Lilith:

The explanation you have just given exemplifies the notion that some people just cannot do better even if they want to...

Does that not make my point?

It is indeed all subjective to experience and/or capability... not everyone is capable...

When did I (for one) copy and paste your entire post? My perception is that I made note of a single statement, and gave plenty of explanation as to why I thought it was circular..

Apparently your perception is substantially different. I suggest you make a choice to scroll up and reread my post.. and change your perception.

Jistme...

I did not accuse...

It was a suggestion...

I hoped that you would...

But I already did... So I fail to understand the suggestion.

creation I disagree with this premise, although I understand where you are at here. I have to disagree because I have been a person who has tested unproven waters. They were blind choices made with no prior knowledge or experience in that area. So cause and effect in this scenerio is not applicable. I guess you could ask what in my past caused me to be bold enough to make a choice blindly without previous knowledge. I don't know the answer to that as it was a part of me as far back as I can remember.

Free will is not applicable in a Christian religious scenerio to me though at all. How can there be free will with an entity of good and entity of evil with ultimate control over those who are their subjects? An excuse of bad behavior is allowed by the evil and credit for all good is the good. Humans are just game peices in this world.

No.

You have not quoted my words and provided a parallel A = B = A

You have not.

I ask that you do since your claim says so.

I made a claim that free will does not exist and provided reasoning why I came to that conclusion.

You said my logic was circular and went on to discuss circular logic without ever showing how mine was by using my words.

dragoness... would it be safe to say that something in your past experience is indeed what caused you to 'jump into the unknown'?

I cannot vouch for that, because even my mom says I was this way from birth. Very independent, played by myself, entertained myself. So I believe it was a "born like this" type deal.

Can one make a better choice without ever being aware of the choice being better?

I do understand the cause and effect type argument though. It is very valid in most cases.

Better choices cannot be made, unless by chance, without being aware of what is better. I can tell you the blind choices I made were not necessarily better. In afterthought it would have been better for me had I followed the known path but I would not give the lessons up for anything in the world.

dragoness...

I understand what you mean...

One does not need experience 'in' something to want to experience that something, but they must have some type of exposure to 'it' in order to entertain the notion of experiencing 'it'...

I believe that everything has an initial cause, whether it be direct or indirect, or some combination thereof...

Except perhaps 'God'... and that I do not want to even get into yet...

In believing that everything has a cause, I guess you could not believe someone's cause being just because.......?????????
I did them just because I could, I believed I could, I thought I could, I thought as a free thinking person I should be able to, etc......

I did not know if it was a betterment choice, it was just a choice I had available. It is kinda like knowing the fork in the road and taking the off road unchoice as a choice.

I am a violation of most logical rules though so.........

Dragoness...

Do you believe that everything happens for a reason, even if it is not understood, as it were?

This is absurd... if this were true, why would we even have the term 'free will'?

I suppose choosing 'right' from 'wrong' and one's ability to do so is meaningless?

With this definition when a tiger decides to choose which zebra to attack and eat, it has just used it's 'free will'...

Or when my dog decides to go lay down instead of begging at the table, after I instruct it to... then it has just exercised 'free will'?

Unbelievable...

Well O.K., if you insist. I suppose I was giving you the benefit of a doubt and counting on your being able to see the correlation on your own. My bad...

How am I free to want what I want to want = C, How I believe you have defined free will....and the determined sum of the equation.. It either is or is not. if what I want to want is governed by some feature of my psychology that I don't necessarily want to have=A, and true, by your definition Which is a choice, but I do not understand that I do not want to have this feature.=B and also true, but determined to not be a choice. Which contradicts 'A' So 'A' leads to 'B' which leads back to 'A' and so on.. never really either validating or invalidating 'C'. Just like a string of bad code...

No, it does not make your point. I said that people choose not to do better because they have the choice not to want it. All actions are choices. All inactions are choices. If you do nothing about a situation it is because you choose to do nothing. Not because you are incapable.

If you not aware of there being better choices, it is because you have chosen not to see them, seek them ,or recognize that they are there.

Are you comparing yourself to a tiger? Huh. I thought we were talking about the human brain and not an animal instinct... which is innate.