Do we humans have a free will?  

That isn't much of an answer :/, do you just reply to get your point?? Mylot doesn't really work like this (yes or not and greetings).

Ok, there are a number of reasons why a person might hold that we have no freewill. Firstly, what we might call strict or causal determinism as expounded by Pierre Simon Laplace (1749-1827). Now by Leibniz law of sufficient cause every happens for a cause and a single proximate cause is sufficient to explain the event and strives to show that for all events there is a sufficient physical cause. This precludes a mental cause and thus eliminates the possibility of autonomy of the will. (Free will)

Laplace, proposed a thought experiment to show this;

"We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect (The demon) which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.

This has been described as a clockwork universe unwinding along a pre-set formula. Leaving aside the obvious objection to this on the grounds of Quantum mechanics we need to consider other objections such as those from information theory, which suggests that information in a closed system is constant, yet we see it increase. And other technical objections.

Whilst these objections are by no means weak by and large the universe at a medium scale (i.e. the size of humans and other day to day objects) does behave in a deterministic manner.

Yet, there are more fundamental problems from theory of mind and artificial intelligence.

Now if the brain is a physical object which is identical with the mind or if the mind is a function of the brain then we can say that every event is cause in the brain and therefore every event in the mind is thus caused by the brain and therefore determined and thus we have no freewill.

However in order to show this it is necessary to establish that mind and brain are the same, Now by Leibniz Identity Law, identical descriptors have identical properties. For instance Barack Obama is identical with the current President of the USA because they have the same properties.

Yet, to date no one has been able to provide a satisfactory identity theory for the mind/brain divide.

A second problem is the so called 'Frame Problem,' this is a problem would be designers of artificial intelligence have come up with and to date seems intractable. It is, in other-words what information is relevant.

Imagine some scientists invent a robot and call it Reasoner 1 (R1) and test it. They put its power pack on a cart in a barn and tell it that there is a bomb in the barn. One of the robots prime directives (Desires) is survival, R1 goes into the barn, identifies that the power-pack is on a cart and pushes the cart out of the barn.

Unfortunately, the bomb is also on the cart and poor old R1 is destroyed.

The next robot Reasoner 1 and deducer 1 (R1D1) is told that it must take all information into account, so that it doesn't make the same mistake again. The situation is set up again but this time R1D1 does nothing and the bomb blows up destroying the power-pack.

But why did you not act? Scientists ask and are told, "I was compiling a list of information to consider.

Reasoner 2 Deducer 1 (R2D1) is instructed to ignore irrelevant information but again does nothing. Why? "I was preparing a list of information that was not relevant so that I didn't take it into consideration!

Enter, R2D2? No.

What is the relevance (sic) of this? Perhaps it seems just to easy to say that when we talk of causes for human behaviour or decisions we are confusing reasons with causes. although we often use these terms interchangeably they are very different.

Thirst did not cause me to drink though it gave me a reason so to do.

May write something on 'psychological determinism' later.

all the best urban

Good, that is a good answer, and you found it from good fonts over the internet I suppose, thanks for it it was interesting reading, but a difference must be made about philosophy, and idea and science, science proves things, philosophy isn't in fact a science and so it cannot be proven to be true or right.

No, it was just from memory, I have no idea what 'good fonts' is but would be interested to hear.

Re, science and philosophy you are completely wrong. Wrong for a number of reasons; firstly to assume that this is primarily a scientific question, which it is not. Not all matters are in the realm of science, even those matters concerning physical questions, for instance consider a completed science still much would remain unanswered.

Secondly, science proves nothing always working to the best explanation available. Popper argues that science proceeds by bold conjectures and refutations. Let me elucidate. A scientist investigates a phenomenon and forms a tentative hypothesis, this he can then subject to experimental testing and may reformulate the hypothesis provided doing so leads to greater testability. When the hypothesis has been subjected to peer testing and review and not discredited it becomes accepted as a theory.

Now Khun, and others (I won't confuse you with Lacatos) have suggested amendments to this explanation yet in some sense the idea of conjecture, testability and refutation remain.

In all these explanations of science, the truth remains that theories are contingent and unproven. Thus, Euclidian geometry is, strictly speaking, only an approximation on a small scale of the time/space continuum and Newtonian Gravity, itself an excellent theory is superseded by Einsteinian relativity

all the best urban

I didn't mean it as an offence but since your first comment was just a yes and then I saw that big reply I thought you had done some researches over the net, but ok I was wrong then, but I still wonder if you had that much to say why didn't you it at first? I like your replies are really full of good points but as good as my english can be at times is difficoult for me to follow 100% maybe your language is a bit too technical for my knowledge of english. sorry. But again I like your replies if what I understood is right and if the font is your brain, I really wish we spoke the same motherlanguage so we could have really interesting conversations. I can't really reply to your last comment beacause I didn't understand all of it,sorry.

None was taken. I didn't answer at length for some reason, I know not why. I suspect you are misusing the word 'font' and perhaps mean 'writing' or 'text' or something of that ilk? 'Font' refers to the style of the individual letters not the writing itself

all the best urban

Yes you are right I made a mistake I meant source I mixed it with my language where "fonte" means source

A second argument against freewill is what we might call 'psychological determinism' though weaker than the first some have been convinced by it.

Again here there is a confusion between 'cause' and 'reason.' If I say 'I went to the shops in order to get some milk." It might be said that my desire for milk caused me to venture forth. It then might be argued that previous enjoyable experiences of drinking milk caused the desire for milk. Indeed a pseudo causal chain could be postulated making every decision but a consequence of previous mental events.

But reasons are not causes and previous events do not cause our decisions though they may give us a reason to act in a certain way. To believe so ignores the active process of judgement.

all the best urban

Ok, I get your point. About working at the NASA : it is not for you to choose to work there or not, if you can't, you can't, you don't choose there so it isn't really a matter of free will. In the other case, about cinema and restaurant, one of the theories says, accordind to you example, the choice to make is between going to the restaurant or to the cinema, then you "choose" where you want to go, but for that theory you had already choosen before you could actually make a choice, and the choice probably went, according to yuor past experiences, to the place that you have enjoyed the most the previous times. I hope I wrote in a way that is understandable.

Well,i understand what you have said ,and you right however about God and destiny,we can do nothing about it even we try harder ,because some theories said because we were born GOD creat as and what we will do mean fate and destiny thats why we cant change nothing ,i dont mean we have to stay with out doing nothing and there are some theories said our life come from our thinking and our ideas .

Abelbass, free will is not about whether you got the job at NASA, but whether you had the free will to try for it and you do. You have the free will to decide whether the required education is gotten. Oh, it's too expensive? Then you have the free will to try for government loans or work your way through college, or universities, etc. When you apply at NASA, THEY have the free will to accept you or turn you down. If they opt to turn you down or accept, they are using their free will.

Now, if there is another player in the mix, say your Uncle is a huge backer of NASA and if you are not hired, he will remove all funds from the program. The personal manager feels compelled to hire you regardless of your lack of qualifications, and he gives up his free will to keep money for the program or because of pressure exerted from his bosses. Has he proven free will does not exist? No. He still had the option to quit NASA to exert his free will or to give in. He opted to give in.

Free will is not a promise of wealth and privileges - it is your inner self deciding right/wrong, love/hate, joy/sadness, high/low road. So whether you are deciding to try for a job at NASA or to buy that pair of jeans you really like, you are expressing your free will. But, you don't get everything you want because everyone else has THEIR free will to say no or yes to your requests.

Well,i'm not talking about Job or something like that i'm talking about free will in some way you mist the piont .

Ok, I see your wiew is the religious one, I respect that, and thanks for answering to my question. But now let me ask you : take the example a normal man, he gets sick, falls depressed so badly or either has a stroke, something changes in his brain, I hope we agree that people with psycological issues can't decide propertly. Let's say this man kills another one, God in that case didn't give him free will, since his stroke or whatever happened to him was probably decided by God himself. What do you think?

Mysticmaggie, you wrote 'That God knows what we will do proves we have free will rather than disproving. With no effort at all, God could insist we not beat a child, shoot heroine,rob a bank, etc. But though He knows and weeps at our choices, He will not interfere. We have to use the brains with which we were born to decide right from wrong and follow the path least taken. If we were predestined, He would insist we follow ONLY His path and no other.' I couldn't say it better. To say we are predestined is to say we are like robots. Thank God for free well but to bad some people don't choose to use their ability to choose more wisely.

Dear Freeboy90, when illness interferes, a person still has free will, although it may be 10,000 times more difficult to make the right choice. When Satan was thrown out of heaven, he gained dominion over the earth. It is he that brings illnesses and other miseries we live with daily.

I do believe, that God, in his infinite wisdom, knows when a person has entered the world of mental illness. If he has chosen God as his deliverance before losing his way, he is still God's child and will be accorded that grace at the end of his life.

Just as my child, who was born with Down's syndrome, tries desperately to understand the story of Christ dying on the cross for her, she cannot take it all in. But, within her mind, she knows one thing and that is God loves her. Even with her limited mental capacities, she strives to please her Maker and to make intelligent decisions in her everyday life. I have not one doubt that the day she was born, she was one of His special angels sent to show the rest of us how to live with joy and contentment without the need for all things material.

She is ONLY person I know who watches presidential debates (every single one of them on both sides) before going to cast her vote. She pushes past limitations she was born with to use her free will in every facet of the life she was given. Of one presidential candidate, she said simply, "He is a mean man. I don't like him." Of our current president, she said, "He is good, but he needs help." I don't know anyone who has seen the picture clearer. She voted for him, although the rest of the family did not.

Good point, but don't forget that for the law they are not capable of making decisions :) . I think we can make decisions somehow but many times it is determined by our past experiences, so to sum it all I think both of the two points of wiew are attendible (religious wiew aside). It is difficoult to tell thinking about it rationally, beacause if you watch at it with a religious point of wiew (which I deeply respect) it is not a reational thinking for me, science is rational, it proves things. It could well be that we can't make in fact decisions, but knowing how something works will not make change things that will stay as they were, to make myself been understood : like a dutch neurologist said : knowing how a vacuum cleaner works will not make a change in how it cleans, so our lives will not be different. It was a difficoult concept to explain, I hope I was clear