Sorry guys, it's been a while since my last post. So without further ado, here goes:
Do we have free will? Can we truly make our own decisions, independent of any stimulus? Or are we simply reactive machines, incapable of accomplishing anything that can truly be called original? I say, if you believe in a purely physical, rational universe, then no, we do not have free will. Think about it: if you subscribe to the belief that the universe is controlled only by the laws of physics, then that means from the moment of Big Bang, if one knew the original directions and forces of the original particles of matter and energy, one could theoretically predict everything that would happen in the universe from that point onwards, right down to what you decide to have for lunch today. "But that's preposterous!" you might say. "I make random decisions all the time." I say that no decision is random. Decisions are composed of thoughts, which, when you break it down, are nothing more than a simple physical phenomenon: electrical impulses travelling along neuron pathways in our brains. The question of which pathways become developed enough for electrical impulses to travel along them, and thus the question of what we think and when we think it, is determined solely by two variables: heredity and outside stimulus, both of which are completely out of our individual control.
One might argue that memories also spark thoughts, but memories come from experience, and every experience you've ever had is a consequence of where, when, and how you were born, more variables over which an individual holds no sway. Thus, we cannot make a random decision that truly originates within our own mind; what you decided to have for lunch today may be the result of a subconscious memory of a tuna sandwich you ate 5 years ago, and if someone had a detailed enough model of your brain and all the stimuli going into it, they could predict literally every decision you will ever make, every thought you will ever have. The fact remains that the original particles were set in motion at particular angles with particular amounts of force, and our world today, indeed what goes on inside our very minds, is nothing more than the completely predictible culmination of the countless trillions of trillions of trillion (etc.) of physical reactions of those particles. Now you might say, "Wait a minute! Just because the future can be predicted doesn't mean I don't have the freedom to choose. It just means that the outcome of my choices is already known." In response to this conjecture, I present you with a theoretical scenario. Suppose you were with someone who could see the future just as normal people see the past. Now suppose that person pointed at a door told you that, in exactly 5 minutes, you would walk through it. You have no way of changing the fact that you will walk through the door; you have no control over the course of your life, and thus no free will. So I say that if you do not believe that there are forces at work in the universe outside the realm of physics, then you must believe that reality exists as a single, undeviating, purely sequential chain of events, and that the concept of free will is nothing but an illusion cast by our own minds.
As a disclaimer to this physical/metaphysical approach to analyzing free will, I feel I must at least touch on the subject of quantum mechanics. If you know anything about quantum mechanics, then you might say that my analysis is invalid; the field has shown that in our universe, many phenomena are random and spontaneous in the purest sense of the word. However, at least with respect the analysis of free will, this doesn't really change anything. Even if some events in our universe are truly random, they are still completely beyond our control as individuals, and they happen well below the level of complexity on which, say, our consciousness operates. Whether the universe is completely predictable or is in some cases probabilistic, we are still slaves to the reactions of our universe. We are the reactions of our universe
