What is free will?

JohnSerew said:

I agree with what you are saying. Of course we have a will and we do what we will, but that doesn't mean that it cannot be known in advance what that choice is going to be. I think that everybody would always make the same decision if the situation is the same. But even though people don't choose, that doesn't mean that we don't have to take action when their decisions are 'bad'. For example, someone who killed someone else can say: It is not my fault, I didn't choose to be in this situation so I cannot be held accountable. Which is of course a false way of reasoning since we still have to deal with him because he is dangerous. I think the only conclusion to take from this is that we have to try to understand why people do the things they do in order to understand them. I think that if we truely understand someone, we won't be mad by their choices because when you really understand someone, you know that you would have done the same.

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I never said otherwise.

As a semantics issue, however, I could not imagine anything like me in certain situations. I could empathize and see their perspective, but I could never have done the same. The past is what makes me; changing it would change me.

That's me overanalyzing, though.

JohnSerew said:

Dear people,

Regardless weather you are Christian or not, this question is for those who believe that we humans have 'free will'.

I have been unable to formulate a clear definition of what 'free will' exactly is for myself without it being a paradox. So what is your definition of 'free will' and also, does that definition of 'free will' implicitly contradict determinism and in what way?

I am really curious about your answers!

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Freedom to me is simply the ability to act how we desire without a sense of coercion. Freedom is also the mental ability to understand our motives for acting and the consequences of our actions. I believe it is that mental ability that invokes moral responsibility as it leads to our feeling emotions such as empathy, or anger, etc, and those emotions in turn congregate a sense of right and wrong. So free will must be related to moral responsibility and if not, we could come to a wrong idea of free will.

There are many variations of determinism. There are two, however, that I think are most relevant, which are logical and causal determinism. They are different, but I think they are interwoven as well. Logical determinism is the idea that "all propositions, whether about the past, present, or future, are either true or false." Causal determinism is "the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and factors and conditions together with the laws of nature." Logical determinism can be seen as false and a view of causal determinism could be seen as true, and vice versa. Logical determinism goes more with theism and on omniscient God, so logical determinism is necessarily true under theism. So is causal determinism. Though, for say a naturalist, logical determinism again can seen as false and causal true. Or maybe both indeed. Either way, God or not, causal determinism is true.

I don't believe my meaning of free will contradicts determinism in the least, whether it's logical or causal or both. Determinism doesn't take away our ability to mentally comprehend our actions. It does diminish another idea of free will, known as libertarianism, but neuroscience has found that idea to be nothing more than an illusion, once again confirming free will should be defined in accordance with determinism.