No, since robot cannot make decisions, nor choices. So robots, unlike men who can do things because they decide or choose to do them, cannot have free will.

Why do you say that? Why wasn't it possible, but I simply did not do it? It would not have been possible for me to sell those properties if I had not owned them, but I did own them. Here are two actions I did not take: I did not sell Connecticut avenue, and Vermont avenue, on the one hand, and I did not sell Park Place and Boardwalk, on the other hand. But I could not have sold Connecticut avenue and Vermont avenue because I did not own them. But I could have sold Park Place and Boardwalk, because I did have them. Are you saying that my situation was the same with both sets of properties? In fact, I did neither, but I could have done the one, and I could not have done the other.

This issue was brought back to my attention by my Christian cousin. She stated that "what you do doesn't matter anyway because everything is pre-determined by God". This, of course, is fatalism. It reminded me of something that another poster said in a past post of mines. The poster stated that, regardless of whether or not a god programmed humans to behave in the exact way that they do so that all of our actions and futures were pre-destined, we would still have free will. What do you think about that?

A robot can't make a decision? Can't a robot can be programmed to make decisions? My point is this. If we were programmed by a deity to rob a store at exactly 10:00 PM this Friday, would we still have free will?

A robot can't make a decision? Can't a robot can be programmed to make decisions? My point is this. If we were programmed by a deity to rob a store at exactly 10:00 PM this Friday, would we still have free will?

I think it depends from the point of view. There doesnt seem to be any sense into saying something has free will if you know exactly what it will do under any circunstance."

I think both is possible. It all depends on your perspective and the way time is treated in that perspective. An analogy is the wave-particle dualism. Neither is the absolute truth.
As long as we are caught inside our material perspective of linear time, determinism is impossible. The laws of physics conspire against it.
Mind you, that is not yet the same as saying there is a free will. Its just an necessary precondition without which free will would not be possible at all.

But what if you were a photon? Relative to the rest of the universe from you perspective you would move forward in time at an infinite rate. The future, any future would be now. All outcomes would be known. Cause would be simultaneous with effect and all the history of the universe compressed into an infinitely short moment.

Because by definition your perspective will always be limited to either a perspective allowing free will or one disallowing it. You can never have (or measure, in the analogy) both at the same time.

However, neither perspective is less valid than the other. They both exist.

We cannot be programmed. But if we were somehow forced to do something at 10 pm we would not do it freely, since we cannot be both compelled and free. Would programming compel us to do something we did not want to do?

I know that we can't be programmed in a natural world. I'm speaking hypothetically, here. If a god programmed our brains so that me and you will rob a store at 10 PM this Friday, would we still have free will? Being programmed to do things according to another being's will would mean that our will is an illusion and not really our own.

Suppose you knew that I was going to brush my teeth tomorrow morning when I wake up. Does that mean that I would not brush my teeth of my own free will?

I know that we can't be programmed in a natural world. I'm speaking hypothetically, here. If a god programmed our brains so that me and you will rob a store at 10 PM this Friday, would we still have free will? Being programmed to do things according to another being's will would mean that our will is an illusion and not really our own.

If we are programmed, then are we compelled to do what we are programmed to do? I don't know the answer to that question. But the answer to your question depend on the answer to that question.

If by program one means input, action, output...then certainly we are all programmed by, whatever...(Nature, God, One)

No, what matters is whenever your decisions are so simple I can always predict then, or not. In that scenario, I would only have been given an insight in your mind, that would not negate your free will. But if my perception was expanded to the point where I could understand how your mind works with perfection, and therefore predict you with perfection, then you would no longer seem to have free will to me.

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I don't quite understand how you are defining "fatalism". It seems to me that you are just identifying fatalism with determinism. I don't see what is the point of doing that, but if you are asking whether determinism is compatible with free will, I think the answer is yes. Why would you want to erase the distinction between determinism and fatalism, though? Anyway, determinism does not say that future events are inevitable. That means that future events cannot be avoided whatever you do. But haven't you already said that is false? What you are asking is, if determinism is identified as fatalism, is there free will, and the answer is, of course not, since fatalism is incompatible with free will. But that does not mean that determinism is incompatible with free will.

Why would that be, I wonder? Of course, whether I have "free will to you", and whether I have free will, are two different things.

Indeed, they are. Like I said, we can draw a line to separate what has free will of what does not, thus making the concept be absolute rather than relative. I dont think a clear line exists right now.

I have free will, trees do not. What is the problem?

Its easy if you choose something like a tree. Now tell me about robotic replicas of our brains, clones, chimpanzes, etc.

The fact that there may be some intermediate cases when it is not clear whether a kind of thing has free will or not, does not mean that there are no absolutely clear cases.

I think that you would have to take all these cases you mention one by one, and try to decide whether they were compelled to do what they do or not. For, example, take chimpanzees. They are in general (I think) not compelled in any way to choose to do as they do. So, they they do those things of their own free will. On the other hand, I don't think that robot can make choices, so the notion of free will does not even apply to them. You have to remember that the notion of free will is clearly applied only to people, so that when we try to apply the notion outside of people, we are doing so only by analogy. So it is unclear just what we mean by saying of things other than people that they have free will or not. And that is something that has to be cleared up first.