I wanted to open this thread to invite an intellectual discussion on whether or not we have free will, or to actually define what free will means in a deterministic universe.

I'm aware of some neurological studies that show that we actually make decisions at least 10 seconds before we act on them, if so, that means that we really aren't in control of the actions that we make. Of course some of our autonomic responses(like flinching from pain) is processed before we are aware of it, but could it be that we do not have free will at all, our choices are really just an effect on the brain, and we are only conscious of our decisions after the fact?

It might take a degree in neurology or philosophy to answer this question, but I thought it would be an interesting topic.

Unless one has serious mental problems or is heavily under the influence of drugs, then yes one has free will.

Of course, this will is influenced in many ways (friends, family, culture). However, YOU make the final decision and bear the consequences

Your question is one I've been thinking about for some time. It seems that our brains try to make the best decisions that it can in whatever situation it is placed in.
That means that while we are not predictable, we have no true control over our actions.
Think about it this way, if one decided to jump off a bridge and time was reset to before (s)he jumped off the bridge the person would keep jumping off no matter how many times time was reset.
Every single one of our actions is dependent on previous knowledge and external stimuli. Since we can't predict external stimuli our actions are not necessary predictable.
Since we cannot respond to the external stimuli and past experiences in any other way than what our brains decide, we lack free will.

I think we do have free will. I mean, I'm not a neurologist or anything, but I think people do make their own decisions, even while they may be influenced heavily by their surroundings. People have their own personalities, morals, strengths and weaknesses, and although they are perhaps more likely to respond to a stimulus in a particular way because of who they are they can override their instincts and travel infinite possible paths through life. Sometimes, decisions are difficult, but I think in the end it's up to us. We can always change or change our minds. We make our futures. We make our pasts. We have the power to influence our world, for better or for worse.
I also suppose that since I'm not religious I don't really see where else our choices could come from except for from ourselves. It's an interesting point that sometimes we make decisions without thinking about them, but ultimately that is still born of our own instinct, I guess, and in a way it is also usually a choice to act before you think. I personally think a lot before I do most things, and sometimes overthink, but I am aware that this is not the usual method of teenagers. When I am in a conversation, I run possible responses and their consequences through my mind before I speak. When I have a choice to make, I consider the choices and their effects carefully. Sometimes, things still turn out for the worse, but the glory of free will is that you can make mistakes and learn from them. Living with free will means thinking for yourself, and realizing that your actions have an effect on your future. Living with free will means realizing you won't always be right, but it's ultimately up to you to try. I think everyone has a choice in the end, and that even while some things can feel out of control, there's almost always an alternative path, even if it's difficult to see, much less take. We create ourselves. We are what we do with the gift of life.

It depends on the intended meaning of free will, whether in an ethical, religious, or scientific sense. Ultimately, free will is the ability to make a definitive decision that either conforms to or defies ethical, religious, or scientific logic based upon a person's preference or resolve. Basically it is the human ability to resist or ignore instinct and psychological reflex such as fear, or anger. But there is a fine line between this and conditioning, such as when a dog can be taught to resist their instincts if only for a moment, or at least in the presence of their master. This is in fact the specie's adaptation to humans that allows them to learn the set rules of a house hold in order to receive food, affection, and assurance of shelter in order to prevent starvation, deprivation of touch, and poverty. This is not to argue that humans do or do not have free will, only proving we at least have less instinct.  
  

This is an old discussion and it's fun to see who says what.  I firmly stand in the "We have free will-ISH" department" and I make the poker analogy.

You are always in a situation where you have a limited number of options.  I cannot decide to go walk on the Alps right now or see a football game or go to the beach because I live in Michigan with no Alps, no football, and no beaches available.  I do have the free will to walk over and get a sandwich and eat that.  I can turn a light on or off and I can post in Vizzed as long as my computer still runs and I can type.

Options become available and become unavailable as I move through the dimension of time but I'm always able to do a small number of things.  Yes, I decide what I do and I don't believe in pre determination.  We weren't set on here to do stuff, our future isn't drawn out or written in stone somewhere and we are constantly evaluating and deciding what we're going to do because we do have control.

No god sits somewhere and decides for me if I'm going to get mustard or ketchup for my hot dog.  I decide that.

No god sits somewhere and decides who I'm going to marry for me.  I came up with that on my own.  Those little mundane things are all in my control and they add up to big life events which are also in my control.

Free will?  Yeah, within the confines of the cards.  You get five cards in poker and others at the table hold their own cards.  You can make things better but if you don't have much to start, you're in trouble.  

Hmm.. this is a very interesting question. I am not really some kind of expert here or anything but from what I currently know (or at least think) at the moment is that we all do have free will. I mean, we all can do what we want. Like I have the free will to choose to do some type of work and to not do any work. And again, at times, there can be things out of control where we are forced to do something. Like for example, lets say you have a job and you must do something to keep your job and you are forced to do it to keep your job. It is out of your control and you must do it to keep your job. That is when it confuses some people in thinking that we don't have freewill. However, we have the free will to actually not do it and just lose your job instead. I am not really 100% sure about this but maybe it depends on the situations or maybe not. There are situations out there where we must do something and there are situations where we completely have the choice to do something or not. But I still think we still got free will since we are allowed to think about something and choose what you at least WANT to do. Like, I have the freewill to choose that I want to do something however I do not have the ability to do it. If we do not have freewill, then we will probably be like robots who only does what they were programmed for.  Like if there is a robot programmed for cleaning, it does not have the free will to choose on whether it wants to do something else or not. But as for ourselves, us human being are not like robots and we can think on what we choose.

Well, I guess that is pretty much it here. I'm not 100% sure but I may be right or I may be wrong. This was a pretty good thread with some very good replies btw.

There is no free will.
This is, above all, a physical phenomenon.
Everything in the universe yearns to be stable. The less energy something has, the more stable it is. Therefore, everything is constantly looking to lose as much energy as it can (though nothing ever loses all of its energy as it is also receiving energy from other things). Likewise, processes that require less energy are more likely to happen than other, more energy expensive processes.
Our brain is no exception to this. What it does to save energy is generate patterns and follow them. Brains, given the chance, would exclusively follow the patterns they've learned; new patterns are only made when an outside source induces or forces the brain to do so.
Let me give you an example.
Sing the ABC song. Out loud or In your mind, it doesn't matter. If you know it, and sung it before, it should be rather easy, probably didn't require much energy or thought. You followed a pattern, that made it easy.
Now do it again, but I want you to skip C and L and then sing the last five letters in reverse order. It may not have been incredibly harder, but no denying you had to put more energy into it. The reason you deviated form the known pattern is because this text, an outside source, made you. However, if you sang the ABC's like that for a while, it'd become a pattern, too. Which'd make it as easy as singing the normal ABC's is to you today,
That's what your life is, you follow patterns and deviate when feedback form the outside world forces you to get onto another pattern that better fits the situation. Do you chose what pattern to switch into? No, you just switch into the one you know best, the one that's easiest to follow. The reason we have an illusion of choice is because of the enormous amounts of patterns we know and the constant feedback form the outside world. Yet we're always taking (or trying to take) the easiest mental path which is always one, and invariable. Different people will make different choices when exposed to the same situation but if the person and the situation are kept constant, the choice will remain constant too.
Imagine the following: I take a board with branching paths, and i put it diagonally. I then run water through it, and the water will take a given path (not at all coincidentally, the one that requires the least energy to travel). If I were to run the same amount of water, through the same board at the same inclination etc. (i.e keeping everything exactly the same) will the path it takes be different? No, ?it will all stay the same. Thought, as a physical phenomenon behaves much the same way.
What about taking a lot of time to consider options and take decisions?
Taking time or having difficulty thinking of something is what happens when there are many patterns, when one knows a lot or has experienced a lot making the board with the branching paths more complicated and long, but for a given situation and given set of patterns (like for a given board) the path that's taken is inevitably the same and doesn't depend at all on the water as it does on the board.
This however, doesn't mean that the universe is predetermined because some things truly are random, but that's for another wall of text. However the universe does determine us.I know it's hard to believe that we're just following patterns and decision making is just the time it takes for the pattern to reach a conclusion.
This is my hypothesis, of course, I'm open to objections on it. And there's always the mindblowing part: I didn't even decide to write this, I was just induced into it by my previous experiences and my surroundings, there was nothing I could do to not write this. As hard as it is for me to believe that, everything I know points towards it.