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**deandrecooke** · 09-01-2012, 12:47 PM

Recently I had to do a research paper for my psychology class on whether or not we have free will or if all actions comes as a result of heredity, environment, and/or brain chemistry. So what I what to know is if you think we have free will and if not why.

I agree with @Sparkey that until we define what "free will" means we could be easily lost in so complex filosofical/psychological subject.

I think that culture, education, heredity and general brain/body condition, which by the way summarizes in "personality traits", somehow propabilistically characterize many of the posible responses of a person in a given situation, when you view the thing from an statistical point of view.

However, life is full of accidents that come continuously from the complex external system (environment) and also the internal system, being also complex, gives surprises from time to time.

Altough it may be a vulgar example, remember that in many Western societies academical archivement only accounts for 20% of explanation for career success. We don't even agree what real "intelligence" ist.

The account of the principal factors mentioned (heredity, culture and condition) could be useful for some degree of prediction of behaviour under ideal conditions.

But the complexity of the interaction of the complex internal and external systems, will always result in something that, in Reality, could not be completedly determined by us, humans.

Because we are not gods to see all that has been, or will be.

09-01-2012, 12:47 PM	#7
deandrecooke Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 493 Senior Member	Recently I had to do a research paper for my psychology class on whether or not we have free will or if all actions comes as a result of heredity, environment, and/or brain chemistry. So what I what to know is if you think we have free will and if not why. I agree with @Sparkey that until we define what "free will" means we could be easily lost in so complex filosofical/psychological subject. I think that culture, education, heredity and general brain/body condition, which by the way summarizes in "personality traits", somehow propabilistically characterize many of the posible responses of a person in a given situation, when you view the thing from an statistical point of view. However, life is full of accidents that come continuously from the complex external system (environment) and also the internal system, being also complex, gives surprises from time to time. Altough it may be a vulgar example, remember that in many Western societies academical archivement only accounts for 20% of explanation for career success. We don't even agree what real "intelligence" ist. The account of the principal factors mentioned (heredity, culture and condition) could be useful for some degree of prediction of behaviour under ideal conditions. But the complexity of the interaction of the complex internal and external systems, will always result in something that, in Reality, could not be completedly determined by us, humans. Because we are not gods to see all that has been, or will be.
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