Free will proposition
 

I have a proposition for you, as proposed by my teacher in philosophy. It is in regard to free will.

Suppose that a wizard casts a spell on Thomas that makes him start to like tennis. Before having the spell cast on him, Thomas had never shown the slightest interest in tennis. Thomas starts watching a lot of tennis, organizing tennis-watching parties at his home, and writing letters to his favorite tennis stars. Though he used to go to the movies every week, he now tends to watch tennis instead. One Friday he meets some friends at a sports bar to watch a big tennis match.
Do you think that Thomas watched the tennis match freely? Why or why not?

The way I see it, four conditions must be met for free will:
(1) You do Action A
(2) Doing Action A is what you want and decide to do.
(3) if you had decided to do Action B other than Action A, you would have succeeded in doing Action B.
(4) if there a good reason for you to act otherwise than Action A, you would act otherwise than Action A.

Before you accuse me of attempting to steal your ideas for a paper, I actually just finished it. My curiosity as to what others think of this bull**** is just heightened.

I'm more concerned about the fact that Thomas thinks he's had a spell cast on him by a wizard...

No, by no means at all did he watch the match freely. The "magic spell" cast upon him was someone elses will being imposed on him, therefore eliminating the possibility of any results being out of free will.

Had it not been a spell, and just using the power of suggestion then yes it would be free will that he chose to watch the match.

No.

No?

I would say that he did have freewill. His newfound affinity influenced his subsequent actions, but his mode of chosen expression of this affinity was ultimately his decision.
You could have taken the deterministic approached and argued that he wasn't possessive of his own freewill before or after the spell, but......

I say he had no more or less freewill than anyone else. I mean, we're all products of things beyond our control, but that doesn't make our choices any more or less valid.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose freewill.

Duh duh duhduh duh duh duhduh duh duh duhduh duh duh duhduh danadanudanudanu danadanudanudanu

Super-mega-ultra-turbo eyeroll

:laughing:

I'm sorry about that.