Is There such a thing as Free Will?

[AuntShecky]

Some schools of psychology are finding evidence that in our contemporary world,,there may not be such a thing as absolute free will. Here's the link to an article that posits the notion that there are many subliminal, manipulative forces warring against conscious decisions.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2000994,00.html


The act of making a choice, especially from the viewpoint of a Delmore Schwartz poem, was the topic of a recent posting in the "anti-poems"
thread:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=900193#post900193

But I'm more interested in YOUR thoughts on the topic! Let's hear 'em.

[Dodo25]

I think these findings compromise free will, they don't completely discard it, yet they do qualify it quite a bit. Much more so than the infamous Libet experiments (showing that decisions actually occur miliseconds before one is conscious of them).

It comes down to the definition of free will. If one means something magic that is exempt from causality, then of course there is no free will. There is however a much more useful concept of the term: 'free will is whatever gives us moral responsibility - if we have it', as it has been suggested by the philosopher Daniel Dennet in the following very interesting paper: http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/freewillforBaerfinal.pdf

So since we are influenced by arbitrary conditions that in no way represent our own interests (in form of a succesful algorythm in the brain), we are not as rational as we would like to think of ourselves. If one is aware of basic decision-making patterns however, one can consciously remind oneself of when to use 'gut feeling' and when to rationally analyze all the facts. In such a way, it is possible to achieve the best results humanly possible, yet still they will be far from perfect..

Cool poem by the way.