FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions: Q: Do you want everything on it? A: Yes, thank you. Q: Hey, Brother, you got a smoke...? A: No, sorry. I don't smoke    Q2: Oh, uh, cool. Hey listen, I'm trying to get uptown for a job    interview, see? And I'm short 75 cents for the bus. You think    you could help me out?    A2: No, sorry. I don't have any change. Q: Excuse me, brother. Do you have a set of jumper cables? A: Sure. Where's your car?    Q2: Uh, around the corner. Listen could you help me out with a    dollar or two, it's my birthday and....    A2: No, sorry, not today. Q: Hey, brother. Do you know which way Ashby is from here? A: Sure. You go up 2 blocks, hang a left, and there you are.    Q2: Oh, thanks man. Hey, listen. Could you help me out with a little    change? I need to call the hospital. My wife is having a baby and.....    A2: Sorry, I don't have any change. Q: What do you wanna do? A: I dunno. What do you wanna do? Q: Do you want fries with that? A: Yes, Please. Q: Hey, brother. Do you have the time?? A: I'm sorry, I don't have a watch.    Q2: Oh. Hey listen, could you fix me up with a dollar or two.    I need....    A2: Sorry, no. Q: Yo....hey, YO...you wanna buy some phat speakers? I got a truck full of.... A: No thank you, my good man, but best of luck in your entrepreneurial endeavors. Q: Do you think human beings have free will?? A: Well, that's a tough one. From a subjective viewpoint, I certainly FEEL free to make choices within a certain framework. I can buy the donut or not buy the donut. I cannot prove that this subjective feeling is not an illusion, but I certainly FEEL free to choose certain actions from a palette of realistic options. But how big is the palette of options from which I feel I can realistically choose? When I was in kindergarten, we all sat in a circle. The teacher asked us all to think for a moment and come up with what we want to be when we grow up. I was about at the halfway point of the circle and listened to the list of "fireman", "policeman", "race car driver", "doctor", etc. of the students before me. When it got to me, I knew damn well what I wanted to be, and said so. "I wanna be a whale", I said. Everybody laughed, which was very disturbing, and the teacher said in a very condescending voice, "Oh sweetie, but you CAN'T be a whale..." This was the first time I encountered the limits to my free will. As another example, my friend Joel tried to walk through walls when he was a kid, eventually stopping after testing the theory that "if you can just go fast enough you'll go through.." These are obviously examples of a specific type of absurd limit to free will: the lack of ability to will what we will call, for the sake of argument, "the impossible". These are not "realistic" options. But how large is the class of things that we will call "the impossible" or "unrealistic"? What does that class include? A fellow inhabitant of this earth (Being Z) once told me with great urgency that it is the free will choice of each individual to either believe in the truth of Jesus Christ as the son of God and the path to salvation, or to not believe. Each soul's salvation or damnation is therefore the direct responsibility of that soul. I would argue that "belief" is not an act of will, but rather a reaction that occurs in one's mind based on what has been input into that mind (all of the experiences and data of a lifetime). Being Z argued that we have the free will to choose to believe whatever we want to believe. By definition, then (I argued) Being Z had the free will to choose not to believe in Jesus Christ for a few seconds, and then choose to re-believe. Being Z was not able to do it at the time, but could still call me with news of a successful experiment at some future date. I think everyone should try this sometime: Find something that you truly "believe" and then try to "choose" not to believe it for a while. Anywhere from a few seconds to the rest of your life. Some examples might be: God exists. God does not exist. God is not purple. The earth is round. I am here. I cannot be a whale. Etc. If you do truly reverse your belief on something, did you "will" that to change to happen? Or did you come across new data that caused a change in your belief? To explore this, try choosing to believe your original belief again. Can you choose to shift back and forth between "true belief" in two opposite, mutually exclusive propositions? Let me know how that goes. In a hypothetical deterministic universe (one in which the future flows, without exception, from the past and all future events are "caused" by past events) would a human being be able to DETERMINE whether it's actions were, A: the result of it's own free will or , B: the inevitable result of past events? What would be the criteria for this determination? A "hard-determinst" would argue that every "choice" can be completely explained by previous causes. The subjective experience of "free will" to choose between alternatives is, therefore, an illusion. This seems to me to be a BELIEF that can neither be proven nor disproven. Whatever you believe on the matter, try to "believe" the opposite for a moment. I don't mean "try it on for size", or "act as though you believe it". I mean "believe" it. Good luck with that. It seems fair to say, that if free will does exist, one can only choose from a palette of known and reasonable options. If you do not know what the daily special is, you cannot order it. If every time you have ordered the daily special in the past you have gotten sick, then you might not see the daily special as a "reasonable" option. If you were raised by wolves, you probably won't know which fork is the salad fork, and would probably choose to eat your server rather than the salad anyway. What determines what your "known and reasonable options" are? Did you "choose" all of the contents of this palette? Certainly, if the set of all actual options possible is represented by X, then the set of known or reasonable options from which you can actually "choose" is always something less than X. Any beings that believe they know X in it's entirely should contact me psychically and explain themselves. Q: Is your rumination on free will just mental masturbation, or is this relevant in any way to real life? A: It is my personal belief that one road to greater compassion for other beings (including oneself) is to think about "how does a being become itself" in light of the above discussion on free will. To what extent do you hold other beings responsible for what they are? What effect can YOU, as one of countless data points in their system, have on what they may become? Q: Hey brother, spare change for beer and puppy food??? A: [No comment]		photo: Mike Woolson