[Physicist]

I should add, by the way, that none of this actually means I don't believe in Free Will. "Free Will" is, by my definition, that process by which I make conscious decisions. It's just that I have noticed that my decision-making process is a lot more deterministic than I expected.

[Alamo-Girl]

Seeing y'all discuss free will reminds me of Max Tegmark's article on Parallel Universes where he begins:

Is there a copy of you reading this article? A person who is not you but who lives on a planet called Earth, with misty mountains, fertile fields and sprawling cities, in a solar system with eight other planets? The life of this person has been identical to yours in every respect. But perhaps he or she now decides to put down this article without finishing it, while you read on.

[PatrickHenry]

Headline from the Pennsylvania Gazette: BIZARRE LAB INCIDENT

Physics professor, noted for his determination to prove that humans have free will, was taken to the campus emergency room after he was discovered to have been overcome by what one physician described as an extreme case of "colonic shoe intrusion syndrome," which he declined to describe further. After briefly regaining consciousness, and being asked what had happened, the stricken physicist mysteriously repeated William Wallace's final cry: "Freedom!!"

[js1138]

I don't think the philosophical problem of free will can be solved, but operationally, the sense of free will is most noticable when we engage in non-coerced, non-habitual activity. Dreaming dreams of things that are not, but might be.