I got a sudden urge to write this when studying the subject in my philosophy class. Didn't know what to do with it so I decided to post it here. There are so many distorted ideas out there so I decided to come up with my own. It would be very interesting to hear your opinions on this subject. Do you believe in free will?


My insane ramblings regarding free will™ v.1.0

Free will is in short the feeling that you can do whatever the hell you want in any given situation, within your power of course. There has to excist options for one to be able to exercise free will. Then the question rises as to what counts as options. Obviously there are some situations where options may just be a mere possibility not a probability. For example if you are being mugged and your choices are to get killed or give up your money. I wouldn't call that a choice, unless you are suicidal that is. But what if we never truly have a choice? Free will might just be an illusion, an opiate for the masses so to speak. Much like some people believe in a god, it seems that there is no need for proof to believe in free will.

I have some theories as to why we have this feeling. The most obvious one being that there actually is a free will. As I said this is impossible to prove as is it's opposite, predestination or similar theories. Another is that it has been hardwired into our brains through evolution over time. People with this sense of free will might have had a bigger chance of survival, since they felt that their actions had meaning. Also people that believed they had free will probably genrally felt better. And lastly, it really really feels like we have a free will. I think that almost all people (before they study philosophy) intuitivley feel that they are the masters of their actions.

The arguments against free will most often attack the fact that the actions must have began somewhere. The notion that an action is the result of a previous action and so on until before a person is concieved. Since you have no control over what happens before you excist you have no control over what you do now, because all of it is linked together. Though I do understand how someone would be happy with this explanation, I can not really sympathize with it. If you let your belief get swayed this easily, you might as well believe in reincarnation. Then we would have control over events before our birth. I say that these factors that are out of our control, are a big part in the decision process but do not control it entirely.

There also a view that says that all our actions are undetermined. They are not connected to any outside factors what so ever. What we chose is just a mere coin toss. All choices are random and have a equal chance of happening, and we have no power over them. This is just silly, and I can't see at all how someone could believe in this. The randomness is not so far out, but that everything would have an equal chance in the decision process is just retarded.

Another idea is that everything happens regardless of what we do. This is in my opinion is just a triviality since obviously, everything that happens, happens. Can't argue against that.

Now on to some more of my own theories. The first theory I tought of when thinking about this subject was that we are partly controlled by our instincts. Think about how an animal lives. They eat when they're hungry, drink when thirsty and sleep when tired. So what I think is that the more a decision is connected to an instinct the less power we have over it. For example breathing is truly essential for our survival so we do not really chose to breath. But choices like whatching tv versus taking a walk are more in our power.

The other idea is that there is an random factor in our choices. But the ratios depend on our urges, personality and so on. For example I could walk over and stab my neighbour in the heart with a knife, but I don't. Because I am not inclined to kill anyone the chance of that happening is astronomically small. The chance of me sitting here and continuing my writing is far better. Unless I get an urge to do something else, like take a piss, which might override the will to sit still.

The last theory is that we actually do not control our actions. But we control what kind of person we are going to be. The mental image I get is that you are travelling on rail, there are an infinite amount of rails running along side it. And you can chose to switch rails and face the difficultys on that rail, but you can not chose how to handle them when you reach them. As you can see these three theories work together instad of against eachother.

In the end what it all comes down to is what you want to believe, what makes you feel best. And I chose to believe in free will.


Feedback would be much appreciated