Free Will Revisited: Yes and No, Maybe So!

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Free Will: Do I have the ability to freely think and act on those thoughts?

Obviously, we cannot act on all our thoughts.

Rationalizing and using reason to solve our problems individually freely has been the cornerstone of all our liberal democracies.

Innovation also is directly dependant on the ability to test and freely exercise our thoughts and ideas….or so do we think.

As anyone who has tried to navigate the legal channels or academic processes which I have to admit I haven’t; however, causes much stress to go to that level of academia.

So as I have told many people, many opinions should be left silent because they are not informed opinion and are just rather hot air that only bring down society rather than prop it up. As a result, fact based or informed opinion should be the guide to rational thought rather than oratory and down right simple propaganda.

Therefore, are we really free.  No, definitely we are not.  I am sure that many people who are a lot larger than me would have loved to punch me in the face when I disagree or call their bluff.  The simple thing to do is just act in the bliss of mindfulness and fakely agree which is much more irritating to the keen observer.

So many things come into play, our development and conditioning everything that we have seen in our life and compute before we act.

As a result, some of our best behaved humans can and will become manipulative monsters when push comes to shove. As a result, Free Will must be defined before can talk about it.

So, Free Will to me can be defined as the ability to act freely within a social system and what one has defined as good within groups, as well as the common conventions all groups can come to understand as good and bad such as the Geneva Convention which is just that a convention and not a law. National Laws and by-laws at the municipal level can be seen as limits to our freedoms and the fight to always innovate new laws to make life easier and or limit freedom for all our benefit.

As a result, we do not have free Will, because free Will would mean we live in the “law of the jungle” total violent anarchy.  Which is different than what I believe anarchy to be.

As a result, free Will, NO.  We are however granted the right to free Will by birthright from God; however, we all know how many times we must “think before we act.” Yes, if you act on all your impulses it is considered a mental illness; so in the end no we do not have free will but we do have it as a hypothetical given to us by God by birthright and non-socialization.

Groups are hear to stay folks, we just need to know how to live together.