Do human beings have free will?

[wendigo100]

The universe continually spawns new formulas

Prove that.

[John Galt]

Everyone has free will - there is nothing to stop anyone doing exactly what they want to do except consequences and their conscience but they still have choice

[sasguru]

Everyone has free will - there is nothing to stop anyone doing exactly what they want to do except consequences and their conscience but they still have choice

That is a very simplistic viewpoint and one that is increasingly being contradicted by modern neuro-scientific research.
According to the NewScientist which has an interesting article on this very point, a man in the US developed a benign tumour and began abusing his step-daughter. He had no history of this sort of behaviour. When the tumour was removed he became his normal self. When the tumour re-appeared, he reverted. Did he have free will? And we don't need to posit the existence of a tumour to explain anti-social behaviour, abnormal brain chemistry will do.

[John Galt]

That is a very simplistic viewpoint and one that is increasingly being contradicted by modern neuro-scientific research.
According to the NewScientist which has an interesting article on this very point, a man in the US developed a benign tumour and began abusing his step-daughter. He had no history of this sort of behaviour. When the tumour was removed he became his normal self. When the tumour re-appeared, he reverted. Did he have free will? And we don't need to posit the existence of a tumour to explain anti-social behaviour, abnormal brain chemistry will do.

Well, it was a simplistic question - I didn't realise you wanted a debate about mental illness. The brain tumour I would agree but I am not convinced that anti-social behaviour can be solely atrributable to abnormal brain chemistry

[Weltchy]

No-one has free will as there is only one dimension in space-time. There is no entropy and nothing is random.

Everything is governed by trillions of immutable formulas which lead to only one function that every entity however small can do.

If there was a powerful enough computer (impossible), every interaction could be calculated and the future determined, but it's impossible as the machine would need to be larger than the universe.

Free will is an illusion - part of the human conscious.

This is one of my unique theories.

Discuss.

Agree with this wholeheartedly. Unique theory, hrm. Anyone read Conversations with god out of curiosity?

[lfc69]

Not true. The universe continually spawns new formulas which would constantly leave the big computer in need of a new program.

A job for life for us developer specimens