Do you have free will?

Do you have free will?

Spirituality

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The Apologist

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02 Apr 05

Simple enough. I'd appreciate your opinions on whether or not you have free will.

Chief Justice

Center of Contention

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02 Apr 05

Originally posted by Darfius
Simple enough. I'd appreciate your opinions on whether or not you have free will.
There is a great thread on this in the Debate forum, entitled 'Human Free Will'. You should check it out.

p

Graceland.

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02 Apr 05

Originally posted by bbarr
There is a great thread on this in the Debate forum, entitled 'Human Free Will'. You should check it out.


Perhaps that should be moved to the spirituality forum...

Your question Darfius, yes I believe I have free will, however I believe my choices have already been accounted for by God.

pc

The Apologist

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02 Apr 05

Originally posted by bbarr
There is a great thread on this in the Debate forum, entitled 'Human Free Will'. You should check it out.
Can you please give an answer, bbarr, if you wouldn't mind? In the future, do you mind if I call you bar for short? Those double consonants are exhausting me. 🙂

Chief Justice

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02 Apr 05

Originally posted by Darfius
Can you please give an answer, bbarr, if you wouldn't mind? In the future, do you mind if I call you bar for short? Those double consonants are exhausting me. 🙂
Yes, I believe we have free will of the compatibilist sort. I do not think we have free will of the libertarian sort ('cause libertarianism in the free will debate is incoherent).

Insanity at Masada

tinyurl.com/mw7txe34

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02 Apr 05

I don't know if we have free will. Part of the problem is that it's unclear what the phrase really means.

The Apologist

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02 Apr 05

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I don't know if we have free will. Part of the problem is that it's unclear what the phrase really means.
The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or divine will.

Dictionary says that, Thousand.

That help?

The Apologist

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02 Apr 05

Originally posted by bbarr
Yes, I believe we have free will of the compatibilist sort. I do not think we have free will of the libertarian sort ('cause libertarianism in the free will debate is incoherent).
Can you please elaborate on what you mean by "compatibilist sort", bar?

t
True X X Xian

The Lord's Army

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02 Apr 05

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I don't know if we have free will. Part of the problem is that it's unclear what the phrase really means.
Definitely. The way I've read it defined in texts on the subject is basically as follows: Assume an agent who chooses from a set of possible actions A and assume a state of the world s from the set of all possible states S. Let the agent choose action, a. This agent has free will if and only if the agent could have choosen a different action, a', while in state s.

t
True X X Xian

The Lord's Army

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02 Apr 05

That said, I'd still like to know what Darfius means by "complete free will."

W
Angler

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02 Apr 05

Long ago I learned that man must choose between free will and carnal pleasure. I opted for wine, women, and song.

d

Riding the Atom Bomb

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10 Jul 05

Random thread.........................

We all have free will, tho it is limited to various degrees.
Even if born into slavery we have free will to take our own life!
Granted that seems grossly unfair, if were born into a situation, thats something we can take up with our parents when we get older .
In todays society we have a free will that is limited and were told you can do whatever you like, but face the consequences.

HoH
Thug

Playing with matches

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10 Jul 05

Originally posted by Darfius
Simple enough. I'd appreciate your opinions on whether or not you have free will.
Not according to my wife.

L

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11 Jul 05

Originally posted by Darfius
Simple enough. I'd appreciate your opinions on whether or not you have free will.
we have free will of a compatibilist variety. i reject determinism without free will because in the words of pinocchio, "there are no strings on me." the libertarian view of free will is even more nauseating than hard determinism.

L

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11 Jul 05

Originally posted by dale21
Random thread.........................

We all have free will, tho it is limited to various degrees.
Even if born into slavery we have free will to take our own life!
Granted that seems grossly unfair, if were born into a situation, thats something we can take up with our parents when we get older .
In todays society we have a free will that is limited and were told you can do whatever you like, but face the consequences.
i think whether or not free will can exist in varying degrees would depend on your definition of free will. certainly a person could have physical or emotional restrictions placed on them by themselves or others (for example, imprisonment or slavery), but i don't think it necessarily follows that these restrictions limit free will. whether or not free will can even have varying degrees would, i think, be definition-dependent. by most good definitions i have seen, i would say either you have free will so defined or you don't (with no varying degrees). in particular, free will is generally concerned with some set of accessible choices. the restrictions you are speaking of would constrain the size of this set of accessible choices, but they would not affect free will, which is concerned with how the agent may act upon the set of accessible choices available to him.