Free Will In The Film 'I Robot'

452 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: An essay on freewill

An anonymous source once said “Life brings lessons into our lives that come with free will. We can choose to be the victor or the victim”. In the film “I Robot” by Alex Proyas, one important subject is free will. Free will can cause people to do both, inhumanly things and good things depending on the situation. Free will is portrayed through many of the characters throughout the film, “I Robot”. Although free will is portrayed in the movie, it is a lot portrayed in real life. Americans have free will that they can either abuse or use for good. Throughout the film, the character Detective Spooner, shows free will by his actions due to the problems around him. Although he did not have to, Spooner continued onto the death of Doctor Lanning, having the free will to investigate his …show more content…

Although V.I.K.I is a robot, she still had free will to do things on her own. V.I.K.I felt she was protecting the human race by programing all of the robots to control the human race. V.I.K.I was smart enough to go around the three laws, therefore, making the robots fall under her control. Finally, Doctor Calvin showed free will when she saved Sonny, a robot, from death. Doctor Sonny has grown attached to Sonny and feels he does not deserve to die. She also feels that he is unique and was created for a reason. She fakes Sonny’s death with her own free will. In conclusion, life brings lessons into our lives that we chose to be victor or victim to. Detective Spooner has the free will to solve the murder of Doctor Lanning and bare arms against Sonny, the robot. V.I.K.I has the free will to program the robots to save the human race, making her fall victim to free will because she is using it incorrectly. Lastly, Doctor Calvin uses her free will to her extenet by saving Sonny from death. Overall, free will can cause people to do good things, but also destructive

Show More
Related

  • Theme Of Free Will In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

    1794 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Free will is the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion” (Dictionary.com). The novel Slaughterhouse five portrays the idea of not having free will. The award winning author, Kurt Vonnegut, tells

    Read More

  • Analysis of Roderick Chisholm's 'Human Freedom and the Self'

    1447 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Roderick Chisholm’s essay Human Freedom and the Self he makes the reader aware of an interesting paradox which is not normally associated with the theory of free will. Chisholm outlines the metaphysical problem of human freedom as the fact that we claim human beings to be the responsible agents in their lives yet this directly opposes both the deterministic (that every action was caused by a previous action) and the indeterministic (that every act is not caused by anything in particular) view of human action. To hold the theory that humans are the responsible agents in regards to their actions is to discredit hundreds of years of philosophical intuition and insight.

    Read More

  • Free Will And Determinism In Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome

    924 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some intellectuals believe that we only have free will and that it is our only way of decision-making in life. The definition of free will is “...the idea that we make choices and have thoughts independent of anything remotely resembling a physical process” (Nahmias). So, in turn, the action of turning a key, catching a ball, or playing the piano require mental processing and therefore, free will. In addition, free will improves people’s performances. According to Dr. Vohs, free will can guide people’s choices to being better performers and leads to healthy and wealthy life outcomes (Tierney). In the book Ethan Frome, Ethan has free will to leave Zeena and contemplates whether he should abandon her or not. In chapter eight, while wondering what he should do, Ethan thinks to himself, “Why should [I] not with Mattie the next day, instead of letting her go alone?” (97). This thought is purely his own decision to either go with Mattie or to stay home while she leaves to the train station, which exercises his free will. Ethan plans to take Mattie to the train station, but they take a long detour and visit nostalgic places across the countryside. When they are sledding down a hill on the outskirts of Starkfield, Mattie and Ethan decide that if they cannot be together, they would rather commit suicide. When they are sledding down the hill, Mattie tells Ethan she wants him to take her down

    Read More

  • Slaughterhouse-Five

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    Another good example of the lack of free will would be when Billy is about to die. Normally, someone would care about their death, but Billy does not. He locks up a tape in a safe-deposit box, saying "I, Billy Pilgrim, will die, have died, and always will die on February thirteenth" (180). Before he dies, he is giving a speech, and he knows that he will be assassinated.

    Read More

  • Pereboom

    1800 Words  | 4 Pages

    Human beings always believe that what they want to do is ‘up to them,' and on this account, they take the assumption that they have free will. Perhaps that is the case, but people should investigate the situation and find a real case. Most of the intuitions may be correct, but still many of them can be incorrect. There are those who are sceptical and believe that free will is a false illusion and that it only exists in the back of people’s minds, but society should be able to distinguish feelings from beliefs in order to arrive at reality and truth.

    Read More

  • A Case for Free Will

    2065 Words  | 5 Pages

    “He has finally learned to love big brother” was how George Orwell in his novel 1984 described Winston, conversion to the party are represented by big brother at the end of the novel. It is easy to believe that at this instance, after torturous reeducation that Winston has endured, he has lost free will and no longer be able to freely choose to love big brother but was forced to, against hiss will. Therefore Winston was never free to love big brother, and in fact not free at all after his “reeducation.” But if we are to accept a definition of free will that stipulates that we are able to produce and act on our own volitions we must accept that Winston has retained and has chosen to love big brother out of his own free will.

    Read More

  • Hard Determinism Disregards Agent-Causation

    1553 Words  | 4 Pages

    The question of whether people can choose their thoughts and actions or not has been a topic many great thinkers throughout history have thought about. Yet, despite countless arguments for and against it, no one has been able to prove whether free will exists or not. Free will is the ability to make a choice not determined by outside stimuli. The opposite of free will is determinism. Hard determinists argue that there is no such thing as free will; people don’t have the ability to choose freely, undetermined from outside stimuli. Yet despite many compelling arguments for the case, hard determinism disregards the unique quality of humanity. Humanity has the ability to think and reason, which ultimately gives them the unique attribute of agent-causation.

    Read More

  • Philosophical Exploration of Human Free Will

    1086 Words  | 3 Pages

    Choices that people make have a giant place in their lives. Most of us consider that we do these choices freely, that we have free will to make these choices. The point that most of us miss is free will is not simple as is it looks like. When one makes choices doesn’t he consider that what would that choices lead him to? Therefore does he make those choices for his benefits or his desires to make those choices? Does the environment push him to make those choices or does he have the free will to ignore his own environment? Philosopher and writes splits around those questions. There is different thesis, beliefs about free will. Some say that we are conditioned from birth with qualities of our personality, social standing and attitudes. That we do not have free will, our choices shapes up by the world we born in to. Some others believe that we born as a blank paper we could shape by the occasions or choices that we make freely. Marry Midgley on her article “Freedom and Heredity” defends that without certain limitations for instance our talents, capacities, natural feelings we would not need to use free will. Those limitations lead us to use free will and make choices freely. She continues without our limitations we do not need to use free will. Free will needs to be used according to our needs but when mentioning need not as our moral need as our needs to what could we bring up with our capacities. We need to use our free will without stereotypes. Furthermore free will should be shaped by the choice that would lead us good consequences.

    Read More

  • Free Will and Determinism

    1633 Words  | 4 Pages

    The problem of free will and determinism is a mystery about what human beings are able to do. The best way to describe it is to think of the alternatives taken into consideration when someone is deciding what to do, as being parts of various “alternative features” (Van-Inwagen). Robert Kane argues for a new version of libertarianism with an indeterminist element. He believes that deeper freedom is not an illusion. Derk Pereboom takes an agnostic approach about causal determinism and sees himself as a hard incompatibilist. I will argue against Kane and for Pereboom, because I believe that Kane struggles to present an argument that is compatible with the latest scientific views of the world.

    Read More

  • Slaughterhouse Five Free Will Analysis

    1084 Words  | 3 Pages

    If the accident is will”. This quote is from the anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut demonstrates one of the major and evident themes that are explored in the book. The most significant theme in Slaughterhouse-Five concerns the illusion free will. Over and over again, Vonnegut proclaims that there is no such thing as free will; humankind is the slave of predestination, meaning that all human actions are prescribed before they occur. A person who chooses to do an action is not really choosing at all — the choice has already been made.

    Read More

  • The Concept Of Free Will In The Movie Gattaca

    1385 Words  | 3 Pages

    Imagine starting your day and not having a clue of what to do, but you begin to list the different options and routes you can take to eventually get from point A to point B. In choosing from that list, there coins the term “free will”. Free will is our ability to make decisions not caused by external factors or any other impediments that can stop us to do so. Being part of the human species, we would like to believe that we have “freedom from causation” because it is part of our human nature to believe that we are independent entities and our thoughts are produced from inside of us, on our own. At the other end of the spectrum, there is determinism. Determinism explains that all of our actions are already determined by certain external causes

    Read More

  • Mind Body Dualism Essay

    898 Words  | 2 Pages

    Being a dualist I support the Theory of Free Will and I believe that the Free Will Thesis, some human actions are freely chosen and have no antecedent cause prior to the choice, to be true. I think the position I am relatively open to is Traditional Compatibilism, free actions are (1) caused by one’s will and (2) not eternally constrained. Why? Because I think what we do is always up to us, no matter that stakes are, even if we can’t be true to ourselves and admit it. The Thought Experiment Taylor’s Ingenious Physiologist backs up what I think. Taylor describe someone, let say that someone one is me. I am moving in various ways, my motions are not externally constrained, or impeded, they are all in accordance with my own desires, choices, act, etc. Since my behavior is entirely in accordance with my own volition, I am “free”. To make this graphic, let suppose that an ingenious physiologist can induce my

    Read More

  • final paper

    1022 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his writings, “Robots and Minds,” Lycan discusses that if a computer driven robot outwardly simulates human behavior, then the artificial intelligence truly has a mind that can process information and make its own decisions. (And if it can make its own decisions, then it should also be morally responsible for their own actions.) Lycan even gave two examples in his writings, Harry and Henrietta, where the two contrasting scenarios begged the ques...

    Read More

  • Freedom and Determinism

    2359 Words  | 5 Pages

    Freedom, or the concept of free will seems to be an elusive theory, yet many of us believe in it implicitly. On the opposite end of the spectrum of philosophical theories regarding freedom is determinism, which poses a direct threat to human free will. If outside forces of which I have no control over influence everything I do throughout my life, I cannot say I am a free agent and the author of my own actions. Since I have neither the power to change the laws of nature, nor to change the past, I am unable to attribute freedom of choice to myself. However, understanding the meaning of free will is necessary in order to decide whether or not it exists (Orloff, 2002).

    Read More

  • The Argument of Whether Robots Are Human

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Man is a robot with defects,” (Emile Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born). Humans' are not perfect, but we seem to strive for perfection, so who is to say that in the future robots will not out number the human race on Earth? In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the character Data is very much a robot and not human, being composed of inorganic materials but designed with a human appearance (an android), but does that make it just a robot? In the show it is proposed that for one to be a sentient being and a person they must possess three qualities, intelligence, self-awareness, and consciousness. In accordance to these three conditions it is obvious that the character Data is in fact a sentient being with the qualities of being a person.

    Read More

More about Free Will In The Film 'I Robot'

Open Document