Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Do we have Free Will?
Free will, that amazing ability that is a large part of what makes us as human beings different from everything else, we have the power to choose. But what does that actually mean, 'the power to choose', surely that power isn't infinite, so then would it not simply be a fallacy that we, in our ignorance perceive to be reality? It is impossible for a human being to posses absolute and infinite free will, there are many things we simply cannot prevent, many things in which we have no say, no choice, and no freedom; For example, death is unavoidable, aswell as aging, our physical sexual characteristics that determine our gender at birth, who our parents are, our 'race', our height or foundational intelligence, and where we are born or who fall in love with. None of these events or realities showcase the human ability to choose, there is no free will in certain areas. The only possessor of true and absolute free will is our creator. Regardless of whether or not you believe in the creator, your selection of choice is just as narrow, whether you worship the sun, the wind or moon, or believe in science alone, you are forced to come to terms with the fact that you cannot prevent yourself from death, and, as a wise man wrote "If you are a man, you cannot be horse, because you are a man" its simply the laws of physics and a rational thought. Further more, even in the case of prewritten destiny, we are still presently making choices, they are just known, but still choices none the less, although it does make you examine the concept of free will with these thoughts in mind. So what is it then? this glorious ability to choose, what can we choose, what is our say within the limitations of our humanity? The amount of choices we have are actually 'infinite' in the sense that the amount of things we can say or do within the one dimensional time frame each passing second is so far beyond our ability to act out each possible route available that it simulates an endless fountain of possible choices that build on each other as your selection of choices branch out more and more as you gain knowledge, wisdom and understanding throughout your progression through life, thus forming a 'path' that to us, is being paved with every step, with the option or, choice, to move in another direction as we so please until the time of our death. A path is chosen, or even when a path is not chosen, that is still a path, because you chose not to choose, which is actually still a product of free will, because you had more than choice. This makes the distinction between free will, and a large selection of choices, A large selection of choices selection would simply mean that your selection is extremely broad and you have the capacity to indulge in any of infinite or numerous possibilities, whereas I believe in the case of free will, even if your selection is a low as two possible routes, your ability to make that choice of which path to take is what makes us free. The number of choices would be completely irrelevant to us, if we did not have the ability to choose. The wonderful thing though, is that in a way we have both an 'infinite' amount of choices, and the ability to chose. What I mean when I say we have an 'infinite' amount of choices would be better explained and understood in an example: Imagine there is an ant who, being an ant has a predicted life span of 90 days, this ant was born in Washington DC which has a land area of about 68 square miles This ant move at an average speed of 1 inch every 2 seconds, There are 63,360 inches in a mile, and 86,400 seconds in a day, so by dividing the number of seconds in a day (86,400) by the number of seconds it takes the ant to move 1 inch (2), you would see that the ant can travel up to 43,200 inches in one day, multiplied by the predicted life span of the ant (90 days) 43,200 * 90 = 3,888,000 inches which is no more than about 4.7 miles, so if an ant is born in downtown DC, which is 7.7 miles from the Maryland line in silver spring, than it would be impossible for the ant to ever leave DC, The world is 57,308,738 square miles and DC is only 68, the ant can only explore the totality of 4.7 of those square miles, which is about 7% of the city, and the city is 0.0001% of the land area of the world, that ant will never see outside of DC, but to the ant, DC is a limitless world of amazement. We, much like that ant, although are limited greatly by a large variety of unstoppable obstructions in the realm of our freewill, are still limitless within limits. You are, in that sense, truly free.
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