Free Will....What is it?

[watershield]

Almost everyone talks about free will, but few have attempted to provide their definition of what it is.
So, what do you think. What's your definition?

And, is it restricted to just the human race or do animals have free will?

[watershield]

First thing that comes to mind is FREE WILL as it applies to our ever day activities. I can decide how I want to live my life, how I interact with others, what I eat, what I wear, etc. But, because I live in an organized society, some boundaries are put in place. How ever I choose to function, it is going to be controlled to a degree by the laws and morality of the society that I exist within.

Second we have religious free will. Being able to see or accept my own view of divinity. To worship according to my own views, knowing that the divine will not interfere or impose anything upon me.
However, again society has established laws and maintains a certain moral set which again provides boundaries that we must function within.

Finally we consider the ethics of free will. If we have free will are we eventually be held by some moral consequences? If so, who would be the judge of our actions? This of coarse assumes you hold he concept of a soul and an after life.

So, do we have free will? No. As long as we remain in a social environment, we will constantly be faced with conforming to the accepted norm. Forced to function in ways that do not offend the social or moral expectations of society.
There is a school of thought that suggests that everything that you have felt, tasted, seen or heard, your sense of personal identity and free will, are nothing more than the behavior of nerve cells. Who we are is nothing more than an assemblage of neurons. Although we appear to have free will, in fact, our choices have already been predetermined for us (through learned response) and we cannot change that.

[Jen]

We do have free will.
If our choices conflict with social and moral issues then there are laws which take over. And I'm not talking about universal law but good old fashioned cops and robbers stuff.

[watershield]

But aren't the choices we make a result of brain chemistry and conditioning. To some degree, most of the "choices that are presented to us also bear a reward of some sort. Depending on how we personally view that reward the choice is predictable based on past conditioning.
Ergo, we didn't really make a choice rather we reacted to the stimuli in order to receive the greatest personal reward.

[thylasos]

Oh certainly, there's the debate over chaos theory and such, but it doesn't mean that much. All a person is, in the physical world, is a combination of chemistry and conditioning. Does that make us any less than what we are? I don't think so.

And one person's reward is different from another's. It's not as though we follow predetermined lines... Crowley recounted a story, though it may have been a truncation of another... Our choices, our views, our perceptions, are all different. One man watches the sun rise, another man beside him sees the same thing. But how can his perception of it truly be the same? His life, even if born to the same mother, in the same house, working the same job on the same street, will differ in perceptible ways. And those differences affect our perception. Certainly, there's a concensus on reality between people on what is and isn't real... but our sense of that?

I fear I may have started rambling...

[watershield]

See, that just it. As infants, we learn to do things by coping. Later we are told what to do or not to do by our parents or whom ever. Over time these learned responses are hard wired into our brains.
If given the option of tasting some you know to be bitter or something you know to be sweet, you think you CHOOSE to taste the sweet item.
In fact, a bunch of neurons firing in your brain identify the greater reward (pleasure) is obtained by tasting the sweet item and you directed to it.
Choice really didn't happen, even though you may think it did.
Even if you taste the bitter item just to spite me, the reward (self gratification, pleasure in the doing) is greater than the reward of sweet.
It's not a choice, it's a mechanical process.

[Jen]

So what about the serial murderer? They will have been told from birth that murder is wrong, but they still have the free will to choose to murder someone.

Good topic!

[watershield]

Serial killer or saint...the brain is hard wired to look for the greatest reward. It's that chemical reward that determines which way a person will go

[firesong]

Feb 6, 2011 6:51:50 GMT 1 watershield said:

Serial killer or saint...the brain is hard wired to look for the greatest reward. It's that chemical reward that determines which way a person will go

The brain may look for the greatest reward, but the mind can still make choices. In the end, we have the right and ability to do so. If the mind was dependent on the physical brain and it's system of neurons, it would die with the brain as well, but from my perspective, that doesn't happen.

A creature without freewill can never be good or evil; they can only be a puppet which never misbehaves. No measurable metric of spiritual mettle.

Only through temptation, with the ability to act on that temptation, can that be established. In other words, if I'm a good person, only because I have no knowledge of anything else, just how "good" am I, really?

I think that's why Esoteric Jews believe that the Serpent in the Garden of Eden is an allegory, and the Serpent isn't evil, but rather a catalyst which leads to the establishment of Man's free will.

They Believe that Satan isn't an opponent of G-d, but instead, a creation that works in concert with G-d. The road to righteousness runs through temptation, and that temptation is provided by Satan.

I find that much more intellectually appealing...

Without free will, Eris would also be diminished, because she uses it to her advantage... if we could not choose freely, there would be no reason for the Wiccan Rede, the 10 Commandments, or any other admonishment against doing harm or evil... no?

[moondaughter]

I definitely think there is a level of choice when talking about reactions and rewards with the brain. If the human brain were a complete slave to pleasure, nothing would really get done. People would just laze around, having sex and eating sweet, satisfying food. However, we have that consciousness and choice to do something that doesn't have an immediate, happy effect. We put in grunt work and all of that.