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Does Free Will Exsist

In: Film and Music

Submitted By sexy21
Words 621
Pages 3
Leslie Jordan
April 19, 2010
Paper 5
Does Free Will Exist?
The idea of free will has always been a very interesting topic for me to discuss, because there really is no wrong answer of if free will exist or not. No one can provide proof of us having free or not unless they can talk with God and we all know that being able to actually talk to God and he actually respond is considered “crazy”. I believe that if you believe you have free will than you have free will. As children were always told that you can do and be whatever you want as long as you believe so I figure the same rule applies to free will. I am discussing the idea of free will with in the character Billy Pilgrim. The Tralfamadorians live with the knowledge of the fourth dimension, they believe that all moments of time are happening and taking place simultaneously. Because the Tralfamadorians believe that all moments of time have already taken place; they also believe their life path has been predetermined and they have no control over it, therefore causing the aliens not to believe in free will and finding it strange that humans do.
According to the Tralfamadorians earthlings are the only species that believe they have free will, humans for some reason think of time as a linear progression. Most humans believe they have control over their lives and their destiny. Billy seems to have no control in his life or any free will at all throughout this novel, his free will is constantly being challenged. In one instance he was drafted into the military war against his free will. He has no control over where he time travels to or what may or may not happen in that time. When Billy is abducted by the aliens he asked “Why me?” The Tralfamadorians responded with “That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?”
“Yes.' Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three lady-bugs embedded in it.” “Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.” (SLF) To the Tralfamadorians free will is simply an illusion and time doesn’t exist. There is no reason to ask why because there is no answer because it is what it is. In Christian beliefs we are told not to question God because he just is and that is how the Tralfamad orians view life and time. They wouldn’t even know the words free will if it weren’t for the earthlings.
As I stated earlier the concept of free will is a very interesting topic to discuss because there is no wrong answer. But it is obvious that in this novel Kurt Vonnegut wanted to challenge the idea of free will and he did because there really isn’t an instance in the novel of one person having free will. Billy had no control over anything that had happened in his life. Now we could say that maybe he did have control but he did something in his earlier life that caused a domino effect causing what happens in his future or it was simply going to happen anyway, but the thing is no one really knows. And I honestly like it that way. Humans just want to believe they have free will so that they can feel some control over their lives, fate, and destiny. And Billy did not his fate, life and destiny has already been predetermined even his death.

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