Quote:
Originally Posted by duga
I think one of the main issues here is you are trying to define free will as something very specific, when in actuality I think most people see it as something more general...as in, did I really make this choice? If there is free will, then yes...regardless of how my brain may have influenced it. If no, then there is some external force guiding my actions. Personally, I feel the latter is fairly unlikely. When viewed that way...any choice - whether it's because I like or dislike something and whether it's because of some experience I had in the past - is still the end result of ME making that choice. The argument you are making is whether or not free will is some tangible attribute humans must have, external from our actions or experiences. If that's the case, then I actually agree with you. But that is not what free will is.
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But you don't make choices, you have the illusion of making choices. It's not that there's an external guiding hand playing you like a puppet, it's that everything you do has been dictated by what nature has given you.
When you go out to see a film on a Saturday night, you may think you chose to do so over staying home and studying, but in reality it wasn't a choice and at that specific moment in time you only ever were destined to make that action given all the considerations.
I may get laughed at for saying this, but I think we choose what we do as much as, say, plants choose to bloom. The only difference being our actions are far more complex and more informed. Our ability to pick up knowledge as we go far surpasses any other creature, but we still abide by the same laws of nature that they do. Our actions are simply responses to given stimuli in the environment imo.