Brian when you gaze at your navel for long periods, does it appear to become a spinning spiral?

That really is a bit of tripe mate, too much gazing I think.

A great deal of our lives & futures are controlled by forces that we have absolutely no control over.

If the owner of a NSW country town radio station had thought that I would make a good announcer come DJ, & given me the job, I may have become the next John Laws, but I would not have gone off to uni, to study engineering. He didn't, but I doubt that was programed when I was conceived in Brisbane.

I would have been unlikely to have even thought of joining the navy to become a fighter pilot if I had not met some navy types studding at the same uni.

As a country town radio station DJ, I would never have thought of sailing around the pacific islands in a yacht, or one day have sailed into Mooloolaba, then just a fly spec on the Qld map, to find the future mother of my kids.

Sorry mate, but I doubt that single cell held quite that much information.

I just love pop-philosophy!

Free will lives in the chaotic zone where thousands of little "butterfly wings" impact every thought. We are a series of cascading "programs" implemented in wetware using neural networks. Surprisingly, these networks are pretty well understood...until you put all the "simple" ones together, then you get "chaos"...which makes non-trivial fully deterministic systems behave "randomly". Mathematically these types of systems cannot be "solved" or predicted...they just need to run. Fully deterministic does *not* mean predictable!

All this doesn't change the golden rule of spirit: Get Good Habits, or Practice Good.

*what exactly is your point?*

My point is Hazza, that I don't have to agree with Holden's
speculations about social outcomes, but can agree that the concept
of "free will" is not as free as many people claim that it is.

Neuroscience has always been a bit of a hobby of mine and all the
findings that I have read, tend to go along with that.

Its also made me a more tolerant person, trying to see things from
others perspectives and not just my own.

But let me give you a hypothetical that you might able to relate to.
Lets say the phone rings, its the police, your son is dead. Carcrash.
It could happen.

Genetically you are likely to be programmed to love your son and
grieve if he dies. It might take you a while to get over it.
I should feel some empathy for your plight and try to undertstand
your perspective for being upset.

Rationally I could also argue that as he is now dead, there is not
much point in you wasting time and energy grieving, and its not
going to change things, so best you pull yourself together and move
on. Deal with it, the kid is dead. You have free will not to grieve.

Personally, I prefer a world where people show some tolerance.

I regard the presence or absence of free-will as a question that cannot be answered. Whether an action is predetermined or not doesn't seem to be amenable to experimental investigation. The foregoing is equivalent to the statement by DavidL.

Yabby are you comparing an emotional (or pain) response, to repetitive compulsive cognitive sets of actions to pursue something on a base-level of satisfaction to gamble, or thoughtlessly shop based on advertising or peer pressure?

Not related as far as human capabilities go, I'm afraid.

And it is still because the individual lacks self discipline. Again, unless they are mentally disabled and sincerely cannot manage these levels (or are autistic and have a higher degree of emotional and mental dependence on certain behaviours and activities), it is still the case with everyone else- that they are allowing their minds to pursue things based on impulsive motivation, and refusing to stop it.

All I want to clarify is that again it comes down to nothing else but themselves.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/addiction-a-brain-disorder-new-definition/story-e6frfku0-1226115781157

Hazza, I think you will find that recent neuroscience is showing
that its far more then just willpower.

The brain is quite complex. Otherwise my hypothetical would stand.
You could simply get over your grief and move on, You have so called
free will, after all. Yet you feel compelled to grieve.