My Basic Thought On Free Will

[Magellan]

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If free will is about choices then the answer would also be no, imo. Can you murder your children just to see if they'll scream? Only an insane person can answer that question yes. Instinct will get in the way of that decision.

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You can't discriminate like that; either we all have free will or we all don't have free will. If one "insane" person can exhibit this behaviour then we all potentially can, it's just that the overwhelming majority of people "choose" not to. So if you want to conclude that a person murdering their child just to see if they'll scream is a demonstration of free will, it only takes one person to actually do it to prove that we all have free will*.

For the record, a person behaving that way does not prove nor disprove that we have free will IMO.


*Unless you want to argue that not all human beings are born equal, to the effect that some can truly exercise free will while others can't, but hey, I'm not going there. Also, if you want to argue that point then there needs to be way, at least theoretically, that we can distinguish between those with free will and those without free will that doesn't rely purely on retrospective consideration of someone's actions.