Ahem…once again…Free-Will is a contradiction in terms.
That which wills, needs, wants, desires is dependent, is determined.
Free, in the absolute sens, is omnipotence. It is independence.
Therefore to will is to express your lack of freedom.
Cultures full of slavery, and child-abuse, had spoken much about the free-will of the soul. They’d oppressed down to the root, and into the core of life.
Satyr - well-put, I think. I have never liked the term “Free Will” and you have put your finger on why. Again, it is a metaphysical term, and therefore gibberish, at bottom.
Why is it gibberish at bottom? Membraine says it’s gibberish because he can apply mechanical laws, describe these mechanics, and by that simple act, define free will away.
Satyr says it’s gibberish because, who’s omnipotent?
All well and good, words are a lot of fun to play with, but I CHOOSE to type this post…
Can you deal with that?
Dave
I have no doubt that you chose to write the post. I am not objecting to the idea of choice. I explain my position in my first post on this thread.
Isn’t it always the one who most lacks something that expresses an obsession with it?
If I am hungry, all I can talk about and think about is food.
A slave, will be obsessed with his freedom.
Also the error in many of these concepts comes from the nature of understanding and of language.
I have to create an absolute, in my mind, so as to make it comprehensible, even though it remains ambiguous and unprovable and infinitely divisible. Words are symbols of these mental abstractions in my head.
This creation of artificial absolutes (abstractions) is accomplished through simplification and generalization.
The more details and information an abstraction incorporates into its models the more sophisticated it is.
And so the concept of freedom is an ambiguous, simplified one which refers to nothing in our experience and understanding.
It is a reference to what we lack but can never define because it is lacking.
We can only imagine it and conceptualize it through comparisons, making any usage of the term a value judgment and a relationship.
Many, simple minds, misconstrue their choice between black or red or chicken or beef as evidence of their freedom.
In fact that they have to choose at all or what participates in them preferring one over the other is never contemplated.
How heritage affects presence is soemthing most would like to avoid.
Mainly because it makes them a product of fate and because it implies things about genetic inheritance, especially in the areas of gender and race, that many find uncomfortable or immoral.
Well if you believe in an all know all seeing God, then free will doesnt exist because if you know every choice that someone is going to make before they make it, it is in a way taking their free will away. Like in the matrix, when the Orcal told Neo that he had already made the choice, and he only need to understand why.
I re-read your post…
I understand the contradictions. Are we not a product of our environment, our genetics? How then can we talk about “free will” when other factors are there making a choice “inevitable.”
Are there not people in this world who more or less have “buttons” embedded that one need only push to elict a response?
But what are philosophy and knowledge for, if not to change these automatic responses?
We can reason away “free will,” but I regard that kind of reasoning as false. I am responsible for my acts because I choose my acts.
I often tell people that they can blame their parents, up to the point where they realise what their parents did wrong.
Life is a growing process, a continious process. The only way to avoid this is to drop dead.
Dave
I would not regard it as false but rather, I would regard it as impractical.
Some simple minds aim for more freedom rather than less freedom and are not overly obsessed with attaining absolute freedom.
I think I can agree with your suggestion that we do not have 100% free will due to various internal and external constraints. I do not see that as much of a problem.
I would like to offer you a different way of appreciating this subjective/objective balance of free will: ignore it and just look at what objectively impedes free will instead.
Can you substantiate this statement?
I need cold, hard facts, written in books by famous names.
No, you do not. You just need a computer and an internet connection.
Is this your idea of substantiation?
You need to substantiate this phrase, or should I take your word on it?
Your feelings are really hurt.
No! The proof is here – all 90 pages and counting!
I suggest you just keep digging. You are starting to look smarter and smarter.
Congratulations on being bored and having a computer.
Um…yes…please hug me.
That just substantiates that I have no life.
I’m still waiting for the substantiation.
Is that a substantiated fact or do you have something to back it up with?
Prove that I’m looking “smarter and smarter”.
Give me a graph, a pie chart, a peer reviewed science paper…anything.
That was over my head.
[quote=“1Samuel8”]
Some simple minds aim for more freedom rather than less freedom and are not overly obsessed with attaining absolute freedom.
There seems to be a juxtaposition of “free will” meaning absolute freedom. In other words, if I can’t flap my arms and fly, I’m not “free.”
This is just semantics. If I don’t have x-ray vision, I’m not free?
If I can’t jump over tall buildings with a single bound, I’m not free?
Is this a conversation about Superman? And if it is, Kryptonite deprives him of free will… 
Any conversation about human activity has to have the human condition in order to have a context. Within that context, I make choices, good choices and bad choices.
It may be that some of these choices are based on false information that I absorbed as a child, or even later in life.
So what?
Live and learn, but whatever our choices, we are in fact making them.
All of us posting on this board, have made the choice TO post on this board. We can reason away this choice as “pre-determined” by the past. But that too is not saying anything…
Or to put it another way, when I play baseball, and whack the ball over the fence, does the ball have “free will.”
Sorry, no, I am not a baseball.
Dave
And that is universal fallacy by a vote of 9 to 6(ish).
It’s not the perception of choice that is the disagreement. We all experience it, and I think we all agree that we experience it. It’s not the point.
The point is that if one believes it is a fallacy, then it is a universal one.
This thread wasn’t intended to debate free will. I just thought the concept of “universal fallacy” was interesting.
While I don’t have any problem with a poll, on any subject, truth, reality, etc, etc, are not settled by majority votes…
Dave
Amen.
I just changed my signature to point to a web page stating 42 logical fallacies.
The one I think this one is is “Straw Man” where one takes someones position and twists it into absurdity making it easier to dismiss.
I don’t think anyone debunking free will bases thier argument on the fact that humans can’t fly.
While I wont go through the thread to supply the quote, someone did indeed use that argument in this discussion… 
Dave