Free Will Paradox

[DerFürst]

Where has the mind's sense of free will gotten the I that presupposes that action is based on volition...

Every time I have tried to influence life, assuming I exist, and assuming that something needs to be changed, all I have found is that I have made things absolutely worse. Life could not unfold in the easy, free way that it naturally does without influence, and life became far more difficult.

If life were a butterfly on the side of a tree, free will would be a person standing next to that tree deciding that butterfly would be more beautiful if it were flying. The person then pokes the wings of the butterfly trying to get it to move, and as a result, damages them. The butterfly can no longer fly. In free will's attempt to change life, free will continues to suffer as it hurts life, which was never in need of changing.

What if "free will" is simply the nature of all things unmolested, and that using "free will" to compartmentalize things into mental specificity actually limits it? Why does it have to be yes or no? What if free will were the ability to make either decision of yes or no, without either answer being wholly right or wrong? The paradox wouldn't be a problem at that point, because there's nothing here to solve when there's no correct answer.

[Reav3R]

The paradox wouldn't be a problem at that point, because there's nothing here to solve when there's no correct answer.

Best answer so far, I liked the way you described things.

Also a wise man once told me, having free will is like being on a train that's moving north, you can't change the path the train moves but you can decide to move south inside the train, but you can only go until a certain point and the train will eventually arrive in the north.

[Antares]

Definition of Free Will (Assumption): We assume having free will means having the ability to pick one or more choice(s) (but not all) out of definite or indefinite choices; that one or more choice(s) could be any of the various options.
The Paradox: The only way to prove that you have the ability to pick a (any) choice is by picking that (one) choice, and since you can only pick one or more (but not all) of the various choices, you can't prove that you had the ability to pick anything other than those particular choice(s) already made.
Example: I give you a cup of fatal poison and ask you whether you have the ability to drink the cup. You can reason that you do have the ability but you won't drink it because of common sense. I argue that you don't have the ability to drink it because common sense prevents you from drinking it no matter how hard you try. You can't prove that you have the ability to drink it because you won't do it, so you don't have the ability to drink that cup. Consequently, you don't posses the free will to do so either. This example can be expanded to everything (minus choices already made).
Conclusion: Since you can't make all the possible choices there is to make, you can't prove that you had the ability to choose any of those choices (other than the ones already made), therefore you had no control over the choices already made. Consequently, you don't posses any free will. By proving free will exists (making all possible choices at the same time), you also prove that it doesn't exist because if all choices can be made simultaneously, then the definition of free will would be invalid.

Does that make any sense to anyone here?

Let's break it even further.

Will = ability to decide
Free = without forcing you to a certain choice

If you wanted to prove the free will, you had to prove first these two components.

How do you decide that (this is) you (who) can decide?
And, how do you judge that nothing influences your decision except yourself by any sort of manipulation?

This is an old problem inherent in religions as well. Religions and ancient beliefs say about non-physical beings indeed trying all the time to influence living people (and non-living too). I face(d) them too, which I wrote about on AD.

The answer is perception and extending it. If you cannot see where your will is coming from, you won't be able to prove anything due to having no "material" to use for proving anything. In short, it may be that we live in an illusion of purely free will. However, a will to discover will is a good choice in this quest, I think BTW If you remove the limitation of time, you may have all the options (possible choices) available at once, still having not resolved the free will dilemma.