Free Will: An Illusion; Free Choice: An Oxymoron

[Specforces]

I know I've been posting a lot of stuff lately, but bear with me, just trying to keep this forum flowing. Besides some of the best stuff comes from these forums.

Now,

Before considering free will lets consider what is being free?

Now does free means that there is an absence of conditioning, constraints and control over what we think, say and do? (And to be aware of and be able to set ourselves "free" from such in the first place.)

If that is so then we are certainly not free. We are certainly conditioned constantly, consciously and unconsciously, even from within our mother's womb, and even since then by our parents, peers, education, media, things we hear or read or see. We are constrained by our biological nature. Our genes determined the colour of our hair,eyes and skin, and many more things. We need to eat, drink and have sex. We need to have a warm dry sheltered place every night. And we all grow old and die, and cannot fly like the birds. And finally we have government and society: we just cannot do what we like to do, like kill the person whom we hate, who is evil and have killed those that I loved. But control is not only in the government, we are also constantly vulnerable by the unknown and uncertain, such as an earthquake or the stock market crashing, and there is very little we can do about it, except to buy insurance.

So again maybe freedom is therefore not absence of conditioning, constraints and controls. Freedom is merely our ability to decide between alternatives given the conditioning, constraints and controls.

But even if you can will anything within these limits, does it mean we have the means and ability to carry out what we willed. I can will to achieve the highest sales this year in my work place, or I can will to win the Noble prize for physics, or whatever. But is merely willing enough? Surely it is not. Our "free will" is further curtailed by our abilities or the lack thereof.

But let say somehow you do get access to the means, by whatever means, beg, borrow or steal, or imagine, hypothetically, that you have access to God, who hears you and does what you ask. (Now for those who dont like the idea of God, consider the Aladdin story, where instead of God you substitute it with the genie, granting you three wishes.)

Now what would you ask?

Do you know what to ask? Do you have the wisdom and knowledge to will and to ask that which is .... what? best for you? makes you richest? wisest? most powerful? best for you family? best for the world? or what? what is best?

What is the criteria for asking anything? Maximise your full selfish desires? Or maximise "good" or minimise "evil, or to ask for the "right" things? But as apparent here we do not really know what is good or what is bad. So do we really know what to ask?

(If I was Aladdin all I need is one wish. And my wish is that I have 2 more wishes. And then the first of these 2 wishes I wished anything I want/need/desire at the moment - money, food, sex, fly or whatever - and the second wish I wished for another 2 wishes, ad infinitum.)

Can you see the full consequence of any act of your own? It have been said that a butterfly flapping its wings in Bali caused a tornado in Kansas. So what more an act of man?

Now lets assume that there is "someone" - man or machine or yet something else - supremely wise, who knows all things and sees all things from beginning to end. And not only that this one loves you, ie you can trust him. And also he loves all, ie whatever he deemed "best" for you is also "best" for everybody else.

Would you not consult such a person before you decide what to will? And would you not listen and follow what he thinks is the best for you, even if you do not understand nor fully appreciate what he tells you?

Would not the best way of using your "free will" to will to follow the advice and wisdom of the one who knows and loves all? ie to freely align your limited free will with the will of the one who knows and loves all.

Now regarding free choice. As alluded you only have a restricted set of alternatives to choose within the limits of your freedom. Choosing a president between a Democrat and a Republican is hardly the notion of a free choice, is it? (And democracy by the way is not the best of governments, but Churchill said, merely the least worst.)

So you can choose freely but your choice is not free in two senses of the word. First, as mentioned, you really cant choose just anything but only from a limited set of choices, which may not be real alternatives at all, and secondly there are consequences, and some choices come back to bite you.