What if..? What about..? Are they..? Are we..? [Discussions of all Life's Questions] discussion

To answer this you must realise: what is free will?

Is it the freedom to speak your mind in any situation? Could this just be an illusion and not free will at all?

Or

Is it the ability to control your reflex actions and when you blink? Because we can't do that.

So it is in our genes that makes us different enough to have different viewpoints and to make the decisions we do over life and death?

You could use a book as an example, you could say that the words written are expressions of freedom of will. Or you could say that the writers genes has made them think that way to write it.

Then, who in the very beginning made the genes that control us? Or have they always existed alone. If so, does that mean that our genes have free will to control us? And then in a sense don't we have free will because they are our genes, or could that be a delusion as if they control us are we not their slaves?

Wow that answer was very interesting Isabella XD

Well I think the answer to this question is hidden in a person's "definition of freedom" what is freedom for you? eating what you want... doing what you want? ELECTING whom you feel like, SAYING what you feel like? MARRYING whom you want?

Many people would say yes, "I can eat my favorite ice-cream with tomato ketchup that's a part of my 'rights' and no one can stop me".

Fine true that we might just call you weird but yes, that's your right. Now, even if you have no problem with letting others "free" to eat what they want , would you also not have a problem with cannibalism?

If you can SAY what you want then, why do we have laws against defamation?

If you can marry who ever you want then why is homosexuality still a crime in so many countries?

Thank you SD, so is yours. And both of you have very interesting and valid points. Even if those laws are there to protect others, it begs the question why do so few have the power to judge what our free will should include?

Just because we have the free will to vote who will decide what we can and cannot do does not mean we are actually free (see my topic on equality vs inequality).

@ Krishna, so do you agree that genes must, in a sense, be more free than us?

@ SD, you are very right that it relies on definition, but shouldn't, surely, free will include all? Or does that not then defy the definition of free will completely?

Hmm ok but if we all are "free" to do what we want, that "free will includes all" AND we all have different definition of freedom, then cool! "my definition of freedom is" that I have the freedom to finally assassinate my teacher, take all the money from my neighbor and rob the nearest McDonald's store... my bro wants to do the same

What if one day everyone starts doing the same and creates "jungle rule" Where you can not trust anyone and just to save your freedom you would not cooperate with anybody. How will we call ourselves a civilized society? Some reasonable constraints are necessary. Aren't they?

That is very true, and it is those people who do not understand why those constraints are in place, do not believe they apply to them or through terrible circumstances have to ignore them are the people who mostly break the law. Believing in their own free will and power to do so.

Speaking of power does free will also apply to power?

We may have the freedom to go up to someone and kill them but do we have the power to do so and walk away with our free will still intact?

Could that be a virus in the human brain? That while we are controlled by our genes something in certain people happens that makes them go wrong and commit evils, or, on the flip side, commit good deeds - and evil is our norm!

Or, could all of our differences be a simple invention of our genes to differentiate us.

Yes, because we could have neither without the other.

You cannot have the chicken or the egg without one another and both are as important and relative as each other.