later today…etc.
    But the bigger decisions…maybe not so much. So much is controlled by DNA and genes, how you were raised, the values and habits etc., your friends and their influence, your own desires and likes and dislikes forged early in life….

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    • grogalot says:
      May 4, 2019 at 16:57

      However we got our free will, we are stuck with it. Come to the fork in the road, flip a coin or ponder awhile. It isn’t possible to go back to that fork in the road to find out what might have been. Who, me worry? GROG

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    • makagutu says:
      May 4, 2019 at 17:49

      the decision whether it will be a sangria or margarita is influenced by external factors- the availability, affordability among others. and i think the other issues you raise also affect the small and big choices

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      • maryplumbago says:
        May 4, 2019 at 20:51

        Curious…you believe in no free will? Not even in minute ways…?

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      • maryplumbago says:
        May 4, 2019 at 20:54

        Also, if we have no free will in all things, wouldnโ€™t that abdicate any responsibility or need to do critical thinking about any choice in life? Just blindly go for it…the hell with any repercussions?

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        • makagutu says:
          May 5, 2019 at 09:40

          nope. we can not do otherwise. our upbringing, our environment trains us to act in specific ways.

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          • basenjibrian says:
            May 6, 2019 at 20:16

            But this becomes ultimately meaningless because it is impossible to determine all of the factors that dictate why one chooses a margarita over a Pina colada. We effectively believe we are making choices, even if deep down inside our choices are somehow dictated to us by such a complex interaction of often trivial factors that we can never understand what they are.

            It’s like Classical Physics versus Quantum Physics. We live in a Classical World (over all) even if the ultimate reality may be quantum.

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  8. Mordanicus says:
    May 4, 2019 at 08:37

    Honestly, I have long stopped to worry about whether we have a free will or not.

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  9. Ihagh G. T. says:
    May 4, 2019 at 14:43

    very interesting question… i actually read an article that answers this question in a deep way; however the views might be objected by many people who don’t hold certain beliefs…

    the article is of the opinion that we all have a free will which can only be free if we settle our karmic debts

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    • makagutu says:
      May 4, 2019 at 17:32

      that it would be objected to many is not a reason not to share. though what would be these karmic debts?

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      • Ihagh G. T. says:
        May 4, 2019 at 17:40

        you are right: even if people would object, it’s not a good reason not to share.

        karmic debts are debts from past and previous lives… the author believes that at inception, each newly created spirit has free will that is not influenced by karma, especially bad karma; but after doing wrong to others during successive lives (reincarnation), the total effect will make it difficult for a particular soul/spirit who has done wrong in former lives, to exercise his/her initial uncontaminated free will during his/her most-present life, because bad karma can bring unfortunate circumstances that would prevent some people from using their free will to actually do what they want to do

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  10. shelldigger says:
    May 5, 2019 at 01:02

    This free will thing always hurts my head. Especially knowing I had to type that.

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  11. rautakyy says:
    May 5, 2019 at 15:13

    The question of “free will” is quite moot. What is it even supposed to mean? Does the coward have free will not to feel cowardice? To act upon it? If there existed some form of magical “free will” designed by some particular god, who had made this world only to exist as some sort of test for wich people should be selected to eternal bliss and wich into eternal torment, did that entity not know the end result of the test beforehand? If there really was a hell, and actual free will, who would ever make the choise of eternal suffering? Absolutely nobody, or would such a test be to root out the masochists among us? Why create masochists?

    The universe is set. The pieces are moving and wether if by the design of an all-knowing superentity, or by natural processes accidentally and coincidentally, the atoms and before them even smaller particles are bound by each other to move into certain direction.

    Yet, we have this undeniable sensation of our ability to make descisions and influence the reality around us. To consider it an illusion is on the same level as to assume solipsism to be true. It is a pointless point of view. I think, that as we can not point to any particular super entity, and because truly knowing ALL is a logical impossibility, we are safe to say, that the universe and it’s atoms and particles are on a fairly random course and part of that random nature is, that every once in a while we are actually able to make what we call choises. We make those choises by outside influence on what is our inside view. That inside view exists in our physical material brainchemistry despite the massive amount of outside influence that has moulded it.

    The random events governed mainly by the so called laws of nature as part of the entire randomizing “engine” we call the universe are not predestined by any unnatural super-intelligences, but the events shall unfold as time passes and events happen. Neither we, any prophets, or divine powers know what is going to happen next, so we need to make our predictions on the best awailable information we have and take responsibility over our actions.

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  12. Eric Alagan says:
    May 11, 2019 at 05:26

    Free will? Does one size fit all?

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