R&S poll: Free will or determinism?

I'll use something I wrote in May of 2007 on this topic:

Go to any philosophy chat room or religion and beliefs room and odds are this debate will be circling at least once on any given day. I use the circle because it is never resolved and the same arguments are cycled through repeatedly. I've not ever joined either side because I don't believe it is an either or situation. Moreover, the middle position I’ve argued since I was 18 and first butted heads with a Philosophy Professor, now seems to finally have a little nudge of credibility from the scientific community!

I have contended for 30 years that it is not a distinct choice between the two, but a debate over how much of each aspect is involved. I believe we have free will within the confines of limited parameters of physical existence. The physical properties of the universe, our earth, our biologic composition including genetic variables and our physiologic mortality and our place and time in the world predetermine certain choices. I assert they do not control all of them.

Yesterday I found an article that suggests there is some evidence to support that a creature we do not generally consider capable of having any free will, may indeed possess at least a “spark” of it. I have always thought it absurd to mete out judgment or punishment of people if they had no free will in their decisions, and believe it equally absurd to condemn things for which there is no free will whatsoever. It feels good today to have discovered some validation for my belief on this matter.

http://www.livescience.com/animals/070515_fruitfly...

This is an excerpt from the above article:

"Free will is essentially an oxymoron-we would not consider it 'will' if it were completely random and we would not consider it 'free' if it were entirely determined," Brembs said. In other words, nobody would ascribe responsibility to one's actions if they were entirely the result of random coincidence. On the other hand, if one's actions were completely determined by outside factors such that no alternative existed, no one would hold that person responsible for them."We speculate that if free will exists, it is in this middle ground" between randomness and determinism "that is currently not well understood or characterized," said mathematical biologist George Sugihara at the University of California, San Diego.

This article also makes important points about certain dysfunctions that create difficulty with self-control or impulse control. If human physiology is acknowledged to have such dysfunctions then by default that is an assertion we have ability to control our will as a part of our genetic blueprint. Free will within limited parameters is what our biology shows, philosophy must catch up.

I see this as no more different than the nature vs. nurture argument over personality or IQ that was once as polarized but over time with new evidence, now focuses on the realization that it is both.

We have much more free will than a river has as we can swim upstream, we can go over mountains and we are not so easily trapped by simple basins. I believe that nothing is determined (planned or expected maybe) but everything hinges on our free spirit and that is the key to progress and the amazing. Is it possible that we are experiments in uncharted territory and that every thought, word and deed may be a discovery into something profound?

However, I think there is much peace in learning from the free flow of a river, enjoying the scenery, going with the flow and enjoying the ride for what it is; knowing that we are not trapped by circumstance but just might be the first trailblazer that forges a new stream, the mist that rises up into the sky and forms a rainbow or the sweet droplet that comes to rest on a child's tongue.

They each know the other within the confines of their beliefs. Which is to say they barely know each other at all.

Yet when the river sees itself in the man and the man sees himself in the river there is the beginning of recognition.

As others here have stated this is an old debate that is essentially meaningless. Both the concepts of "free will" and "determinism"are equally true and equally false.

Neither.

They are both wrong and both right, we all have free will, everything that is alive has free will, on the deeper level of understanding the place of objects in the universe we find that if before God there was nothing and everything came into being as God willed it, then all objects are part of and have an element of God in them, therefore they are all alive and therefore they all have free will.

But....

If what we choose to do is not withing the 'Tau' of the universe, no matter what we choose, it will not happen. We have free will but up to a point, then the universe will choose what is right and wrong, but only if it needs to.

We may believe we are choosing our destinies, but then one day we find something happening and we can't work out why? Thats the Tau of the universe full filling its own rules.

Karl

Free Will

You'd be surprised just how much people are led by their gonads into all sorts of life problems. People are no where near as in control as you believe. Most people are sheep, blindly following dogmatic drudgery. Educated by their desires into being a slave to a building or some other imagined want.

A water course is not a thinking entity, it cannot be compared with a creature. Creatures are driven by the various chemicals produced in their bodies with which they react to. We are the same for the most part. People don't think as much as you believe because most of the time they are asleep. Too busy with what ifs and maybes, to be paying any attention to reality. :)

Practicing Shaman... quantum physics rocks.

The River is with nature, Man sets himself apart.

I think the river knows the man a lot better than the man would like to admit.

It is both. We have full freedom to choose, only we have to bear the effect of whatever we have chosen, the effect is predetermined/invariant. If we choose the one that is in tune with the Order that exist in cosmos/universe, peace and prosperity is the effect. If we choose the one of our own making dished out be petty ego and tiny brain, misery is the effect. Choice is ours! In the present case, river is free and in itself it has aligned with the Whole and hence it is care free, it is taken to destination by itself!

I say both the river and the man are connected and they both know each other. Although one might know more than the other, they can get to know each other better and so work in harmony. Who knows