The Paradox that is Free Will
You’re as free to not read this as I’m free to not write it.
Why do you think you have free will? Are you free enough to not read this and if you were to stop reading it, do you think you were free to make that decision? Let’s see how we understand free will. Most of us believe that if we’re given a choice or a decision to make, that we are free to make a decision on our own. But, is that really true? What are the different ways that we could make a choice? Let’s dig deeper into this. If we were to make a choice/decision, we could make it either deterministically or randomly or a combination of both. Let’s try to pick them apart one by one.
If you were to make a decision deterministically, that means you evaluate your choices and and then make a decision based on a procedure. But, where is free will in that? That decision is made by an algorithm. What’s your role in it? If you were to argue that you made the decision of choosing an algorithm to make that decision but, did you? You probably chose that algorithm because you have a belief around it. Your beliefs depend on what kind of person you are. And if you think you choose to become what kind of person you are then, think again. You did not choose your genes which determine a lot of your qualities. You did not choose where you were born and how you should be raised, which determines a lot of your behavior. You did not choose what different events are going to happen to you which shaped you into a person that you are today. Then how exactly were you free to choose your beliefs? And if you did not choose your beliefs, you are not free to choose the algorithm you use to make a decision.
A second possibility could be that you made the decision randomly. But, how are you free to make that decision? If you choose something randomly, you might as well have rolled a die. Even in that case, you did not make a choice, the die did. The third possibility is that you use a combination of both deterministic and random procedures. But, if neither one of them reflects any degree of free will on their own then, how can free will emerge from any of their combinations? Free Will seems to be unaffected by the complexity of the algorithm used to make a decision.
Our brain is the source of all our desires. And, the more we learn about our brain, the more we realize that are brain is nothing but deterministic biochemical reactions and the only source of randomness is the spontaneous decay of atom. You don’t get to choose the rules by which the chemicals in your brain interact, you don’t get to choose the external stimuli by which those reactions are affected. That means you don’t even get to choose your desires. If free will exists, it doesn’t seem to be a part of our brain.
It seems like that ‘Free Will’, in the real sense of the term, doesn’t exist. But, I’ll leave you with this: “What will happen will happen” which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of this world, it is not an excuse to do nothing.
