Now, this is a good question and I can't belive it has stayed a nodeshell till just now.

I am of two sides on this (of course).

On the one hand, the logical hand, I can't argue with determinism; cause and effect, cause and effect. I wish someone could inform me of something truely random, then maybe I could dump the determinism.

On the other hand, deep down in my heart I feel like I really do have free will. How can't I, I make so many choices in a day and most of them seem (if you don't think really hard about it) caused by nothing but my will.

There doesn't seem like any good way to reconsile the two either. You can take cause and effect back, back, back and maybe (just maybe) you get to a God, then maybe (just maybe) he gave us free will and there is the causality behind it, but ther are about 4.... billion maybe's in this last statement. Damn.

I thunk an interesting philosophical question on this subject the other day:

Suppose I'm riding in a car, with three friends. One person in another car intentionally crashes us. All five of us are killed.

There are several things that people might say about this incident with respect to free will:

No free will

God, or destiny, caused the accident. Why? Because it was destined. What about the driver of the car who intentionally smashed into my car? That was not intentional, it was God's will, or destiny if you like.

There is then another consideration to be made: this makes murder morally acceptable, because there are no evil actions, as we can't help what we do, since it's all part of the plan. This is a scary point of view, held by some Christian fundamentalists: they let their children play in the middle of the street, because if God decides to take them, who are they to complain. Obviously this logic is severely flawed, but what of God then? There are evil actions, God is by definition not evil, ergo there must be free will. Which brings us to:

Yes free will

The driver of the car caused the accident; it was intentional. Why? That driver made a choice to do so. But if it wasn't destined that we died, then why did God allow it? One answer is that God doesn't exist. In that case the discussion is over, as all our actions are decided by ourselves (getting in the car that would later crash) or other people (causing the accident).

In my personal philosophical musings, however, I am assuming that God does exist. I also firmly believe in free will. And I don't think the two are incompatible. I read in another node (can't remember which) on this subject an interesting proposition:

God does not create the future, he only knows it.

I tend to agree with this. I suspect God could mess around with things if he wanted, but generally doesn't. This is how free will and omnipotence/omniscience can be compatible.

I'm glad the question is of destiny or free will, not of destiny xor free will.

Indeed, destiny does not lie in contradiction to free will, nor does free will exclude destiny.

The truth, as usual, seems to fit in the middle. There certainly exist natural laws, and we cannot choose to break them: I cannot jump to the Moon no matter how well I train my muscles. The law of gravity does not let me jump.

That does not necessarily preclude me from getting to the Moon by other means (well, not likely for me at my age, but man has landed on the Moon).

We do have a choice in many matters. That means we have a free will. We do not have a choice in everything we do. That means our free will is not absolute.

What is often not considered in this type of discussion is that one of the limiting factors in our choices are our past choices.

Suppose a young person makes a choice not to spend 8 hours a day in the gym. A couple of years later, the same young person cannot choose to participate in the Olympic Games. His past choice limited his future choice. Most of the time, that's OK. Perhaps the same person can now enter and win a science fair, which he could not had he spent 8 hours a day in the gym (hypothetically speaking, I am sure some people could do both).

Thus, in many ways, we are the creators of our own destiny. Our present destiny, to a large extent, depends on our past choices. Just as free will, our destiny is not absolute: There are things we cannot change, but there still are many choices we can make.

One might say that free will and destiny are two faces of the same coin.

You can believe in "destiny" without adding God or any other supernatural entities into the equation.

First, my definition of Free Will: If you have free will you would have a choice of actions in a given situation, and if that situation could be repeated exactly your choice of action could vary.

So how is the choice of action made? The neural network in your brain reacts to stimuli (internal and external) and triggers a response. All this is influenced by a great number of factors, ranging from recent events and room temperature to hormone levels and "misfiring" neurons.

The key word in my definition of free will above is "exactly". All the factors that could influence your decision would have to be the same, down to the quantum level. Also, to ensure that the effects of a decision would be the same, the entire universe must be in the same state for the definition to hold.

If we believe in cause and effect and a deterministic universe, there is just one possible outcome and the consequence would be that you have no choice!

It seems that both "destiny" and "free will" are cases of Not enough Information