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Free will is a right given to us when we are born as human beings. However, depending on different circumstances that right can be easily taken away based on where you live, or the actions that one can do to them. In A Clockwork Orange, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the characters throughout both novels and films have controlled free will because of different circumstances.
There are various definitions of free will. Merriam Webster Dictionary defines free will as “voluntary choice or decision, or freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention”. (Merriam Websters Dictionary) Shaun Nichols, writer for Scientific American writes the following about free will:
“The debate over free will is one example in which our intuitions conflict with scientific and philosophical arguments. Something similar holds for intuitions about consciousness, morality, and a host of other existential concerns. Typically philosophers deal with these issues through careful thought and discourse with other theorists. In the past decade, however, a small group of philosophers have adopted more data-driven methods to illuminate some of these confounding questions. These so-called experimental philosophers administer surveys, measure reaction times and image brains to understand the sources of our instincts. If we can figure out why we feel we have free will, for example, or why we think that consciousness consists of something more than patterns of neural activity in our brain, we might know whether to give credence to those feelings. That is, if we can show that our intuitions about free will emerge from an untrustworthy process, we may decide not to trust those beliefs.” (Nichols)
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All of these are examples of how both Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep/Blade Runner and A Clockwork Orange are tied together. The reason that these two are so well tied together is because of the impact that the government has on the two films and novels impacting free will on all of the main characters. It is interesting about the theme, which ties these two together, and how the impact that the government has on free will and how it can be very relatable to the world today. It’s also interesting to read these two novels and watch the two films and then look what is happening in countries around the world and see how other governments control their free will and think about how the government played huge roles on free will in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep/Blade Runner and A Clockwork Orange for the main characters.
“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
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.
Free will is something that every man/women possess that only they have control over. Every day we make choices that positively or negatively affect us. I have seen people give up their own free will, only to take off the pressure of society, encompassing them and making the “second-handers” (Rand) free will is now loosely expresses and the true definition of the terminology is long lost. But, definitions are opinions and my opinion of free will is we as humans have a choice and it is up to us to utilize what we have available, we have the free will to do what we want. It is important to be free. It is important to make your own choices. And it is most important to be different.
Free will means the ability to do what you want when you want. Clockwork Orange refers to a person who is controlled, kind of like a robot. This is used in the story when Alex, the main character, is being experimented on by using the Ludovico
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Brave New World take place in dystopian futures. Technological advancements have been beneficial to society, but at the cost of the citizens’ humanity. In Do Androids Dream of electric Sheep?, Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter who kills Androids who have escaped from other world colonies. The Rosen Corporation creates the androids to mimic humans to a point where it is hard to distinguish between the two. In Brave New World, the World State is responsible for genetically engineering humans. These “humans” do not have any of the characteristics of a modern day human. Humans are emotional creatures. People in the World State lack all emotion, unlike in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, where the only distinguishing feature between humans and androids is human empathy. Technology is used to alter emotions in both dystopian worlds to a point where none of the people are genuine. In Brave New World, people are artificially created to be like machines that benefit society, whereas in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, both androids and humans have a presence and lack of humanity.
There are a lot of different things that come to mind when somebody thinks of the phrase Free Will, and there are some people who think that free will does not exists and that everything is already decided for you, but there are also people who believe in it and think that you are free to do as you please. An example that explains the problem that people have with free will is the essay by Walter T. Stace called “Is Determinism Inconsistent with Free Will?”, where Stace discusses why people, especially philosophers, think that free will does not exist.
I believe that all people do have free will but there are places that you live that you might not though. Take South Korea or any other dictatorship those people that live there sadly don’t seem to have free will.
Like I said before freewill is a topic that philosophers have argued about over the years. Most times when the question ‘do you have freewill?’ is asked, a lot of individuals usually say they are free even without thinking twice. Although there are a lot of philosopher that believe we all have freewill and there are also other philosopher who have spoken up and tried to prove their point that humans have no freewill. Philosopher that argue that humans have no freewill are called the determinists. The determinists argue
Anthony Burgess integrates many social issues today between the Government and People into Clockwork Orange. Many of the issues that Alex faces along with the government are relatable in today’s society. Within the story Anthony Burgess teaches us how people act and how the government works in a more brutal way, The Clockwork Orange expresses this through free-will, maturity and karma, and treatment of people.
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
Amidst a population composed of perfectly conditioned automatons, is a picture of a society that is slowly rotting from within. Alex, the Faustian protagonist of A Clockwork Orange, and a sadistic and depraved gang leader, preys on the weak and the innocent. Although perhaps misguided, his conscientiousness of his evil nature indicates his capacity to understand morality and deny its practice. When society attempts to force goodness upon Alex, he becomes the victim. Through his innovative style, manifested by both the use of original language and satirical structure, British author Anthony Burgess presents in his novella A Clockwork Orange, the moral triumph of free will within the controlling hands of a totalitarian society.
The most famous series of experiments to empirically address the problem of free will were those conducted by Benjamin Libet and colleagues (Libet, Gleason, Wright, & Pearl, 1983; Libet, 1985). He analyzed the timing of conscious awareness of movement, and concluded that voluntary action begins with unconscious activity in the brain. Libet’s findings have been replicated in several more recent studies, such as those by Soon, Brass, Heinze, & Haynes (2008) and Bode, He, Soon, Trampel, Turner, Haynes (2011). Collectively, these results have almost conclusively determined that the conscious decision to act is preceded by unconscious neural action; however, the application of these findings to the problem of free will is still a subject of debate. To some experimental neuroscientists (Libet, 1985; Soon et al., 2008; Haggard, 2011; Fried, Mukamel, & Kreiman, 2011), these studies indicate that free will, or the conscious will ...
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.
Free will is generally has two similar key points that revolve around it: moral responsibility and freedom of action. Free action is generally when an agent is exercising their free will. For example, let’s say a man named mark was deciding
In the novel A Clockwork Orange, the author Anthony Burgess tells a story about a young man name Alex and his friends, every night they go around and start committing violent acts. In the novel Alex expresses his freedom of choice between good and evil. The freedom of choice is a decision that every person must make throughout his life in order to guide his actions and to take control of his own future. This Freedom of Choice, no matter what the outcome is, displays person power as an individual, and any efforts to control or influence this choice between good and evil will take way the person free will and enslave him. In this novel the author uses this symbolism through imagery. He shows that through the character of Alex, and the first person narrative point of view to prove that without the ability to choose between good and evil person becomes a slave.