What is free will?
As far as I know, it is the freedom for an agent to choose.
How free is free?
Some notion of “absolute physical freedom” is unlikely, as we seem to be bound to this planet in our bodies, although technology helps.
But what is “wanting”?
There are no limits to what you could want.
What you want may or may not exist even. You’re not bound by physical rules when you imagine. Make plans. Have hopes and create scenarios in your head that are not real.
You can imagine things you don’t want or that you believe simply are or aren’t.
Having a will does not mean to having the way.
Usually, though, free will means the ability to make choices. Mother makes choices. The child makes choices here.
The mother creates a scenario that encouraged a response at that time. The timing had to be perfect. If it was after he had eaten too much candy and had a bellyache, this could have still been a response but a few other responses come to mind.
We to tend to operate on Scripts. Much of life is a choose-your-own-adventure, but we have piles of scripts to choose from in every situation – but we are not BOUND by these Scripts.
You can make choices that are not on paper, particularly when you are in a situation that is unfamiliar and foreign and you are unprepared for.
So what’s really happening in the child’s head? And of course there’s the question of right and wrong here which takes the conversation in another direction, which I expect most people will take rather than a free will discussion. But I could be wrong. And the ability to be wrong is a precious gift. There’s a lot of freedom in that.
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