Free will and conformity:
Children, you gotta have 'em I've heard people say, and when asked why boils down to 'err... you gotta have 'em!' Shhh..ure, that makes...sense, sort of. Want to be a doctor but your dad wants you to write poetry? Too bad dad.

Free will and raising children:
Your children wants to go out and play in the blizzard of the century. Ok dear children, don't forget to wear your hats, and a shovel if the going gets tough, because it's your free will to dig one cave for the both of you, right? Anyways, good journey and come back safe, if that's your free will.

Free will and retrievals:
Pffft, you can't stay here, I'm here to retrieve you, and that's that. Unless you want to? Unless I find a clever way to trick you to leave? Ooooh. Free will that, sucker.

Laws of physics and free will:
If you want to fly to work one day you'd better have a plane handy. Want to play the guitar but the arms don't agree with that? Tough luck arms and years of no practice. Summer in the wintertime? Seasonal free will to wait for summertime.

Free will and the forum:
It's my free will that everybody gets how glorious it is stand next to the warm fire of MY thoughts on every given subject, and that you will be subjected to regardless of YOUR free will, though it can be your free will not to read, disregard, 0,001% interest and so on. Your free will is to disagree, but, that's not my free will, now what.

Free will, jesus and Moen:
Yes, Lord/Ball & Chain, your wish is my command. Pray more, think less. No questions asked, purely and unconditionally! Btw jesus, happy ishtar, I knew something was up with the eggs and bunnies!

Free will and the I-There:
Dear whole I, it's my free will, well, this portion of me that is really you, to, what, oh, have a happy life with no friction. Go.

Dear whole I, there's still friction, what's up? Can't I/We learn the easy way? Btw, what's your/my free will? If your will is to succeed, why do we sometimes fail?

Free will, writing this and the cat:
Meowing at the door, and thus the writing stops for this time.

so, does free will apply to the personality, to the soul, or to spirit?

Alright Bob, still life in this thread!                                                                                                                Crickets were chirping after your first post.                                                                             Yeah, you might be able to lend me a hand. I can always use more musicians, depending on the configuration. Can you harmonize?                                                                                                                                Maybe you can help me in other ways too.  When I die, will you check up on me? If I'm confused, could you gently say "Hey Tim, you've died. You're dead."  I think death might be confusing for me, especially if I have a sudden death.                                                           There's other ways you might be able to lend me a hand but it depends on what you're able to do.                                                                                Is there anything I can lend a hand to you for?                                                                                          Tim

I believe we are created with free will; however, we aren't able to use it wisely until we have the wisdom and freedom of mind that enables us to do so.

You wouldn't expect a piano player to be able to improvise with a lot of freedom before he learned to play real good.

Just as it takes a lot of practice and study to become a really good piano player, it takes a lot of effort to become a soul that is able to use its free will in the most loving and wise way possible. If a Soul gets confused for a while and decides that it doesn't have free will, this will become a self fullfilling prophecy that hinders its growth.

Even when there are a limited number of wise choices there is still free will, because it is a matter of being free to clearly see what is best, rather than being able to do whatever one wants regardless of the consequences to one's self and others.

Bobmoenroe:

Regarding the meat/plant eat thing, at the very least it would be nice if animals that are eaten are raised in nice conditions so they could live a good life before they are killed.

Quote:

Dear people,

I am not for or against free will of a person. But for me, I found out that the concept of free will of a person is not logical, it just doesn't make sense. Therefore, I, for me, have left this concept.

1. The very core of the definition of what is a "person" is it's memories (experiences, things learnt, education, insights and so on), together with it's genetical heir (male or female or inbetween, tall or small, bulky or slender, quick or slow and what not all).
   This is the base on which a person will make decisions.
   So, if a person makes a decision, it is dependant on the history of this person. Therefore it is not free, but, as said, dependant.

2. There had been arguments as "Yes, but sometimes it can be that I would make a decision which is free from my history, where I start something really new!"
   To say that such a "new start decision" is a "free" decision is to disrespect a person's evolution, it is to undermine the concept of the person. When a person changes it's habits, and, so to say, becomes someone new, it is because of the breaking of belief systems within that person under the actual situation. To interprete this as "free decision" is, again, a great disrespect to this person's evolution, as it actually undermines the concept of "person" at all, in propagating there is an instance somewhere outside this person, which "creates" a new person through an act of "free will". It is necessary that "free will" in this meaning negates the concept "person", because if a person had free will, it must necessarily be void of it's memories* and this is a contradiction in itself, because then it won't be a person no more at all. (*I mean memories, experiences, things learnt, education, genetical heir).

3. As to the scientific-physical-dimension on this, in fact, if we had a classic "Newtonian" universe we could imagine a "Laplace-Demon" who would predict everything to the end of time if he/she/it only had the whole data (btw, is this classic LaGrange three-compound-problem mathematically solved? If not, the Laplace demon would have problems). With the upcome of quantum physics (amplified by the understanding of nonlinear processes in nature, "Chaos physics") this strong determination is of yesterday. Our brain can be thought as to be an amplifier of quantum effects, taking micro random processes into our real macro world.
   Yet, this doesn't make the concept of a "person's free will" more acceptable. To the contrary, if absolutely non-predictable processes would be the root of someone's free will, then this free will just won't have anything to do with this person; now you would say, but these random quantum effects would interact with the amplifying, memorizing brain, then we are back at my point 1., as these preformations would channel the random quantum processes, and filter them, and that's just not freedom.
   In a way, random processes are the ultimate freedom. Non-predictability is the only way absolute freedom can be defined. But of course, it doesn't fit together with the concept of a person. A person, by definition, is dependant on causality; without causality someone would act randomly (freely), but we won't call this one a person, maybe a shizophrenic person, but a totally randomly-willed human would be quite more strange, in fact, it wouldn't survive, as it would, if really randomly (free) acting, destroy it's body.

I hope, from this, it has become clear that the concept of "free will of a person" is unlogical because "person" and "free will" are not compatible.

Spooky

What about those who are so far off the path as to be considered evil, or lacking in light, based on their "decisions", or influence upon them by others?