Free will versus rational decision

[bahman]

First lets to focus on the rational decision. Any rational decision is done in three steps: (1) realizing the options, (2) prioritizing the options and (3) picking up the best options.

Now we define free will: free will is ability to choose an option among a set of options.

As we can see there is a big difference between free will and rational decision. One is not biased and another is. One is free and another is not. One might not be rational and another might be.

This means that there is no room for free will when we make rational decision.

Your thoughts?

[OuterLimits]

Re: "realizing the options" - there are more options that one can understand than one has time to consider. There are also an infinity of options that one does not know about or cannot understand. Therefore, by this definition, can one truly make a "rational decision" ? The process is like wandering an infinite labyrinth. Due to biases or simply running out of time and energy, An imperfect and somewhat arbitrary "rational decision" is made.

[prothero]

What is it the will would be free from? the past, physics, desires, emotions?
The will is free from determinism, in fact the world is free from determinism.
The ability to do or have done otherwise, alternative possibilities for the future is the only degree of freedom.
The will is not free, the man does as he wills, but the man is free from fixity of the future (from determinism).

[bahman]

What is it the will would be free from? the past, physics, desires, emotions?

All of things that you quoted.

The will is free from determinism, in fact the world is free from determinism.

That is not very obvious. Things seems to follow deterministic laws of nature.

The will is not free, the man does as he wills, but the man is free from fixity of the future (from determinism).

How such a thing is possible if we accept that things evolve based on deterministic laws of nature?

[ken]

First lets to focus on the rational decision. Any rational decision is done in three steps: (1) realizing the options, (2) prioritizing the options and (3) picking up the best options.

Now we define free will: free will is ability to choose an option among a set of options.

As we can see there is a big difference between free will and rational decision. One is not biased and another is. One is free and another is not. One might not be rational and another might be.

This means that there is no room for free will when we make rational decision.

Your thoughts?

Is it only Me that understands that all these so called "one or the other" problems are actually not one or the other at all?

Both, free will and determinism co-exist equally; just like all these so called problems have truth in both "sides", which when looked at properly co-exist together in and as the one and only Truth.

Every person has free will but with deterministic factors. For example every person is free to choose whatever they like, thus free will exists and is true, but, they only have a limited set of choices to choose from, thus determinism also exists and is also true. What a person has to freely choose from is from a predetermined set of options.

Even your definition of 'free will' here fits perfectly with this idea and with your description of 'rational decision'. Free will is ability to choose an option among a set of options, and, 'rational decision' has three steps, all involving, as outerlimits so rightly pointed out, a set of limited options. Obviously we could only realize, priorotize, and choose the best option if we are totally free to do this. But just as obvious is there is only a limited set of options to choose from. Our thoughts are limited.

If there was an unlimited set of options to choose from, then there would only be free will, and, there would be no determined factors. But because there is only a limited set of options available to us, and thus to choose from, we are limited by choice, which will cause a determined factor. The only thing we can choose from is our thoughts, and, we only have a limited set of thoughts, which obviously we already have. These already pre-gained thoughts have come from previously pre-determined past experiences.

[Terrapin Station]

First lets to focus on the rational decision. Any rational decision is done in three steps: (1) realizing the options, (2) prioritizing the options and (3) picking up the best options.

Now we define free will: free will is ability to choose an option among a set of options.

As we can see there is a big difference between free will and rational decision. One is not biased and another is. One is free and another is not. One might not be rational and another might be.

This means that there is no room for free will when we make rational decision.

Your thoughts?

There is no rational best. "Best" is a preference factor. Once you have the preference in mind, you can rationally determine what will meet it, but the determination of "best" in the first place isn't rational.

Also, I don't know if you were suggesting that rationality isn't biased (or if you feel rather that free will isn't biased). Rationality is biased. It's biased, for example, by beliefs about what follows from what. In your example it's also biased by one's beliefs about what the options are. These are just a couple examples.