(March 14, 2016 at 9:04 pm)Ryantology (╯°◊°)╯︵ ══╬ Wrote:(March 14, 2016 at 7:56 pm)truth_seeker Wrote: Free will says nothing about whether you have limited vs unlimited will.
It only asserts that you have **a** freedom. How big/small is the margin is another issue.
The opposite of free will is determinism. It says that everything you do is based on movement of molecules that can be recorded and predicated mathematically. i.e. you are *only* a big fat equation, so I can "plot" everything that you are going to do until infinity.
Yeah. In that sense, 'free' is a meaningless modifier. The very concept of will, as I understand it, relies on the assumption that there is some capacity to exercise some degree of influence on a deterministic universe which is not recognizably dependent on said deterministic forces. There is either will, or we're just parts of the machine.
The problem in these kinds of discussions is that the word 'free' is used by theists (and quite a few atheists, to be honest) to suggest that 100% of the responsibility for a person's actions rest upon that person, and that none of it rests with God (who would actually have free will).
I doubt very much that when people say free will they mean that you're not affected by external stimuli at all. It's absolute nonsense to claim that we have 100% >free< will, but that's the problem with free will. It has so many definitions but according to Daniel Dennett, the parts of free will that are important are the compatible ones/the ones we can have.
