Is free-will the opposite of determinism?
Under your definition of determinism, i.e., divine will, fate, and predestination, the opposite of free will would be determinism. However, when one defines determinism as things that define how one’s life flows through time and one has no control over, free will begins where determinism ends and the two compliment each other, rather than negating each other.
I feel that all things are many, many layered. Between quantum physics and rice pudding there untold number of layers. How quarks make protons make atoms make molecules make chemicals mahe cells… How rice is grow, marketed, shipped, boiled, sweetened… Why one country likes rice pudding thus bit another so… Within such an enormously layered universe, there may be free will at one level and determinism at another. I seem to have all the free will I can use, and maybe more. It maybe that, at some higher level, some god-like being can see that I am a mere mechanism reacting totally deterministically, just as I can see that bacterium swimming up the chemical gradient I set for it. Or maybe there is no such god-like overseer and I genuinely have free will. The difference between these two cases is irrelevant to me: my life is changed not one whit. Hence I do not see your choices as mutually exclusive. At the level which matters to me, I have some free will (but perhaps not as much as I
I believe in determinism, and free will is simply an illusion. That being said, we operate within that illusion, making free will just as valid as anything else. And determinism is diferent from predestination or fate, but in a subtle way. Predestination is due to the act of a God. Fate suggests there is a higher purpose to our lives. Determinism is simply the result of the chain of causality, no god or purpose required.
Free will: The following meanings shows that free will is the opposite of determinism: “in philosophy, the theory that humans possess the ability to make choices guided by individual values and ideals rather than governed by external pressures or physical necessity. (Cf. determinism.)” http://www.wordsmyth.net/live/home.php?script=search&matchent=free+will&matchtype=exact The power of making choices without the constraint of fate or some other uncontrollable force, regarded as a human characteristic. (Compare determinism). http://www.allwords.com/query.php?SearchType=3&Keyword=Free+will&goquery=Find+it%21&Language=ENG For many philosophers, to believe in free will is to believe that human beings can be the authors of their own actions and to reject the idea that human actions are determined by external conditions or fate. (See determinism, fatalism, and predestination.) http://www.bartleby.com/59/5/freewill.html Free Will and Determinism: Animals seem to satisfy this criterion, and we
