Free Will

Recently one of my teacher's who I actually really like had an intense debate with one of my classmates on free will.  My teacher argued that free will is an illusion and my classmate said that everyone had free will.  In the end my teacher convinced everyone includng my classmate who he was arguing with that free will is an illusion.  I remain unsure.  I,ve been thinking about it all week and it's been driving me crazy.  So I ask the question:

Do you believe in free will?

Some say that people like you are facing the "illusion" of free will.  They say that you just react to a cause of a cause of a cause based on your genetics or something like that.  I was wondering if you could give some detail to support your opinion.  Also, curious to hear what others have to say.

It's one of those questions you'll never truly know the answer to.

Practically speaking you do have will so whether it's "free" or not or you're just some sort of biological robot doesn't matter that much, you've got will, use it!

absalotly not, pick your reason

 if you belive in religon: God or whatever has a plan for you correct?, therefor every little thing you do is planed out, free will is an allusion

if your atheist(yay!): everything you are is based on genitics, including brain cells and ultemitly your thoughts, so you life is "maped out" in you genes and is efficted by reacctions to others, which are genes to.

I hope you come to the same conclusion as me

But there are still multiple outcomes possible, humans are too complicated to predict us completely.

Like it or not, there's really no way to know 100% certainly.  Like if you throw a die and it lands with 5 up was it "destiend" to land that way?  How can you know?  Such questions are pointless for the most part.

As I said whether we're really "free" or not is impossible to know but we'd do better acting as if we are (even if it's just psuedo-freedom) and trying to grow & expand & surpise ourselves from time to time.

I will I could hang out with my parellel universe "me's", I bet they'd be pretty cool guys... or gals (even better! )

I started a thread on a similar subject before.

Why not?  All of us start out as girls, just a small chemical reaction that turns a girl fetus into a male.

There is nothing we can call free will. Wills are only of two types

1 Will to live and live better

2Will to reproduce and protect your child.

I am a philosopher who didnt study the whole lot but i once read Kant, the German philosopher and Shopenheur both have thought about it. And after reading i was all prepared to commit.......................So better play chess only.

I would classify these as 'drives' or 'biological imperatives' or needs.

How would you explain altruism e.g. risking or giving your life for a stranger?

Does anyone recall an episode of Red Dwarf where something remarkably similar occurred?

RED DWARF III

THE SAGA CONTINUUMS

THE STORY SO FAR...

Three million years in the future, Dave Lister, the last human being alive discovers he is pregnant after a liaison with his female self in a parallel universe. His pregnancy concludes with the successful delivery of twin boys, Jim and Bexley. However, because the twins were conceived in another universe, with different physical laws, they suffer from highly accelerated growth rates, and are both eighteen years old within three days of being born. In order to save their lives, Lister returns them to the universe of their origin, where they are reunited with their father (a woman), and are able to lead comparatively normal lives. Well, as normal as you can be if you've been born in a parallel universe and your father's a woman and your mother's a man and you're eighteen years three days after your birth.

Shortly afterwards, Kryten, the service mechanoid who had left the ship after being rescued from his own crashed vessel, the Nova 5, is found in pieces after his space bike crash lands onto an asteroid. Lister rebuilds the 'noid, but is unable to recapture his former personality.

Meanwhile, Holly, the increasingly erratic Red Dwarf computer, performs a head sex change operation on himself. He bases his new face on Hilly, a female computer with whom he'd once fallen madly in love.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dad_(Red_Dwarf_episode)

Wow! Thanks everyone for the comments, I,ve read them and think I agree most with Narz.

Here's my rule of thumb:

If it exists only if you believe in it, then it's not real.

So sit down. Close your eyes. Have a look at your will. Does it run free or not?

Red Dwarf, eh?  Sounds interesting Fizz, recently I've just been re-devoring (4 books in 2 days) a few sci-fi classics from my youth.  I'll have to check that show out.

So how do you explain suicide then?  And how do you explain people who choose not to have children or adopt (going against a billion years of evolution impelling us to spawn)?  Or altruism, dying for another?

Of course all of the above can be explained in evolutionary terms (because the survival of the "tribe" is more important than of the individual because without the tribe the individual is doomed anyway) but not in your simplistic philosophy (not using simplistic as a barb, just saying I think you need to expand it more).

HOLLY: I challenge to the game of your choice.  May the greater mind win.
RIMMER: Oh, my God.
HOLLY: The winner is commander of Red Dwarf.
QUEEG: And for the loser?
HOLLY: The loser will be erased.  Terminated.  Oblivionised.
RIMMER: Bye,bye, Baldy.
HOLLY: Name your game.
QUEEG: Chess.
HOLLY: It can be anything.  Any game at all.
QUEEG: Chess.
HOLLY: Draughts, poker, anything.
QUEEG: Chess.
HOLLY: Subbeto, Snakes and Ladders...
QUEEG: Chess.
HOLLY: Monopoly, maybe?  I'll let you go first.
QUEEG: CHESS!
HOLLY: So you like a bit of chess, do you?  Transfer me to the monitor.

HOLLY disappears from the monitor trolley and appears on the main screen,
facing QUEEG.  On another screen, a 3-D chess board appears.

LISTER: Holly, don't do this, man.  You're going to get rubbed.
HOLLY: A computer's gotta do what a computer's gotta do.  Let battle
  commence.
QUEEG: Pawn to King Four.
HOLLY: Horsie to King Bish Three.
RIMMER: It's called a "knight," actually, Holly...
QUEEG: Knight to King Bishop three.
HOLLY: Queen to Rook Eight.  Checkmate.
QUEEG: That's an illegal move.
HOLLY: Oh, sorry.  Queens don't move like that.  I was thinking of poker.

RIMMER covers his face with one hand, despairing.

HOLLY: Cleudo?  You could be Colonel Mustard.
CAT: If it's any help, I've been studying his tactics and there's a
  pattern emerging:  Every time you make a move, he makes one too.
  (Winks to HOLLY.)
HOLLY: (Winks back.) Thanks, Cat.

The game starts again in earnest.  We see a succession of images crossing
the screen -- QUEEG and HOLLY, as they battle back and forth; the chess
board, peices moving rapidly from square to square, LISTER, CAT and
RIMMER as they watch the battle's progress:  they all look sick to the
stomach.
http://www.rdwarf.co.uk/scripts2e5.html

Why did your teacher become responsible for educating the future generations of society, and not a doctor, or engineer or working in another occupational field, if it wasn't through making a conscience choice?

Good point, I'm going to tell him that.

Perhaps this teacher's parents were both teachers, and they 'forced' him to become a teacher. That would account for why he doesn't accept the existence of free choice: he didn't get one!

A very interesting discussion. Sadly it wasn't long.

#FreeWillSmith