projectmatt says

I've heard the theory that a person only has "free will" for the first few years of their life. The choices that they make in the beginning of their lives determine their natural responses to everything else. I'm really not sure how true that is, though. I find the concept incredibly interesting.

I don't like this one very much since babies seem to be creatures (heh) that rely completely on biological instinct.

And yeah I feel like the biggest argument (if you even want to call it that) for free will being an illusion is what amime summed up in his post. For true free will you'd need some sort of concept of spirit/soul/raw will that is capable of arbitration based on inspiration and inspiration alone (alternatively, Foxie has a pretty cool idea about randomness being at the core of every individual).

randomness does not exist. what you think was decided when the universe started. there is no free will

Rutab says

just forwarded this to all my colleagues!!!

I've heard the theory that a person only has "free will" for the first few years of their life. The choices that they make in the beginning of their lives determine their natural responses to everything else. I'm really not sure how true that is, though. I find the concept incredibly interesting.

yes, the world is mostly-to-fully deterministic and free will doesn't exist

the only source of randomness is quantum mechanics, which physicists are pretty split over. even if there was randomness at a subatomic level, the law of large numbers or whatever prevents it from ever affecting the lives of humans in a natural way.*

*footnote: unless someone builds a computer that bases its decisions on "randomness" and gives it all of humanity's decision making power. lol science fiction