Free Will
Free will is the idea that we all possess the ability to make decisions independent of any circumstance.
The debate on freewill revolves around the fundamental question of whether human beings possess the ability to make choices independent of external influences and deterministic factors. This philosophical and scientific discussion delves into the tension between determinism, the idea that all events are predetermined by past events and the laws of nature, and the notion of freewill, which suggests that individuals have the capacity to exercise genuine agency over their actions.
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Proponents of freewill argue that consciousness and self-awareness grant humans the power to deliberate, make decisions, and act on their intentions, even in the face of external constraints. They emphasize the subjective experience of choice and the moral accountability that comes with it. Many religious, ethical, and legal frameworks are built upon the assumption of freewill.
On the other hand, skeptics of freewill, often drawing from fields like neuroscience and determinism, propose that the human brain's intricate workings and the chain of cause-and-effect events in the universe limit the true extent of individual autonomy. They suggest that our decisions might be the outcome of complex neural processes, past experiences, genetics, and environmental factors, rendering the concept of unencumbered freewill questionable.
The debate has profound implications for areas such as ethics, jurisprudence, psychology, and even the concept of personal responsibility. The debate on freewill remains ongoing and continues to spark philosophical inquiry and scientific exploration into the nature of human consciousness and decision-making.
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Regardless of what side of the debate on freewill you are on, you are right. We all have the freewill to choose every single action but we do not have the freewill to control every single thought. With out a basic understanding of emotional intelligence and how the human psyche develops we can not exercise our freewill.
We ABSOLUTELY have Free-Will but it's COMPLICATED
Whether a person believes it to be true or not, our free will starts before our conception. Through the study of near-death experiences, we know that our soul (our consciousness) is separate from our human form; that it existed before we took on human form and it will survive our human death. Like energy the soul is infinite. There is also substantial evidence that our souls choose the human life we came into and the hardships we will face.
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With that said, we come into material life programable by our environment, with serious physical limitations, a dependency on others for survival, and amnesia of where we come from and the planning we did for our life. But we still possess our free will. From birth to death, we are either consciously or unconsciously making decisions by reacting or responding to our internal emotions and/or external environment. Whether reacting unconsciously or responding consciously we are all exercising our freewill. That means, to use it effectively we need to know, or better stated, believe that it exists and how to take responsibility for our actions and behaviors.
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Whether or not we choose or plan our lives before we come into them, we clearly can't use our free will to determine our life situations and experiences throughout early childhood. There are also many situations and experiences throughout adulthood that we clearly don't get to choose. But freewill is actually not about controlling life. It's about controlling how we respond to life. Once we understand freewill there is almost no situation an individual cannot choose the outcome of.