Free Will Essay example

What if every decision you thought you were making, was hypothetically predictable prior to you being consciously aware of which option you would choose? What if your control over your actions and decisions and thus the path your life will take is an illusion? What if free will is an extremely misguided belief humans have? Philosophy, psychology, neuroscience and several other disciplines have spent over two millennia, constructing hypotheses and theories, to then promptly contradict them or trump them with opposing views, with regards to the presence or lack there of, of free will. Hundreds of scientists and theorists have proposed ideas and built upon those to attempt to come up with an understanding of free will that allows for a tangible

As an outset, we should first get a clear understanding of what “free will” actually means. “A being has free will if given all other causal factors in the universe (genetic and environmental, physical and chemical…) it nevertheless possesses the ability to choose more than one thing” (Caplan, 1997) There are many different definitions of freedom, but the kind of freedom I want to address is one where an individual can do as he or she pleases even if bound by chains to the ground. This type of freedom is freedom of the mind from causal deterministic laws, the idea that every event is dictated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature. I think that the strongest argument for free will is

Your geography and you beliefs determined greatly who you are as a person but no one had a choice on that during their formative years. So there are so many factors and causes that affect freewill that’s not under the individual’s control. Let’s acknowledge that. In the context of life being a canvas you can visualize your life as a specific and unique individual pathway on the canvas of life with with different choices(options) available as one moves through time. At each moment in time, different choices are available to you within said predetermined path. The pathway is already predetermined because all time exist at all time all the time, but within each moment you’re are presented with certain set of choices (different set of choices are available at different point in time). These choices range from good to evil as far as their impacts are concerned. So this is why it makes sense to say true freewill doesn’t exist but we can make choices within the predetermined path we find ourselves in. If you think about it from a believer point of view, it’s basically God created everyone differently (predetermined path), with different gifts (drives) manifested through choices available to us at each moment in time. Evil and good are natural forces in this world which

It also depends on how we explain free will; free will in this case is how one acts out on their own will. Our genetics can determine how we can act. When our

Yes,if we don't have free will, why are we here? What is the point of life if we cannot choose our own paths? Yet from a purely scientific perspective, how is it possible that anything can occur without

Free will means that humans are self determined, and not subject to forces outside of their control. What free will tries to account for is that people are in control of many of their choices, thus they are in control of their own destiny. Some

Causal determinism is the concept that preceding causes give rise to everything which exists such that reality could be nothing but what it is. Science depends on this idea as it aims to find generalisations about the conjunction of certain causes and effects and thus hold some power of prediction about their future co-occurrence. However, in human interaction people assume each other to be responsible for their acts and not merely at the whim of causal laws. So the question which troubles philosophers is whether causation dictates entirely the course of human action or whether we as agents possess some free will. I will argue that free will is an inescapable illusion of the mind, something which never did nor ever could exist under

We cannot call that free will because we cannot be held morally responsible for our actions

Facts state that we are biological creatures made up of molecules that adhere to the laws of physics. If science is as reputable as we make it out to be, then the regularity of those laws determines how every single molecule in the known universe acts. As a population, humans are merely constructs of one vital organ, the brain- a supercomputer capable of naming itself. And this goes without saying that the human brain (the organ designated as doing the choosing in our everyday decisions) is made up of these exact same molecules. Everything humans think, do, or say, must come down to the behavior of these molecules according to the laws they follows. The concept of free will is based upon an illusion that people can choose their actions; however that is not the case. Due to the fact that the brain is composed of chemicals, neurons, and molecules that are subject to the law of physics, an individual’s actions become the result of the chemical and molecular changes within the brain. These changes are based on the biological makeup of the individual and the environmental factors the individual

Free will: the ability as humans to dictate our conscious decision-making. Does it exist or is it just an illusion, our every thought and action being decided when the universe was created? This question has puzzled philosophers for ages. There is no doubt that this issue makes those who ponder about the meaning of life even more unsure. If our actions are predetermined, what does this mean for personal and criminal responsibility? For respect, religion, morals, ethics, and the law? Our world has evolved based on the assumption that free will exists, so what are we to do if everything we have experienced can boil down to some simple (or maybe not so simple) chemistry and genetics? What happens if everything we believe in turns out to be just an idea?

There are many great philosophical ideas and questions that are known and of course unknown. One of the questions that really enticed my interest was the question of whether or not we have free will. I myself was once a believer of people having free will and doing what I want was my choice and my choice alone. However, after careful consideration and lectures I have been reversed in how I believe in free will. Is there any free will though? Many people would say yes there is and of course there are some who believe that free will is a fallacy and not to be believed. Whether or not there is free will is yet to be determined but what we have to go on and by is from philosophers and every person who has their two cents to fill in. In

In an article by Natalie Wolchover called “Is Free Will an Illusion? Scientist ,Philosophers forced to differ. There is a quote in the article that

The mind is beautiful, full of mystery and it leaves us full of questions for deliberation. Although scientists have come a long way, they are far from fully understanding our psyche. We live in a world where nature versus nurture plays a fundamental and crucial role in our predispositions, and by my definition, the lack of free will; despite the view of some who oppose whilst proposing other points of view.

My perspective of free will takes after that of the logician Daniel Dennett. Dennett is in some cases excessively sharp for his own particular great. You feel as though he's attempting to pull a quick one on you, as when he contends, in his 1991 book, Consciousness Explained, that awareness has been, very much, clarified, which I question even he truly accepts. Yet, in his 2003 book, Freedom Evolves, Dennett lays out a sensible, rational perspective of free will. He notes, initially, that free will is "not what convention proclaims it to be: a Godlike energy to absolved oneself from the causal fabric of the physical world." Free will is just our capacity to see, think about, and follow up on decisions; truth be told, decision, or even freedom,

Kant and Hegel felt that our free will gives us the ability to reason and should think through our mental abilities. Our choices that we make of the world obtains our desired result. These choices that we make are in our genetics that we have and the experiences make us who we are. Daniel Dennett is a compatibilist he believes that the only free will that we have is the free will that we think we have. If people feel like they have free will then they will have free will. Quantum Mechanics feel that our free will is that the human consciousness has super powers and that the universe hold the potential for the human conscious to exist. Some other quantum mechanics feel that protons and electrons take on random values and this makes up our free will. Buddhist feel that in order to have feel will that we must have freedom from physical necessity. We must not have constraints of the natural world. We need to have a duel view of reality for us to operate from the physical world when we are immersed into free will. In order for this to happen the pineal gland in our brain would have to have a connection to the physical world and the non-physical world. For free will to take effect in this it should only be one-way. Our will should be free and should not be acted upon. Frankenstein Argument says that we must create ourselves. We are only responsible for the person that we have created when we created ourselves. (Reeve, 2013)