Free Will

[vorlon13]

I have a very simple idea of "free will."  Basically, one is free if one can do as one wills.  Thus, if you will to keep your hand out of a fire, and you keep your hand out of a fire, that is free.  If you will to drink scotch and you drink scotch, you are free.  It is only insofar as you cannot do what you will that you are not free.  As for why you will what you will, that is not something you control (generally), and it is absurd to say that you do.  You do not generally will for your hand to be in a fire due to the nerves in your hand and the signals that are sent to your brain, etc.  Or in other words, due to the structure of your body.  You did not choose to have a hand in the first place, or nerves, or a brain, etc.  That is all due to things prior to your existence.  Whether that is due to "determinism" or random chance or whatever, clearly, you did not choose it.  Everyone of sense knows that, so why is it that people pretend it is not the case?*  I think people who insist on some sort of magical free will are silly.  Both to wish for it and to believe it makes any sense.


For those who like technical terms, I am taking a compatibilist position on free will (regardless of whether determinism is right or not; that would be more properly the subject of another thread, though one will need to deal with Hume's analysis of causation as well as modern physics if one argues for determinism).  It is also in keeping with ordinary definitions of "free":

free

1Able to act or be done as one wishes; not under the control of another: 
'I have no ambitions other than to have a happy life and be free' 
'a free choice'

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all

Anyone who wishes to use a different idea of "free will" should precisely define their meaning.  Then afterwards we can examine the question of whether it would make sense to say that people have that sort of thing or not.


Naturally, I expect the thread to degenerate into acrimony and to involve people making assertions about "free will" in which they reject the idea presented in this post, but fail to properly and fully explain their meaning.  Isn't that what always happens in online threads about "free will?"


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*As is often the case, the answer to the question resides in the question itself.  It is not everyone, but everyone "of sense" that was specified, and it is those who are lacking in sense who fail to realize such obvious facts.

I knew you were going to post that.