Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Is There Such a Thing as Free Will?

Can we say that mankind truly has a free will? 
What exactly is free will? 
As I began to type this post, I decided to Google “What is free will?” 
The first link that came up in my search was from Princeton University’s Wordnet (a lexical database for English).  It defined free will as “the power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies”. 

Dictionary.com defines “free will” with the following two definitions:  “1. free and independent choice; voluntary decision.  2. the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces.”
Wordnet gives a very solid, accurate, and concise definition of free will.  Let’s use that definition for this discussion.
Free will
the power of making free choices
unconstrained by external agencies