To JP,

Again, you seem to be making the same conflation as I mentioned earlier between reason and our capacity for free will.

Reason is simply a process which aids the development and sustenance of species, particularly humans, who evidently have the greatest capacity for reason out of any known creature. Reason is quite evidently advantageous, and has been the source of much of humanity's success in both a societal and reproductive sense.

Let me ask, do you believe frogs have free will? Are they free to roam the world as they'd like, and abandon their evolutionary impulses? How about mice?

The reason I ask is because they have the capacity to communicate with one another. Frogs can croak to speak to one another and mice can squeak. Does this mean they have free will?

If you do believe rats or frogs have free will, I would love to hear your arguments! But, to give you credit I would posit you do not believe this, and instead believe that they are merely the puppets to impulses and reactions which of course they didn't choose.

In fact, We can predictably trigger certain responses to certain stimuli or external forces within mice, hence the frequent use of mice in scientific experiments.

So why then, do humans exist outside of this? Simply because we can write? who's to say that writing or language isn't merely an advanced croak, squeak or hummingbird song, which has evolved to give us the evolutionary advantage of effective communication with one another?

And what of those with severe dyslexia, incapable of writing as you or I would? Do they then lack free will?

Louis

To Louis.

I used a house to compare to because it is a structure that has it's own physical architecture, and design. Some are even a pattern that is used on several houses.

In a similar way, we have a structure to our thoughts, philosophies and overall behavior. One thought can be it's own support to another. Or it can be a barrier to another thought, and draw the boundaries to where a general rule ends (if a person holds that rule to conditions that make it reasonable to them). In academic studies the term for a specific set of philosophies is usually considered a paradigm. They have their foundations, and then they have other ideas and perspectives built on top of those foundations.

But a house that has walls doesn't limit the freedom. No instead it might add structure to enable certain things that can't be as easily done without walls to keep the elements and the winds out, while keeping the heat in on cold days, or the cold in on hot days.

This might be a jarring idea that structure can be a means to support freedoms instead of inclose them. But if you think of walls and roofs as a way to protect against outside elements, and think of stairs as a way to reach another floor, then you can look at going to school as a similar thing as a piece of structure built in a home so a person can be trained in ways to reach harder concepts, or even reach common means to get along in the world (like being able to read and write help a person's freedom to enjoy a book, or fill out a resume, thus enabling them to have more freedoms instead of less).

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In the context of free will though, alcoholism is an example that can be observed as an instance where some have beaten the odds and given up drinking. Once alcoholic but no more kind of thing. However, being alocholic doesn't mean a person sees it as a bad thing, so why would they choose to change? Of those that do recognize it's harms, some are successful at becoming better, while others are not successful. But their choice to try to get over it is still within their ability regardless of successfulness. Making the point of free will a real phenomenon.

Depression can be looked at in the same way too. Some people do get better, either on their own, with outside help and a consoler, or with medication. Others get worse because of being over exposed to their own thoughts and bring them darker into their depression; due to the environments they are in like stressful people stressful situations, or just a lack of sunlight; or even get depressed as a side effect to certain medications or illegal drugs. But to those who give up trying to get better, verses those who try to find a better life, that shows that there is a choice people can make regardless if they are successful or not.

Here is a third example of free choice. Consider an entrepreneur who wants to start their business. They make the choice to get started, invest their savings and their livelihoods into the endeavor, and try to scratch out a place for themselves in the market. Some are successful either because of luck in the market they hit had a need for them, or because they were smart and prepared in their plans. Others fail miserably, start their dream to have a restaurant or a fishing store or a baking service only to find out that the initial costs to get started are beyond what they've already invested, or that the market for those services are already over competitive or aren't noticed and sought after by costumers.

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In the choice of starting a business, the choice to start it is a reflection of free will. It was their choice, and it wasn't a limitation placed on them like trying to overcome depression or alcoholism can be a limitation to overcome. In a business though they can choose it even invest in it to the degree that if it flops they lose everything, but if it succeeds they succeed even more. Their success isn't what restricts their ability to choose, because they choose it before they were successful or not.

Hope that helps. If you would like to talk in more detail regarding choice in any of those examples, I can give further detail in depression, because it is something I've dealt with to a small degree. I can talk about an inner structure of thoughts that can feed depression or break it down. As well as outside help that can both feed or break it down. I can even talk about trying to get out of the depression or giving up and just trying to live in it. But in so many parts of depression there are choices. Some even as small as what we allow ourselves to focus on instead of trying to step away from.
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.... Not to answer for JP, but I would actually say that animals have free will also. Even the mice and frogs. They may have less choices, but their ability to choose, in my opinion, is still there.

Yuyutsu,

<<The ultimate truth is God, that there is nothing but God, that you are God and the world is your playground and you can do with it as you please, but others are also God and what appears to you to be different persons, your person and other persons, are actually all one and the same.>>

So, can I as God, create rain to end the drought for outback Australia? If the world is my playground, why can't you and I cause paedophilia, crime and violence to stop?

Or is your definition of 'God' different to my understanding?

Dear OzSpen,

«Or is your definition of 'God' different to my understanding?»

You understand God?

Then whatever you understand is incorrect because God cannot be understood. To understand means to grasp by one's mind, but no mind can grasp God.

The reason you cannot do all those things that you listed is that, for the time-being, you have taken upon yourself the roll/costume of a human and these are beyond a human's capacity.

Yes the world is your playground and this is one of the games you play there (and games without a villain or two can be quite boring). You seem to take this role very seriously, but once you had enough, you may withdraw from the game and cast off that costume, just as you can always wake up from a dream (just on a grander scale), unscathed.