Do you believe in free will?

[downbeatplumb]

I'm just looking to get some insights as to how most of you feel about free will and how exactly it fits into the materialist world view. If we are composed of nothing other than matter then doesn't that mean all that we are as humans is a bunch of chemicals and particles being governed by physical laws? Do we have no more control over ourselves then a rock does when falling down a hill, or a computer governed completely by our programming?

It seems like that is the only option if materialism is true, however it just doesn't seem like that explanation fits in with the universal experience of free will. I mean if an object is dropped it must necessarily fall to the ground because of gravity. But there is no physical law that makes it necessary for me to post on this forum, it seems like I freely chose to do it myself.

Any way if any one feels up to it please explain your thoughts on the topic for me. Thanks

You have a very simplistic view of materialism. One that is shared by many people so there is no shame in it.
Your question comes down to "if we are only physical how can we act in complex ways" .

The answer is "emergent complexity", simple laws can have unexpected affects.

Rules, or laws, have no causal efficacy; they do not in fact “generate” anything. They serve merely to describe regularities and consistent relationships in nature. These patterns may be very illuminating and important, but the underlying causal agencies must be separately specified (though often they are not). But that aside, the game of chess illustrates precisely why any laws or rules of emergence and evolution are insufficient. Even in a chess game, you cannot use the rules to predict “history” — i.e., the course of any given game. Indeed, you cannot even reliably predict the next move in a chess game. Why? Because the “system” involves more than the rules of the game. It also includes the players and their unfolding, moment-by-moment decisions among a very large number of available options at each choice point. The game of chess is inescapably historical, even though it is also constrained and shaped by a set of rules, not to mention the laws of physics. Moreover, and this is a key point, the game of chess is also shaped by teleonomic, cybernetic, feedback-driven influences. It is not simply a self-ordered process; it involves an organized, “purposeful” activity. (Corning 2002)