I liked the first three. The last two were … meh…! I thought they did a fair job with the movies as well. I don’t generally like the movies after reading the book, but I did enjoy them. I’m not looking forward to the new stuff at all. Why ruin a good thing?
The 1984 version of Dune was a bit of a mess,. Just about impossible to understand if you hadn’t read the first book. I still quite like the movie. Probably a mistake. With the available technology I think Dune was pretty much unfilmable.
I enjoyed the three part miniseries in 2000 in its own right. Looking forward to the 2021 TV series in the same way. I find it hard to imagine a TV series based on the books will not be a disappointment if taken as a book adaptation. The material is far too complex in my opinion…
David lynch, the director, was so annoyed with the 1984 final cut that he had had his name removed. Hence, we see the director’s name as ‘Alan Smithee’, the generic name used when directors won’t allow their name on a film.
I did a bit of looking around to find out what upset David Lynch. All I’ve been able to find is a report that Lynch hated the inclusion of the written prologue. I think it’s essential to help people understand the film.
To me free will is shooting your neighbor, knowing you’re not going to prison, and the law doing nothing about it.
The free will is deciding to do the shooting, and acting upon it. The part of knowing you won’t rot in prison (but perhaps being killed yourself by an angry mob) is a secondary effect of anarchy. OK then, it might illustrate the free will of the angry mob.
I suppose I’m thinking that free will would consist of zero consequences. You can do what you want kind of thing if you’re not going to get persecuted for it. And even if we did do what we wanted, I think we’d feel horrible and guilty.
But mainly why I think that we don’t is because we have Act Equals Consequence or the moral dilemma of right and wrong keeps us from doing what we want. Thus we really don’t have free will. We’re a slave to our morals and morals being what society would say is right or wrong.
I could be wrong and thinking that it factors into not having free will. But it’s the best example I’ve got.
freewill - a last will and testament you manage to get drawn up, without having to pay for it
Just kidding
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Having free will does not mean you must act upon everything that occurs to you. Thinking about the potential consequences and judging whether they are too high or too risky, and judge if the gain/cost is high enough, and then acting upon this information is also under free will.
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Free will is very problematic when trying to fit it into any sort of theology. Even when it came to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they would try to excuse God’s future-telling powers by saying some apologist variation of “God selectively chooses what future events he will know or see”.
It’s just kind of silly when you take more than a second to think about it at all.
I have free will. Completely free. 100% free will. That’s why I chose to give it up. It’s just too damn hard making all those decisions.
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I have often thought about free will, as it seems very relevant to a paramedic’s work . . . especially when pondering the consequences of things like alcoholism, drug addiction, and so forth.
I have been tempted to invoke quantum mechanics in the discussion of free will . . . and if you follow my reasoning, you’ll see how I got to this seemingly absurd relationship.
People want to believe that the Universe is deterministic. By this, I mean that people believe that if you calculated air resistance, the force of gravity, the surface of a table, and the hieght of your hands . . . that you could figure out how the dice would land when you throw them.
We all know that these factors would never be completely known, but if they could be known, then you could predict the outcome of a dice throw.
Yet it’s not true! Not even in theory!
It is beyond the scope of this forum post to delve into the quantum mechanics of randomness, but there is an element of randomness built into the “grainy texture” of the Universe. This randomness is both measurable and quantifiable, and is partially defined by a quantity called “Planck’s Constant.”
This randomness has real world consequences, such as the point that it’s impossible to drop a perfect billiard ball onto another billiard ball, and have it bounce up and down indefinitely. Even under perfect and precise conditions, we can never get more that 7 or 8 bounces before the ball rolls away (this can be calculated mathematically).
What does this have to do with free will?
I think this means that conciousness and free will come from this randomness . . . which is like that old saw about a donkey starving to death because it’s left between two perfectly identical piles of hay and can’t choose one over the other. This randomness–in my mind–is why the donkey will always pick one pile or the other.
This idea also explains why computers have not–at the time of this writing–attained consciousness and free will.
A computer–given a problem similar in concept to my donkey’s dilemma–won’t choose one pile over the other, which is why a computer can get in trouble when it’s stuck in a feedback loop from a programming error.
Well of course if you really know God, then you understand that free will has been predetermined…
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Free Willy? Never saw the movie, but I heard it was “inspirational”…Wait… Oh, my bad. Free WILL… Oops. So, anyway…
Hmmm… 
… Let’s seeee… Based on what I was taught, God (of the bible):
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Knows EVERYTHING. Past. Present. FUTURE.
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As such, God knows everything about ME and every single person who has ever existed and who will ever exist. And he knew LONG BEFORE we ever existed.
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Eons before I was ever born, God knew EXACTLY every encounter/experience I would have in my life. He knew EXACTLY how I would react. He knew EXACTLY how I would think/feel. Even as I type this post, God knows EXACTLY what I will type, even BEFORE I know what I will type.
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God is perfect, and he has a PERFECT PLAN for humanity.
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NOTHING can change that plan. NOBODY can do anything to change that plan.
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EVERYTHING that happens is done as part of God’s Perfect Plan.
But, uhhhh, sure. You have Free Will to do whatever you want to do and make whatever decisions you want to make. 
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“Free Willy” “Free Willy” Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha… He said “Free willy!” Last time I did that I spent three days in jail and soiled a perfectly good trench coat.
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My willy certainly seems to have a free will at times.
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