Some musings on Free Will.
C.S. Lews supposedly said "You ARE a Soul you HAVE a body." Basically this suggests that the soul is the important bit and the body, while nice, doesn't matter overly much in the long run. It is going to be worm food anyway. I have always liked this as a notion of free will. Biology only determines so much, your soul decides what type of person you will be.
As I have listen more to various NPR stories and read a few things on the subject, I am becomming less and less convinced. Studies regarding sexuality, addiction, risk taking, etcetera all suggest a STRONG biological component. This suggests more and more that we aren't so much making decisions as we are playing to our programming.
I am a big fan of free will. The notions that our actions are little more than biological programming really upsets me. But then that may be my biological programming talking.
I once had a long talk with some Rationalist/Athiests about this topic. I suggested that a prt of me LIKED the idea of magic actually existing, because I liked the idea that sometimes "things just happen" without explanation. It makes free will all the more likely. I asked 'do you believe that it is possible to make a computer that will determine all actions of the past and all actions that will be based on mathematical precision? I was the only one who said that I thought it would be a BAD thing if this were true. Both of my Rationalist friends said that while the technology doesn't currently exist, and may never reach that point, they beleived that it was theoretically possible to do so.
So what do people think? How much free will can we be said to have?
As I have listen more to various NPR stories and read a few things on the subject, I am becomming less and less convinced. Studies regarding sexuality, addiction, risk taking, etcetera all suggest a STRONG biological component. This suggests more and more that we aren't so much making decisions as we are playing to our programming.
I am a big fan of free will. The notions that our actions are little more than biological programming really upsets me. But then that may be my biological programming talking.
I once had a long talk with some Rationalist/Athiests about this topic. I suggested that a prt of me LIKED the idea of magic actually existing, because I liked the idea that sometimes "things just happen" without explanation. It makes free will all the more likely. I asked 'do you believe that it is possible to make a computer that will determine all actions of the past and all actions that will be based on mathematical precision? I was the only one who said that I thought it would be a BAD thing if this were true. Both of my Rationalist friends said that while the technology doesn't currently exist, and may never reach that point, they beleived that it was theoretically possible to do so.
So what do people think? How much free will can we be said to have?