Now: I'd like to agrue a bit more with you forumites but with something less serious.

Theme this time around: "Do humans have free will?"
I will say no for now and tell why a bit later.

Actually they have... But if you think all the world about their "free will" the average answer is "NO"

So you are right, NO WE DON'T...

I think we all are influenced by our parental education, by social life in scool/work and by the circle of friends.
But in general I believe that humans have a free will contrary to animals which act basically on instincts. That´s the essence of humanity I think. I mean, I can decide if I like to hide, run away or fight in critical situations. I can decide what is good or bad for me, if I like to start an argue or not, where I like to live etc. So, the question is clear for me.
I don´t belive in a higher might (which ever) that decides my fate. Everybody is the architect of his own fortune.

Now:

First off we should propably try to determine what "Free will" actually is. Right definition for this word does not exist but we all have some kind of opinnion on that.
Ludwig Wittgenstein actually thought that all of worlds disagreements are caused by different way of understanding the same word.

One could say "free will" means that your decicions are yours and depend only on you.
If this is the case we in this world can't have free will (in my opinnion)

Or one could say "free will" means to be able to do what you want.
If that is the case one could only have free will on some cases but on the other hand this would mean that determinism doesn't have anything to do with free will.

Why couldn't for example a dog choose what it does? It's brains work in a similar way and it too is influenced by it's surroundings and genes. It's weird how humans often think they have free will but animals don't. Descartes thought that animals don't have soul and therefore can't feel pain. He thought he had proven this by torturing rabbits and looking at their facial expressions (And this guy was called a genius in his time!)



I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say. Could you explain your thoughts a bit?

It may seem we have a free will, but indeed, we do not.

Yes Andre, you are right!

Yes, but I can (for example) choose if I like hunting rabbits, a dog reacts because of it´s hunting-instinct and doesn´t decide " well, I think I´m going to hunt this rabbit now".

You didn´t get me a convincing argument for your opinion humans have no free will yet Mayhem Don´t tell me what other scientists, philosophers or other people said about it....I want to hear YOUR arguments

I always call this first thing "free will" and yes, we all have it.

And the thing about the animals... To make a long story short:
I think that humans and animals are completely the same by mentality and everything. What makes us more "improved" or whatever than animals is the ability to SPEAK and the body shape that lets us create many things (arms, hands, fingers, 2 legs etc.). That's some opinion that I created, I don't know does something like that already exist, but it came to my mind several days ago, actually...

Our dog can choose: listening to me or not listening to me. Quite some freedom I'd say.