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To: NietzschesJoker

"We know the will is free, and there's an end on it." -- Samuel Johnson.

"Man is bound because he is first free." -- Ernest Holmes.

If we did not have free will, then we would have no choices. Since we make choices all the time, we obviously have free will.

How can we function as moral, ethical beings if we don't have choices? If not for that, we're simply robotic automatons.


5 posted on 02/15/2006 9:47:49 AM PST by TBP
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To: TBP

We certainly do have choices. It's just that they, like us, aren't "free". I added the following to this article this morning. Perhaps it will clarify (and thank you for commenting):

Permit me one more example. You have a choice of three drinks: water, soda and beer. The fact that you need a drink, that drinks refresh us, that we consume liquid through our mouths, etc.--all of this is dictated by the system and ergo not free. None of this was decided by your individual will. However, you can have more or less freedom (choice) as to what you will choose to drink. If water is not an option then you can only choose between beer and soda--you would have fewer choices, or less freedom. If milk and coffee are added to your options, you would have more choices and thus more freedom as to what you would drink; but that you are a thing that drinks, that prefers certain drinks, that must drink, etc.: none of that is free.


6 posted on 02/15/2006 10:16:47 AM PST by NietzschesJoker (Silence, exile and cunning--a few of my favorite things.)
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