Free Will

I believe in free will.There are some restraints on the words alone like morality and ill morality plus laws. Like do not walk on the grass sign. If I choose I will.People say we do not have no free will, I will entertain all arguments until I understand others arguments. One only has free will when one recognizes they have it and understand it.

One does not have the right to brake the law, unless justified by the law for whatever reason.How can two words have such impact on people who swear we do not have free will within limits? Paul

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by John on September 7, 2013 at 5:12pm

The Free Will Theorem (Science Group) is interesting since the people who do not believe in free will are almost forced to believe in total determinism. One cannot get by with systems or philosophies that allow a partial free will. Few hold water, so to speak.

That causes issues for moral arguments w.r.t. the legal system. No one is responsible for their actions. Murderers are simply following their own predetermined destiny. Putting them in jail - or any form of punishment - seems rather silly. They were not responsible for their actions.

the statement " One only has free will when one recognizes they have it and understand it." is puzzling to me. I have missed the point here.

I believe all people have free will. They do not "need" to know it at any time. They may act solely out of emotions and not give their actions any thought. They can even have free will when believing that they have NO free will.

Those who believe their is no "free will" actually may be exercising their "free will" and freely believe in it's absence <g>.

Of course, I may have had no choice when typing this response. That argument is logically impossible to disprove. That's a nasty twist to everything.

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Permalink Reply by Paige on September 7, 2013 at 8:07pm

I guess it just goes along the lines of a person having common sense to know how to act. I think it is called a conscious and when you run into people who have no conscious at all those are called sociopaths. However, I am thinking that the majority of people should know that murder is wrong. If they don't, God help us all.