Man has the ability to exercise free will

Hello, I agree the primary nature of this debate should be that of science. I do not think that science is "mistaken" but will consider what you have to say…However you look at it; outside influences cause it to happen. Things don't decide to happen. A planet doesn't decide to orbit the sun. A tree does not decide to fall down. Our brain, like the planet and the tree, is a physical object, made of physical, tangible components. Therefore it should act in the same manner. Things only happen because other things cause them to happen. With your logic, we should be able to control the universe with our mind. We obviously can't. Does this make sense? Otherwise, things could happen for no reason, because they Caused themselves to come into existence, which is wholly impossible. The memory, the trial and error that has been learned, and many other things don't allow you to touch the flame. Do you have freewill, Fred? Tomorrow, go about your regular business skipping, wearing a pink tutu, singing Britney spears, while repeatedly stabbing yourself in the leg, and drinking gasoline. Can you? Get back to me on this one. Memory is not the only thing that controls what a person does. Innumerable factors are involved in this equation. You seem to only focus on memory. With your theory of using memory for helping rational thought, doesn't memory have some control over "rational thought", you admitted yourself that many of your decisions are based on memories. Can memories not CAUSE a "decision" to happen, then? "How, then, could man ever progress to the point where science is today if there isn't something more than the limited amount of thought processes that can be achieved with that beaker-full of chemicals?" Good question. Does any one person fully understand every single advance in technology known to man, or have the potential to invent all of them? Humans are social animals. How can ants, with EXTREMELY limited brains, build those mounds, and have an affective system of attaining food? Joint force. Humanity is big. Anyways, just because the brain is limited at some point, does not mean there are several possibilities. The chaos theory explains to us that the slightest change in an equation, the tiniest itty bitty change can make very different outcomes in the equation. Let us take all the numbers, let's say, 1-10,000,000. That is limited. But imagine all the near-endless solutions to using those numbers in equations. "Once "y" outcomes is determined, then we could predict the outcome of anything, even the future" AHA!...You are surfacing on a whole new area of such things as determinism. The chaos theory explains this too, though. This idea is on the very edge of chaos. Do you know what one of the main ways the chaos theory was discovered? Predicting weather patterns. They tried, but then found that the computer was rounding the tiniest little fraction to the nearest something or other (for there are infinitely many fractions within one unit). The weather equation was seen to turn out one way, but when the computer did the equation again later, the outcome was completely different. To conclude, a Human mind cannot possibly be predicted by a human mind, but IF there was some sort of entity, possibly a super computer that could factor in every variable in the universe, and knew every thing, every variable in play and in what existence they were, it is perceivable that the future could be predicted. Realustically, this is probably not going to happen. When we are discussing science, we must acknowledge evolution, don't you agree? Well…We know that at one point our ancestors were bacteria of some sort. Do bacteria have free-will? Or do you perceive that that was adopted somewhere along the way. The relevance if this is…We will not possibly fully apprehend our brains in their unimaginably complex state to which they are today, so the one way to go about it is to look at a simpler form of our brain. Scientifically, a Human is an animal. Animals obviously do not have fre-will, so we shouldn't either. If you truly to make this into a scientific debate, I can warn you that science is on my side. If you don't believe me, ask a scientist. In fact, let's ask the greatest scientist of the 20th century: "In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that ‘a man can do as he will, but not will as he will,' has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralysing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humour, above all, has its due place" --Albert Einstein out of spac