Are there really any choices in life?

Question

Are we really free to make our own good and benefitial choices? Everything seems to be set in stone already. We could make the choice to get a driving license, but do we really make a choice there? Not many people choose to not get a license, so is that choice already set for you?

I would also like to point out that maybe all of our choices or decisions in life are already made, because usually, humans pick the best choices. Are there really choices, or is everything set for us?

You could say I had the choice to write this question. But do i? If i didn't ask this and get other people's opinions, then it would bug me for a while. So i ask you this. Are we free to make our own choices? Are we free?

Answer 1

What you refer to is called determinism. Meaning basically the entire universe from the very beginning was mapped out until the end of time. Everything that has happened happened because it was predetermined to.

For the longest time I had this philosophy. However, I do not believe it anymore. I truly think there is such a thing as free will.

Answer 2

We have a feeling of being able to make choices. We will usually pick something for one reason or another, to our knowledge.I think we have feeling of free will, but our whole life has already been mapped out by a higher power. There is no way of ever knowing what will happen next though so it really doesn't impact our lives. We make the decisions but our choice is documented before we do so.

Answer 3

Yes we are presented with 'choice', everyday of our lives, in just about everything we do.  But, put it in positive and negative energy, or forces.  We have the 'choice' to "live" or just exist.  We have the 'choice' with what shall we eat, to what occupation we will 'choose' for our lives.  

If we are not 'free', it is because we 'choose' not  to be, such as hanging on to guilt or grudges.

When we allow a higher source to nurture our lives, we will live in freedom and peace.  But it is our 'choice'!  Blessings :D

Answer 4

Tie an elephant to a stake for a long time and he gets used to being constrained. He then won't stray, even if you untie him from the stake. You realize you are free when you recognize what your ego has you tied to and you decide to be free of it.

Answer 5

Yes, you are. but freedom comes with responsibilities and a price tag.  People do not make right choices, 99.9% they make the wrong choice.  Watch Dr Phil and Judge Hatchet. (all wrong choices)  It is your duty, to re-think and re-think your possibilities until you have enough info to make a decission.  And with 20/20 hindsight you will know in a month's, year's. etc...time, you made a wrong choice.  Back to the drawing board.

Peace.

Answer 6

There are choices.

But sometime your choices may be limited compare to others if you don't have financial freedom.

Answer 7

If you wanted to get a drivers licence you still have to study for the test it is not set in stone that you will not revise or do well it is the amount of effort that you put into it, how badly you want something you will strive to get it.

Answer 8

Let us remove some ambiguity from the matter by defining freedom:

exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.

AND

a particular immunity or privilege enjoyed,

AND

the power to exercise choice and make decisions without constraint from within or without; autonomy; self-determination. Compar.

It will be evident to you that freedom is a paradox from the following:

The immense structure of social engineering provides us with a parallel set of choices and contingencies.

To choose any particular choice is, in and of itself, partaking in a structure produced and confined by society.

A lawyer is not free because society provided him the opportunity to become such-- in return, he receives a nice pay check.

A criminal is not free (even if he is breaking the law) because their is a parallel contingency to crime: law.

What about criminals who have not been caught... are they free? No... can they walk freely on the streets?

To focus the point, If you play by or against the game, your action still PRESUPPOSES the game; and that game, in and of itself, is of a determined, contingent, and relatively confined nature.

Freedom, it would seem, is to not play the "game" (of society) at all. Live in a jungle. Hunt your own food. In this way you do not have to play the game of society; but now, another:  the game of the jungle.

Alas, there is no freedom, even in this game.

What is the reason for all this: you can never be free so long as you are confined to necessity and desire: the most primal of which is hunger and the sexual striving.

Thus, your decisions, however many you believe you have, are a direct result of these necessities/desires.

Hypothetically speaking, how can we be free: To live in an island, never incur the pangs of hunger or the desire for s*x.

That would be freedom: That does not exist.

Is Superman, the great mythical hero of the 21st century free?

No. Even if he does not eat nor have s*x, he is notwithstanding dependent upon humanity if only because he does not share ONE weakness with them: kryptonite (and therefore, they may save him--and therefore, he DEPENDS on them)

Conclusively: to be confined by hunger, desire, AND weakness, is, by the nature of the matter, to be confined and therefore not free.

There is no absolute freedom.

But I would add to this: is absolute freedom desirable?

Answer 9

To be or not to be.

Answer 10

That's the age old question that philosophers have discussed for millenia.  Is there really free will?

My answer is yes.  I know many people that don't have drivers licenses.  In New York City there is little need for a drivers license because parking is more expensive than owning a car and the public transportation system is extensive and cheap.

Of course we are a product of our environment, but the environment only gives us the tools for making good decisions, it doesn't make them for us.  Many people go through life letting life happen to them rather than living, but the smart always manage to make the choices that make things happen.

So the answer is really, life is what you make of it.

Answer 11

You want the good life?

Well here is good news! God wants you to have the good life too! Listen to what God says,

"See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil... I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live..."

Also in the New Testament, Jesus Christ said,

"I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly"

But you must choose it for yourself and make the right choices. God will not force His blessings - the good life - on you.

Answer 12

yes we are free to make our choices,

we make our choices within the realm of our beliefs and awareness of who we are and where we are.

Answer 13

Well as Descartes put it

The past controls the present.

You cannot control the past therefore

You cannot control the present.

The present controls the future.

You cannot control the present therefore

You cannot control the future.

Answer 14

Well, there's a choice to believe whether or not we have choices in life.

But yes, we do have choices. You can opt not to get a license, but instead bum rides off your friends--there are people who do that, even in adult age!

Humans pick choices beneficial to THEM. They aren't always the best choices. Hitler made the choice to despise Jews. No one said he had to despise them.

Christians choose to believe in the Bible. And you can argue that it was furnished in their brains when they were young, but it was furnished in my brain when I was young and because I'm a lot older, I choose not to believe it.

I am an example of how we have choices. My dad's a Christian, believing strongly in the word of God, and me? I want to be a pagan. My parents choose to believe I'm not that wise, but really, I choose not to divulge that because I'll keep that image of being their "baby." I chose who my friends were, and I chose who my friends weren't. I chose to study in order to make good grades, whereas my brother chose not to, and received poor grades. You can say it's based on personality, but I say it's based on will. And therein lies a choice.

"There are no safe choices, only better ones."

~ Mrs. Moore. A Great and Terrible Beauty

EDIT: I didn't know anything else when I was raised to believe it. It was because I stumbed upon a documentary one night did I finally choose to not believe in the Bible. I was never taught to question it. I was always taught it was the true word. But here I am 18 years later not believing in it. And I don't believe in God either.

EDIT: Yes, there is. Your question mimics what people used to think back then: that your fate was decided for you. If you were poor, you remained poor. If you were rich, you got richer. Nowadays, we see that clearly isn't so anymore. Rowling was poor, but became the richest woman in Europe. It's an age-old question, but we do have freewill. Yeah, we have to go to school, but kids can simply choose not to go to school. Granted, there will be severe punishments, it's still a choice, still a free-will. Your free-will is contrained when you are young because you don't yet know how to make better choices. As you get older, you slowly realize you have that free-will--adolescents, for example, like to go against what they're parents say just to prove they have that free-will and the freedom to make choices.

Free-will, again, is a choice. You can CHOOSE to believe whether or not we have free-will. But I believe we do.