Freedom and Knowledge

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Freedom and knowledge

Question one: Free will Vs determinism

The term freedom can be philosophically referred to as the phenomenon of free will. This refers to the occurrence whereby individuals choose what they choose, and make their decisions because of the simple fact that these decisions are theirs to make. There are pressures from for instance the environment, peers, upbringing, etcetera, but ultimately, the decisions an individual makes are up to themselves. The term free will technically refers to a situation where individuals have more than one choice from which they choose from. The term determinism, on the other hand, retaliates that the way things and events will be in the future is solely a result of how such events and things are now and the influence of the natural laws.

This implies if individuals know how things are at present, as well as the laws to subject these conditions to, their status at a future time can be determined. Take for instance Manchester united fans, one can predict how they will behave if they win or lose a match. Determinists believe that future events are shaped by subjecting current events to a host of rules, laws, and hypothesis. They say that this is the sole determinant of how people behave. The question of free will has been a controversial topic since time in memorial. Hot debates have ranged about it for millennia. Those who belief in the concept of free will feel that humans have the ability or freedom to choose their actions, without being coerced or influenced to follow any of the choices available by influence or others or nature.

Freedom or free will is seen as a gift from God. It is paramount for the human societies to be what they are. Take the legal systems of any civilization for instance. Free will is paramount for the notion of such terms as personal responsibility to take any hold. If individuals do not have their free wills, then it would be impossible to estimate the moral and personal responsibilities of their actions. If this were the case, how then would the rule of law be maintained? What would keep criminals from destroying the good in the society? How would good deeds be recognized and praised or rewarded? Therefore, without freewill, there will be neither good nor evil, no right or wrong, and no morality. The behavior of everyone would be predestined, and they would have no chance of either creativity or choice.

There are some who argue that the humanity and the cosmos it is in are deterministic in nature. As a result, human action can be nothing else but deterministic in nature. Therefore, contemporary determinists are an outgrowth of modern science. If actions of human beings have already been pre determined and that they follow a given set of natural rules, then it is difficult to asset that this action can come out of free will. Determinists, therefore, argue a reality that is in stark contrast to those who believe in the free will. However, they run into some form of contradiction in their attempt to justify to those who believe in the freedom of choice that their assertion is correct. If their assertion holds, then those who believe in free will do not do so by choice, and as a result, there is no use in trying convincing them to see all this from another perspective. If the assertion of the contemporary determinists is correct, then there is no point whatsoever of trying to convince anyone of anything. Therefore, the problem arises of how individuals can have free will if everything they do is predetermined.

I believe that I am free. This implies that every decision I make, every single move I make is as a result of my own compelling. Even though outside forces such as my parents, siblings, the community, the social expectations, and etcetera may influence most of my decisions, ultimately I have the final say about most of the things that I do. However, I feel that this freedom is limited and sometimes has deterministic aspects in itself. This is due to the fact that physical reality is truly infinite and also necessarily connected. This implies the physical world that we find ourselves in has both limited freedom features and limited deterministic features. The physical world is necessarily connected but at the same time it is non-determined which gives us a sense of freedom.

It also suggests a possibility of different futures and is opposed to the total, deterministic view of only one future. We select from this list of possible futures using our minds, which are also part of a programmed machine. Our minds make decisions regarding our future under the influence of the interplay between the cultural and physical environment and our genes. The limited programmed freedom means that I can program myself, and this gives me my limited sense of free will. One can select from the list of possible futures through either of the following.

* Chance: as a result of lack of adequate knowledge of the interconnected systems.

* Certainty: This results from proper timing of decisions as a result of repeated interconnected occurrences or logic.

One is able to learn or memorize behaviors hinged on the interaction with the natural environment and our previous struggles to survive.

I feel that my view of freedom is a compatibilists view as it asserts that the free will is influenced by past events in a chain or system of events. This, in turn, causes and determines the nature of our decisions and actions. Essentially, the compatibilists view of this problem allows both aspects of freedom and left wing determinisms. Therefore, determinism by the free will allows people to take personal and moral responsibilities of their decisions and actions. This view is opposed to the libertarian's view in which wills are liberated if and only if they are not influenced or determined by past events. Libertarians belief that free will exists only if the alternative choices about the future could have been made in the presence of similar preexisting conditions.

In case I though that I was not free, that I did not have free will, if I took the hard determinist stand point I would believe that everything that happened not only in my live but in the cosmos as well, was predetermined by both the laws of nature and the nature of the environment with which they interact. For a determinist, there exists only one possible future as they hold the view that anything that happens in the world, including the actions they take and the decisions they make, follow ineluctably form divine or natural laws. Some thinkers within the school