So What?

Sean Wykoski

So What?

I have been studying and reflecting on our subject of free will and determinism for over a month now. In this time I have really developed my own views and adopted traits from other views on the subject. I would say that going into this class I did not think about the topic of free will and determinism and if I did I would say that I was pretty closed minded on the subject. After reading the assignments and watching the Adjustment Bureau I would say that I definitely have a new concept of what free will and determinism are.

I really liked one of the first assignments we read about the different beliefs of why things happen to us. I could really relate to some, but there were also others that I just could not see being plausible. I would say that before reading the classic categories I would say that I was somewhere between free will and cultural determinism. After reading through all of them I would say that I'm now more on the free will belief. I think that the assignments we have read and watched really helped shaped my new belief. I especially liked The Adjustment Bureau and the story that it told. I thought it was the perfect example of what this class was trying to talk about; how free will and determinism do not have to be separate from each other. The point that it made that I really liked was at the very end of the film when the two main characters are greeted by their friend who was in The Adjustment Bureau and were told that their paths were in fact changed. When they asked how, their friend told them that they fought hard enough to earn their free will.

After watching the film I really thought about whether or not we are actually living our own lives or some life that is preset for us. I think the point I talked about earlier really changed my opinion on how we're living. I've always thought "Well, maybe there is a predetermined path that we are following, but I don't think thats actually what's happening, because I can do whatever I want." (Not without consequences, but the point being is we are all technically able to do whatever we want.) Once I finished the video I realized that maybe we just have the illusion of free will, like the point Thompson made about us being able to choose what toothpaste we use or what drink to order, but that the big decisions are made by a higher authority. It actually boggled my mind sometimes during class. I'll sit and start thinking "Am I actually choosing to learn, or am I learning because someone is making me learn?" Then I tend to get a headache and stop thinking about it to stop my self from getting super confused.

 I would say that I have really had one of my personal beliefs changed. Not a 180 degree change, but it was still changed none the less.  

"So What?"

As far as the “so what” response to the question of free will and determinism, after studying the subject for the past month or so and reading arguments, definitions, and examples of each category, I have already started to slightly alter my line of thinking from originally thinking everything was left up to free will to believing in a balance being struck between ones free will and different levels and types of determinism.

The main reason for my shift can basically be summed up to ignorance.  I was not aware of the study and ideas behind such determinism as genetic, or environmental  determinism.  Where how one’s genetic disposition or how/where they were raised playing a part in their decision making process.  I was under the assumption that all determinism and all of its categories relied heavily on God or a higher power controlling the strings and humans basically being along for the ride.  The “so what” comes into play with this way of thinking and it’s a thinking that I still do not agree with at all because it leaves too much up to a higher power and takes everything, including responsibility, out of the hands of the individual.  This leaves too dangerous of a slope with regards to crimes, feelings, attitudes, and general behavior in that an individual can simply state that any and all of these things were out of their control and were being directed by a higher power.

I think the movie Adjustment Bureau did the best so far in dealing with where I believe the true answer lies and that is with compatibilism.  The idea that one has free will but that they have it in a controlled environment that has certain aspects already predetermined.  One of the first readings had a very good analogy with regards to how compatibilism works when it referenced a poker game and having several different ways to handle the hand that you are dealt, but not being able to alter the hand that you were dealt.  I believe that certain people, whether due to cultural, environmental or other types of determinism are dealt weaker hands than others, but can still end up above others who are dealt much stronger hands based off of the decisions that they have made.  To think otherwise what be a defeatist attitude that leaves little hope for those given a weak hand except to find comfort in the idea that God gave them such a weak hand in order to test them or to justify somehow giving them a better stake in the afterlife.  I don’t know about everybody, but the God that I believe in and the God that I have faith exists does not make people suffer on a whim and does not play favorites. 

So I guess the “so what” response would be just that.  In order to believe completely in theological determinism, one must have a “so what” attitude with how their life is led, what happens to them and the ones they love, and their own actions and behavior.  That does not seem like the type of life I would want to live and it does not seem to fit with the belief that the type of life the God that I was taught about as a child would want us to live.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Trisha is just a nine year old girl going on a hike with her mom and older brother, but when she wanders off the path her whole world changes.  Throughout the next nine days, she struggles to hold on to her sanity and hope of surviving the perils of the deep woods of Maine.  There are times in those woods when Trisha beings to question if there is anything or anyone who can help her.  Is it predetermined for her to get out the woods?  Or does her free will to survive carry her through?

"She had learned to stay on the path.  No matter what you had to do or how bad you had to do it, no matter how much yataa-yataa you had to listen to, it was better to stay on the path . . . On the path you were safe."

 At this point, Trisha is starting to accept the fact that she's lost.  She should of stayed on the path.  She shouldn't of veered off on her own.  The path was laid out before her, all she had to do was follow it.  Now she was wondering alone, lost and afraid.  Her free will deceived her - it was evil and had gotten her lost.

". . . What if she had asked because some deep future-seeing part of her had known that this was going to happen?  Had known, had decided she was going to need a little God to get through . . ."

Thinking back to a conversation she had with her dad, Trisha tries to reason whether there is a God or not.  What had made her bring that question up so long ago?  Was it predetermined that this event would happen, and that some part of her, or someone controlling her future, knew that she would need this reassurance once the moment came?  Why did she need the reassurance of God?  Was He real and therefore trying to direct her to Him?  Or was it simply that He was all she had ever heard about?  She did tend to say "oh, God" a lot.  Was this out of habit that she picked up from those around her?  Or did she somehow have the knowledge of the word "God" already inside her?

"Pree-cisely, sugar, subaudible.  I don't believe in any actual thinking God that marks the fall of every bird in Australia or every bug in India, a God that records all of our sins in a big golden book and judges us when we die - I don't want to believe in a God who would deliberately create bad people and then deliberately send them to roast in a hell He created - but I believe there has to be something . . . There's something that keeps most of us from dying in our sleep.  No prefect loving all-seeing God, I don't think the evidence supports that, but a force."

I love this description Trisha's dad gives her when asked what he believes.  I feel like I fall into this category sometimes, my free will shining proudly.  It's hard to describe this "force" that a lot of people feel.  Is it a being?  Is it mother nature?  Is it the Universe and all its unknown splendor?  I don't know, I don't think anyone does.  This "force", however, seems more reputable than a "God who would deliberately create bad people and then deliberately send them to roast in a hell He created".  Like I've pointed out previous posts:  why give us free will if only to punish us for using it?  Why "lovingly" create us in His image and then torture us when we veer off the path?  Plus, if God is all-seeing then why doesn't He notice these "imperfections" in the plot and change them before we make a mess of everything?  If God was with Trisha, why did He not send a thought, a sign, anything to make her turn around and stay on the path?

"Trisha looked across the stream at them, a little startled but not really afraid, not then.  Two of the robes were white.  The one worn by the figure in the middle was black . . . 'I come from the God of Tom Gordon,'  he said. 'The one he points to when he gets the save' . . . 'Actually, I  am the Subaudible,' the man who looked like her father said apologetically . . . 'I come from the God of the Lost.  It has been watching you.  It has been waiting for you.'"

This part of Trisha's journey intrigued me.  After drinking water from the stream and eating a mixture of berries and nuts, Trisha sits down and observes some butterflies in a clearing.  As her mind begins to fade, the butterflies turned into robed figures, two white and one black.  She's not afraid, just curious - which is strange because I would of been dying.  The first white figure tells her that he is from the God of Tom Gordon, the one she asks her dad about.  He tells Trisha that God is very busy with a earthquake in Japan and, therefore, has no time to help her.  The second white figure, who is in the form of her dad, tells Trisha that he is the Subaudible, the force that guides us.  He also tells her that he is unable to help her.  Once the black figure steps forward Trisha becomes afraid.  He tells her that he serves the God of the Lost, the one who has been stalking her in the woods.  He is nothing but wasps and bugs, and looks like death.

To me, these three figures represent God, the Force, and Fear.  Fear is the most controlling emotion we possess - it influences our thoughts and actions, making us irrational.  When we focus on fear, fear is all there is.  But we have the free will to overcome this fear.  We can choose to run from it, allowing it to control our lives, or we can choose to stand tall and face it.  In Trisha's case, she allowed fear to control her until she came across the gate posts in the meadow.  It was fear that made her run farther into the woods in the beginning, and it was fear that kept her from crossing the lake that would of gotten her to safety four days earlier.  Once she found the gate posts, however, she began to have hope.  This hope revived her free will to survive, and by this point she was becoming less afraid.  In the end, her free will chose to stand up to her demons instead of running - she was fully in control, even for just a brief moment.  But was this all really free will?  Or did God lend her the strength and implant the desire at the very end when she needed it the most?  Was He really with her the whole time, keeping her demons at bay (seeing as the "bear" was following her the entire time and never attacked or showed itself once)?  Maybe God really works like Tom Gordon says:

"[it's His nature] to come on in the bottom of the ninth inning."

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Sean Wykoski

2/21/14

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

   The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was an interesting read as it was definitely a different novel by Stephen King and addressed certain hidden meanings that we can connect to our topic of Free Will and Determinism. The novel starts off with a little girl, Trisha McFarland, who has gone on a hiking trip with her brother and mother. While the two of them argue, Trisha goes off the path to relieve herself and to spite her mother and brother. However, she ends up getting lost and having to survive in the woods for a few days. Lost with only a days worth of food and clothing, she slowly looses her sanity and feels as though all hope is lost. She is finally rescued and while she is recovering she tells her father how she was like her hero Tom Gordon.

  The biggest connect I could see to Free Will and Determinism in this book would be her belief that she is in the mercy of the forest, and that after a while she learns that she must face her fear and create her own fate. Us humans are constantly at the will of mother nature, but we can choose to either allow it to control us or we can fight back and live our own lives. We do so by creating homes, wearing clothes, and driving cars. These three protect us from the elements and it is what Trisha did while she was lost; she didn't make a car however. When it was raining and she was tired and sick, she knew she had to do something, so she took a stick and broke it in order to make a tent out of her rain poncho. This kept her dry from the rain allowing her to warm up and keep the sickness at bay.

  Trisha talked about the God of the Lost in her book and describe this creature in the woods as some kind of spirit like thing that was following her. This could be seen as King's depiction of a god as it was a supernatural being in the eyes of Trisha. Trisha claimed that she was at the will of the God of the Lost and that it determined what would happen to her. However, at the end of the novel she came face to face with a large bear which she believed was the God of the Lost in disguise. She had two options, either give up and let the bear kill her or she could fight back and make her own fate. She thought of what Tom Gordon would do and summoned his courage and strength. She throws her walkman at the bear and strikes it on the face. After this she is rescued by a hunter and while it was just coincidence that the hunter found her, Trisha was in belief that she had earned her rescue by defeating the God of the Lost. She knew that she had fought back against the woods trying to determine her fate and she had created her own destiny.  

Group Meeting #3

Biblical Texts: Free Will and Determinism

From our assigned readings - Psalm 139: 1-18, Ecclesiastes 3: 1-15, Jonah 1: 1 to 2: 10, and Mark 10: 17-22 - one can see how Biblical writers perceived free will and determinism.  From my point of view, it seems they all thought that God was the one that controlled our lives, from birth to death.  We may have an idea of free will but we are never truly free from the works of God.  What shaped these writers' ideas about this issue?  Could they be the written words of God given to them through divine intervention?  Or were there other factors that shaped their idea of story writing?

I'm not a history buff, and I don't claim to be one.  However, times were very different in the ancient Middle East.  War, disease, tyranny, and famine ravaged the land.  People were looking for answers - people were looking for hope.  Perhaps they were looking for someone good to follow to replace the ones that burdened them so.  I don't know.  It seems to me that the writers were very keen on following rules; especially in Jonah and Mark, the ones who did not follow the rules were punished accordingly.  Jonah, with his free will, disobeyed the rule of God and was tormented by storms and man-eating fish.  The man in Mark was told that if he wanted eternal life in Heaven then he was to give up all his riches.  If you continue reading (Mark 10: 31), Jesus says, "But many that are first shall be last, and the last first."  Hence, the ones who suffer the most have the most to gain.  To me, this reflects how many people lived during this time.  They resented the rich and the powerful and therefore believed that because they, the ones who were poor, were suffering they would live the afterlife in peace.  They needed someone to follow because they were lost.  They needed someone to follow because they only knew suffering from the ones they were already following.

Follow the rules set out by the one who is good to you and you shall have your just reward.  Going back to determinism, this notion is clearly the path taken.  Free will is wrong, and although we all possess it we must fight against it.  God knows best because he created everything and everyone.  According to Ecclesiastes 3:1, "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven," and in 3: 11, "He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end."  In Psalm 139, it speaks of how God knows everything from our thoughts to our actions and how He is always there even in our death.  In the stories of Jonah and that in Mark, determinism is greater than free-will and it shall always prevail.  If we do not follow His rules than we are dooming ourselves - for our plan is already written out and we must not diverge from it.

Like I've said in previous posts:  I truly want to believe that we have control over our lives - that our futures have yet to be written.  So these texts are little off putting to me.  Why have free will embedded in us if we can't use it without being punished?  Why would God tease us with this feeling of being able to choose for ourselves if in reality He chooses everything for us?  Why live if we are to only be drones of His story?

Biblical Writers view on Free WIll

     From the readings that were selected for this week, and for all of the other readings that I've done throughout my life, it seems to me that the majority of biblical authors had determinism as the number one theme when it came to how ones life was to play out.
     Jonah attempts to leave the grips of God but ends up damning everybody else on his ship to death until he finally relents to the will of God.  The other writers take a similar view with regards to Gods role or the overall role of the higher power when it comes to how one persons life turns out. 
     This definitely splits from my interpretation of not only the readings of the bible that I have come across in my time and my overall thought on Gods role in the individuals everyday life.  I have no doubt that God is responsible for the higher functions of life.  Meaning that reason that we are here, the fact that we are alive, and living on Earth, etc.  Where I find the biblical readings to be a bit hypocritical is where it converges with the everyday individual.  Joe Average is you want to give him a name.  God and Jesus are both known to have stated in the bible that man is to have free will and determine what he/she believes.  Without that free will, you really can't tell he actually loves and believes in God or who is doing so out of fear, peer pressure, or whatever reason of the time.
     It has always been my understanding that since God gave good will, that meant that one could live their own life how they saw fit, and make the decisions that they felt like making.  But when life was over, when it came time to be judged for the decisions that were made during that life, that is when God came around to judge you and your decisions throughout your life.  It seems as if these readings are trying to tell the reader that not only does God judge you at the end of your life but also has a say during your life in that if you make the wrong decision God has the ability and the desire to punish you or others for what you have decided. 
     I find that to be a very dangerous slope to go down when it comes to who God decides to interfere with and who is left at their own accord.  Because if one is to believe that God is there to determine where your life leads and is going to punish those who stray and reward those who do right, then the only logical conclusion to that is that those that are rewarded with Lottery wins are doing exactly as God has wanted them to, yet those children who somehow are inflicted with Cancer and die at a young age have done so because they have angered God.  I refuse to believe in such a God or the prosperity theology that belongs to those who do.
     Overall, I believe the readings were of little influence to what I believe and how I feel about what I believe when it comes to free will.

Sean Wykoski

Jonah and Free Will

Jonah and the whale is a classic biblical story about how Jonah is given a mission from God, but instead chooses to run away from God. Through his disobedience he learns the wrath of God and puts the lives of innocent people in danger because of his selfish actions. Later, he comes to realize that he was the one who created the situation, so he thus throws himself overboard to solidify him self to God. He gets swallowed by a large fish, most likely a whale, where he comes to realize that he cannot run from God and that God is truly his way to salvation. He then thanks the lord for a rather odd "wake up call" and determines that those who run away from god are really only running from his love. Is this really all about free will or is it just a crazy case of stock-holm syndrome?

 When we think of free will, we tend to think of having the freedom to do as we please, and the bible tells us that the greatest gift we receive from God is the gift of free will. Of course, I feel as though the writers of this biblical text created this story as a means of comfort and reassurance. To say that even when we tend to run from God, he/she will always find us and remind us that he/she is only trying to love us. They also made it clear that Jonah had a choice in the beginning. He was told by God to go to Nineveh, but he chose, instead, to run to Joppa and hid from God on a ship. This would be an example of him using his gift of free will. Instead of listening to God, he chose to take a different path. Here's the part where I'm not so sure he truly had free will. When he was on the ship God began to make the sea turn into a crazy storm. God was angry at Jonah for disobeying him. Jonah realized this and had the crew toss him overboard to spare their lives. If Jonah truly had free will then why would God be angry at him for not wanting to follow his will? It seemed like Jonah really only had one choice and that was to follow the will of God, because as we saw, the other choice led to crazy storms and him being engulfed by a rather large fish. This really reminded me of The Adjustment Bureau and the scene where David Norris had asked Thompson what happened to free will? And Thompson replied that it was just an illusion. Is God's free will really just an illusion? It sort of seemed like it in Jonah's case. It was either "Follow the path of God" or "Don't follow it and suffer God's wrath", he had a choice, but it seemed like there was only one option. What kind of puzzled me was at the end of the story, Jonah realized that all along God was just trying to show him that he loved him. It seemed a bit like a sign of stock holm syndrome. I'm not trying to diss on the bible at all, but I know I wouldn't be to happy with God if he/she started a crazy storm and had me eaten by a fish all because I didn't want to do what he/she told me. The story really just reminded me of that scene from The Adjustment Bureau and got me thinking if we really have a choice or is just that there are two options, but we can really only choose one.

The Adjustment Bureau

The movie Adjustment Bureau, seems from the beginning to portray an almost best of both worlds scenario when it comes to free will and determinism.  Where the main character, a guy named David Norris loses an election for the US Senate, but in doing so, he becomes a favorite for the next election.  He does this because of a chance meeting with a woman, Elise, who inspires him to be far more candid than most politicians tend to be during concession speeches. 

The movie seems to be centered around David having the free will to make his own choices, but the Bureau, with instructions from “the Chairman” comes in to fix any issues that may make David stray from his intended path.  One could see that as a somewhat pleasant way to go about things as long as you are not aware of the Bureau and the Chairman’s influence.  Another way to put it is that ignorance is bliss.  Believing that you have free will all the time, while having an omnipotent being without your knowledge controlling any mulligans you may need in order to stop you from straying would be the optimal way to have things play out.

The problem with this set up in the movie is that David is aware of the Bureau and their role in how his life plays out.  This causes David to want free will at all times and he does everything he can to try to go against what the Chairman has planned for him because those plans do not involve Elise.

My opinion is that the movie is linking the Bureau to quasi “guardian angels” or a “conscience” that is not supposed to be seen but who directs your life as it was intended to go and makes it seem as if it was your free will or chance that made the path lead to where it did.  The Chairman is God.  A God who is grappling with two distinct choices.  Continuing to try to direct how every event goes in the world through Determinism or allowing all humans to have actual free will.  Prior attempts to allow humanity to control its own destiny have led to the dark ages and world wars so the Chairman and the Bureau are very hesitant to allow free will to again rule. 

The movie ends with the Chairman apparently making the decision to allow free will.  Obviously this is not a ground breaking discovery on my part as it seems to be pretty obvious that this was the intent of the writers.  However, the movie made me think about how I view the world and the script of my life.  Perhaps my belief that man has free will, or at least mainly has free will, and that there is not determinism factor coming from a higher power is only my belief because I cannot see the higher power at work.  Perhaps there are more factors at work than my free will and the environment/culture in which I was brought up and in which I live today.  It is very conceivable to think that it is because there are guardian angels or bureau members swooping in to adjust some aspect of my present to ensure that my future stays on the correct path.  This does not mean that I do not have the final say in what happens, just that my final say might be influenced by factors that are unbeknownst to me.

Overall a very interesting movie and it really made me think.  Which is far better than most of the movies that I have watched recently. 

The Adjustment Bureau: Do We Possess Free-Will

In the argument of who controls our lives, compatibilism brings together the best of both worlds – parts of our lives are determined for us while we continue to have free-will.  The Adjustment Bureau does a great job putting this view into perspective.  Sprinkled with mystery and a dash of love, the movie does well in keeping audience interest while playing out a controversial topic.  David, a young and popular senate runner, meets Elise, an up-and-coming dancer, in the men’s bathroom on the night of elections.  A few months later, they meet again on a city bus – could this be a sign that they belong together?  As David soon finds out, the Adjustment Bureau has other plans for their futures.  Throughout the rest of the movie, David must struggle between the knowledge that everyone’s lives are predetermined and the free-will inside him that longs to change the future.

“You don't have free will, David. You have the appearance of free will.”

This statement made by one the members of the Bureau really struck me.  The rest of the dialogue goes on discussing that although we make small choices, like what toothpaste to buy, our bigger choices, like who we marry, are already determined for us.  We may seem free, but we really aren’t.  This is the determinism side of the argument, and, in terms of the movie, hints at the theological aspect – the “chairman” in the movie is assumed to be what we perceive as God.  Therefore, are we that helpless in our futures?  No matter what we do, what we say, what we think, we don’t control our future at all?  I can’t wrap my head around this notion because I really believe that we have the power to change our futures – nothing is written in stone.

David eventually gets to ask about why his family was taken away from him when he was young; his dad and brother were planned to be taken away in order to give him the desire to be in the limelight, but his mother’s accident was just that, an accident.  Throughout the movie he is constantly told that if he tries to change anything and succeed there will be numerous ripple effects and not only will his future change, but so will many others.  This idea that one action affects many others is something I do believe in.  Everybody and everything we do is connected in some way or another.  Ripple effects can happen by simply smiling at one person who is having a bad day.  It’s a beautifully complex notion, and it makes you wonder how everything you do affects someone else.  Think of it like the idea of time travel.  It is a common belief that we couldn't possibly travel to the future because it hasn't been written yet; some also say that we could travel to the future, but what we experience could change depending on how our present plays out.  On the other hand, we could travel to the past because it has already happened, but we could seriously alter the future (or our present) by doing something as simple as stepping on an ant.  This Back to the Future train of thought highlights how predominant the ripple effect is.

“Most people live life on the path we set for them, too afraid to explore any other. But once in a while people like you come along who knock down all the obstacles we put in your way. People who realize freewill is a gift that you'll never know how to use until you fight for it. I think that's the chairman's real plan. That maybe one day, we won't write the plan, you will.”

The last words of the movie provide some wonderful food for thought.  Should we just take what life gives us and say “well, that’s just the way it is”, or should we fight for what we believe is right?  A personal experience recently occurred that exemplifies this choice.  One of my professors has been having problems with the university about her employment.  She shared with us that the university has decided to let her go after this semester and on top of that she is not allowed to go on our study abroad trip in May.  Devastated and confused, the class asked her if there was anything we could do to help the situation or change their mind.  She said that she didn’t want us getting involved, that this was the way it was, and that this has to be a part of God’s plan.  That’s her way of handling the situation, and that’s completely fine.  I, on the other hand, believe that she should fight for her position and or have her students show their support publicly – like how David fought for the women he knew he loved and how his case worker helped him.  We have to at least try to take control of our lives, otherwise what’s the purpose of being?

Group Meeting #2

Sean Wykoski

The Adjustment Bureau

The Adjustment Bureau was an excellent movie. I found it incredibly relatable to the two topics we are discussing in this class. The movie touched on the topics of free will and determinism; whether or not we as humans are free to do as we want or if all of our big decisions are determined for us and we are just following a plan.

In the movie, David Norris had dedicated his whole life to becoming a successful politician due to the death of his family. When he meets a girl, Elise Sellas, they instantly fall in love. However, they weren't supposed to meet again. David discovers the Adjustment Bureau on accident and finds out about how they intervene with people's fate. They tell David that he is not to find Elise again because it isn't what the chairman wants. The chairman in this movie is what I believe to a reference to some type of deity. David spends 3 years looking and waiting for Elise when they run in again. Since he has broken from the Chairman's determined path an antagonistic force is applied in a last attempt to thwart David and Elise's love for each other. Thompson guilts David into making a decision, either David continues to be with Elise, but they both lose their dreams or he never sees Elise again and they both go on to become successful in their dreams. David state's "So much for free will" and Thompson replies that they had tried giving humans free will, but each time we seemed to ruin it through destruction and tragedy. This brought up the point the movie makes about free will. The Bureau stated that we have free will at times, like deciding what to drink or what toothpaste to buy, but that they handled our big life decisions. It made me wonder if free will does exist or do we just have the belief that it exists. It brought up the fact that even though we may feel free, the tiny things that happen to us are what keep us on a pre determined path. If there is a god, or "Chairman" as they call it in the movie, does this god have an ultimate plan for us that we are unable to diverge from or are we able to decide our own fate. I liked at the very end of the movie how David and Elise were able to prove that humans can handle free will by fighting for it. They loved each other and they knew that there was no way they could ever be happy without the other, so instead of giving into the Bureau's predetermined plan, they fought for their happiness and ultimately changed the Chairman's predestined path for them. I thought that the movie really brought out another way that I think about determinism and free will. I've always heard both ideas, but I felt that the movie did a great job of combining the two ideas to let people decide of one was actual or if it was just an idea.

The Most Sensible Position?

    After reading the assignments for the week I found the most sensible position to be compatibilism.  Which can be summed up best as a combination of free will and one or more of the factors of determinism.  The analogy used in the readings is that of a hand of poker.  You have no choice in the hand that you are dealt, but you do have a choice in how you play that hand.  The most sensible position should be a position that takes all of the positions into account and allows for one to still be religious and believe that God does have a plan for them while still allowing one to make choices that decide which road they take.  To only believe that ones environment growing up, or God is going to make all of the decisions for them in life is severely limiting what that person can achieve. 

     The strength of this position is that it still allows for a large amount of free will, which I still believe is the main writer of the script of life.  Where compatibilism becomes even stronger is that it factors in cosmological, cultural, and theological determinism.  One can still be in control of their choices in life, but also realize that cultural influences such as the environment they were raised can still play a part in how those decisions are made.  compatibilism takes the best of all of the theories and mixes them together.  Allowing for free will is paramount in a civil society.  Otherwise, one cannot technically be held responsible for what they do in life if they are not the one who has at least some say in their decisions.  There would be lawlessness if there were not any free will.  Free will is part of human nature and to believe that you do not have free will is to deny that you are human.

     I suppose one could say that the weakness of this position is the fact that it does not really choose a side but simply incorporates all of the sides.  While I believe this is actually a strength, I understand how some who are of the belief that God has a certain plan for them or that there life path can only take them so far due to their cultural or cosmological determinism may see that as a weakness. 

     I am looking forward to delving into these subjects even deeper and hopefully validating my original feelings on who is writing the script of my life.