I guess I'll give my opinion on the matter.

I've always believed that the biological state of a person's brain along with environmental factors are the only factors that shape a person's behavior. Neither of these are controlled by the brain itself. When, a person is first born, their brain is obviously in a state that the person has no control over. And as time progresses, the brain grows and learns based on what it experiences in the environment. Many people learn better than others and everyone learns differently than others. The reason for this is because of everyone's different brain state at birth imo. If that's true, then the brain never controlled the way it was formed. It was created, it grew, and it learned.

I think the factors that determine a person's brain are 1.) Innate factors, 2.) Environmental factors, and 3.) The way it learns from those environmental factors. Obviously the first two favors are out of the subject's control but some may argue that they control the 3rd factor. I don't believe people control the way they learn. Because the way a person learns is dependent upon its mental state at the time of learning. And a person's mental state at the time is dependent upon what its already learned. The things its already learned is based on its past mental state. - And the cycle goes all the way back to when a person was initially born with a preset mental state.

For example, from the moment I was born to today, I don't believe I controlled anything. I was given a particular mental state - which I didn't control.. And using that mental state, I learned from my environment -I didn't control the way I learned since the way I learn is based on my mental state - which I don't control. This process continued and I gained knowledge - which I didn't control. And ultimately, I used that knowledge to make decisions. And all those decisions are based upon factors all out of my control. The moment I was born to today, my personality was formed by layers and layers of things which I had no control over.

When I think back to some of the major decisions that shaped my personality many years ago, I can't see myself making different decisions even when the decisions that I made were bad. The only way I could have made a different decisions is if something from my environment changed the way I felt about the decision or if I was just born a little differently.

People believe what makes the most sense and cannot change their beliefs unless they are proven wrong by what they learn. Beliefs are what a person sincerely thinks is true and a person cannot deliberately alter his beliefs. They're just ideas that the brain genuinely holds to be true. And beliefs are a very significant factor in a person's behavior. All this further strengthens my point about uncontrollable decisions. For example, I sincerely believe everything I wrote above. The same goes for everyone's belief. I think the points I've made are all reasonable and if you disagree, let me know.

Edited to remove run-on sentences, excessive words, etc.

Completely agree.

I mean, if time were rewound, why would anyone choose differently that time around? Their preferences would be exactly the same as before.

But, not to be dramatic, that would mean that the first causal factors of the beggining of the universe would be exactly the same, right?  Because I would only choose differently if the factors that influenced me stayed the same.  This I think is a common flaw with determinism; it creates a causal chain that has to have an end and a beggining.

Why?  because a given point on a causal chain always has an effect (something after it) and a cause (something before it).  So you need to explain the logic of an infinite chain of events.

Everyone need to explain the logic of a big bang happening out of nothing. That issue is not exclusive to determinists.

The thing is though that my time rewinding example is not exclusive to determinists either. Because alot of time needs to go by for quantum randomness to have an effect. By rewinding time, the exact same scenario would take place once more, and there would not be enough randomness for us to change our preferences and actions.

...if I'm wrong tough and people would make different decisions despite being in the exact same scenario, wouldn't that suggest that our actions/how we carry out our will is dependent on randomness? Wouldn't that suggest that I, at least possibly, randomly decided to rob this bank, but may not have done so if time were rewound?

(I have already made a thread on this matter a while ago, by the way.)

Except... they don't.

When polled most neuroscientists do still beleive in free will... they just think it works differently.  I used to have a couple polls about this.  Trying to refind them currently.

A good book by a nueroscientist is

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/whos-in-charge-michael-s-gazzaniga/1100718450?ean=9780061906107&itm=2&usri=gazzaniga

A few loud ones like to decry freewill... but they actually are still in the minority... and focus solely on duality based free will and ignore basically all modern philosphy.   While making a number of assumptions about there research.

In reality, all the research in nueroscience definitly proves is that there are physical actions in the brain that exist before decision making happens.

So, in your mind, being "profitable" is basically making yourself happy?

obviously we are victims of our own nature...
still, if theres a creature thats close to have free will is the human race

Everything is dependent on things we can't control. Your logic is basically this:

We don't have free will, because gravity determines that we can't decide to fly. We don't choose what to prefer, but we choose what to DO. I can't choose to be in a good mood right this second, but I can choose what course of action to try to improve my mood.

Sometimes I respond to threads like these(free will allows me to waste time) and sometimes I just shake my head and continue living my life.

Your definition of free will doesn't apply to beings with limits. The world, our circumstances, physical limitations, etc, limit our options - but that doesn't take free will from us.

This.  Only this isn't even exclusive to modern nueroscience (basically all the sciences).  And even then scholarly thinkers have known that much for generations before.  Basically that large phenomena can always be broken down into something smaller and smaller and beyond.

I really hate how this new generation of scientific-influenced kids only believe in determinism because of a microscope.  It really shows how shallow, imo, their thought process is.  Nothing wrong with believing in determinism, but really science has very little to do, maybe even nothing, with the main thought behind it.

Good grief, now that is some serious nonsense. Ethnicity, location, appearance, intelligence, abilities, upbringing, etc. may limit or expand your choices, but they don't replace free will. Yes there are forces beyond our control. That is as obvious to a child as it is to me and you. But we are fully responsible for the choices we make. We are not cattle, we don't just decide which way to move based on how hungry we are.  We are presented with hundreds of choices a day and we make our decisions based on what we think is best in that situation. Our personal history gives us the knowledge we use to make those decisions.

Everybody seems to like simple examples. Ok here's one. A boy is born to a poor family in a poor community in a poor nation in Africa. At 10 years old his father is dead and is mother is sick and can't work to pay for medicine. He has no education. You might think he has no choice and is forced to either work or steal to provide for his family. But you would be wrong. He has many choices, good and bad. He could abandon his mother or find a mission to help. He could smoother her to death or pull her on a cart to a hospital and beg for help. He could pull her on a cart to another town and then to another until he reaches another country and so on until he reaches a nation with opportunities for a better future for himself and his mother who may or may not have survived the journey. There are so many factors that affect us, but they do not dictate us. We are free to choose.

Here's another one. A girl witnesses a bully force another boy to hand over his lunch money. The girl could try to intervene and stand up to the bully. Well that might be dangerous so maybe she could just tell on him. Or maybe she has defense training and feels confident. But if she did turn the bully in some people might make fun of her for being a snitch. Maybe she doesn't care what other people thinks. She could go up to the boy and give him advice on how to deal with bullies or share her lunch with the boy. She could tell her parents about it and ask what she should do if anything. She could start up an anti-bully student activist club that patrols the halls and alerts faculty. She could ignore it and go about her business like nothing happened. She could even think it's a good idea and bully other kids for their lunch money to make some money on the side.

We are not androids programmed to react only in one way. We are complex intelligent beings with souls. We choose to do what right or wrong. We are responsible for our actions. An abused child could grow up to abuse or council the abused or neither. Being abused is no excuse to abuse others. Free will is what makes us human beings. Animals may appear to be free, but they aren't making the kinds of complex decisions that we make. Choose what plant to eat is not the same as choose which restaurant to boycott.

We are free.