The question of free will is a big one, affecting everything from our ideas about right and wrong to how we treat each other and our own feelings of accomplishment. It feels like a fundamental part of being human – the idea that we make our own choices and could have acted differently in the past. But what if that feeling isn't the whole story? According to these excerpts, free will, as we commonly understand it, is an illusion. It's not that our experience of making choices is completely false, but rather that we might be mistaken about the true origins of our thoughts and actions. The core idea here is that our thoughts and intentions seem to pop into our conscious minds from a place we can't see or control. **Where Do Our Choices Come From? The Unconscious Mind** Think about it: how much of what goes on in your brain are you actually aware of? Very little, it turns out. We might notice a thought or an intention appearing, like deciding to have coffee instead of tea, but we don't know _why_ that specific thought or intention arose at that moment. It just seems to happen. Scientists have even done experiments that seem to support this idea. Studies using EEG and fMRI have shown activity in the brain related to a decision milliseconds or even seconds _before_ a person becomes consciously aware of having made that decision. More recent work measuring neuron activity has also shown that decisions can be predicted before we're consciously aware of them. These findings are tricky to square with the feeling that _we_, our conscious selves, are the ones calling the shots. It suggests that our brain has already figured out what we're going to do before we consciously "decide," and then we become aware of that predetermined outcome and feel like we're making the choice. This isn't just about simple things like choosing coffee. Even complex conscious planning and deliberation, like deciding to see a physical therapist for back pain, happen because of underlying processes we aren't aware of. The conscious thought appears, but where did _it_ come from? We don't know. **Looking Inward: Introspection Doesn't Help** Sometimes, we might think that by looking closely at our own minds (introspection), we can see the evidence of free will. But try it – pay attention to the next thought you think. Did you _choose_ that thought? Or did it just... appear?. The feeling of being the author of our thoughts and actions seems to be an illusion, or at least, it doesn't correspond to the subjective reality of how thoughts actually arise. Our intentions seem to arrive already formed; we don't create them. The feeling of freedom often comes from not knowing the reasons for our thoughts and actions in the moment. If you had a perfect scanner that could predict your thoughts and actions a few seconds before you were aware of them, even though you'd still _feel_ free in the moment, the fact that someone else knew what you were about to do would expose that feeling as an illusion. This suggests that our feeling of freedom is tied to our ignorance of the underlying causes. **What About Determinism and Chance?** Philosophers have long debated free will, often using terms like determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism. Determinism suggests everything is caused by prior events. Libertarianism (not the political kind) believes human agency somehow escapes this physical causation, sometimes involving concepts like a soul. Compatibilism claims free will can exist even if determinism is true. The view presented here leans towards determinism – the idea that unconscious neural events, determined by prior causes we don't know about, lead to our thoughts and actions. Even if we consider the idea of a soul, if you don't know what your soul will do next, you're still not in control. What about chance or quantum uncertainty? Some suggest randomness in the brain could leave room for free will. But if your decision was due to a random event like a neurotransmitter release, how would _that_ be the exercise of _your_ free will?. Random events are by definition things you can't take responsibility for. Imagine your life being a series of random thoughts and actions – it wouldn't feel like having a mind at all. So, neither being completely determined nor being the product of random chance seems to support the idea of conscious free will. **Is Compatibilism the Answer?** Compatibilism is often seen as the most "philosophically respectable" way to defend free will these days. Compatibilists often argue that you are free if you can act according to your own desires and intentions, without external or internal pressures forcing you to do otherwise. For instance, if you want ice cream and nobody is stopping you, eating it shows your freedom. However, the argument here is that this definition changes the subject. The freedom most people _feel_ they have is being the conscious source of their thoughts and actions, not just the ability to act on whatever desires happen to arise. The crucial part is that we don't control where those desires and intentions come from. You might want to eat healthily, but also crave a donut. Where is the freedom when one desire wins out over the other for reasons you don't understand?. Compatibilists might say that everything your brain does, conscious or unconscious, is "you". So, if your brain decides something, _you_ decided it, and that's where the authorship comes from. But this view disconnects from the subjective feeling of being a conscious agent. We don't feel responsible for unconscious bodily processes like making red blood cells. Why should we feel responsible for unconscious brain processes that lead to our thoughts and actions?. The feeling of agency is tied to our conscious experience, and that's what seems to be the illusion. It's like saying a puppet is free as long as it loves its strings. **But My Choices Matter!** Does giving up the idea of free will mean we are just passive observers and our choices don't matter? Not at all. The text clarifies that determinism isn't fatalism. Sitting back and doing nothing is itself a choice with consequences. Our decisions, intentions, efforts, and goals are real, causal states in the brain that lead to behaviors and outcomes in the world. If you decide to write a book, that decision is the primary cause of the book existing. The point is that while your choices matter, they arise from the complex interplay of prior causes you didn't create. Think about trying to change your life – maybe lose weight or start a new habit. You can make conscious efforts, and sometimes they succeed. But why were you able to make the effort _this_ time, when you failed before?. The capacity for effort and discipline itself seems to be something you have (or don't have) in the moment, influenced by factors you don't fully control. Even when you try to shape your future by setting goals or making plans, the tools you use (your current mental state, your knowledge) are products of your past. So, while we can certainly do what we decide to do, we can't decide what we will decide. The origins of our choices, efforts, and intentions remain fundamentally mysterious to our conscious minds. **What About Moral Responsibility and Justice?** If free will is an illusion, what happens to our ideas about moral responsibility, sin, and justice?. The idea that wrongdoers _deserve_ punishment often relies on the belief that they freely chose to do wrong and could have chosen otherwise. However, the text suggests we can still have a functioning justice system without believing in free will. We can still distinguish between voluntary actions (accompanied by conscious intention) and involuntary ones. The conscious intention to harm someone tells us a lot about a person and how they are likely to behave in the future, which is crucial for assessing risk and protecting society. Consider different cases of violence: a young child, a victim of abuse, a person who kills impulsively, a psychopath, or someone with a brain tumor. Our moral judgments and feelings of outrage naturally shift based on the causal factors involved (age, history of abuse, presence of a tumor). The brain tumor example is particularly telling – if violence is caused by a tumor, we see the person as a victim of their biology and don't hate them in the same way, even though their subjective experience might have been similar to someone without a tumor. The argument is that as we understand _all_ human behavior in causal terms – tracing it back to genes, upbringing, environment, etc. – it becomes harder to maintain the idea that anyone is the ultimate, independent cause of their actions. This recognition should lead our moral intuitions to shift. Instead of retribution based on the idea of a freely choosing soul, a justice system could focus on assessing how dangerous someone is, deterring crime, and rehabilitating offenders. If a "cure for evil" existed, it would seem immoral to withhold it as punishment, highlighting that the urge for retribution often ignores the underlying causes of behavior. While the psychological need for vengeance is real, and punishment can be pragmatically useful for deterrence, the _moral_ justification for purely retributive punishment based on deep free will seems to unravel. Holding people responsible can still make sense pragmatically because human behavior _is_ influenced by consequences like punishment and incentives. Saying someone freely chose to do something can be a useful shorthand for describing that they acted intentionally and weren't compelled, allowing us to focus on the immediate causes (their desires, intentions) rather than the complex, unknown deep causes. **A Note on Politics** Interestingly, the belief (or lack thereof) in free will can even play into political views. It's suggested that those who understand the role of luck – in genes, environment, opportunities – may be more aligned with liberal perspectives, while conservatives might emphasize individualism and personal responsibility to a degree that overlooks the background causes of success. Recognizing that even the capacity for hard work and discipline is part of our inheritance can change how we view success and failure. We can still encourage effort and hold people accountable when it's useful to do so, acknowledging that people can change, but without needing the illusion of free will to justify it. **In Conclusion** The argument presented is that free will isn't just an illusion from an objective scientific viewpoint; our subjective experience doesn't truly support it either, if we pay close enough attention. Thoughts and intentions simply arise. Letting go of the illusion of free will doesn't have to lead to fatalism or chaos. In fact, it might bring benefits like increased compassion, forgiveness, and a diminished sense of entitlement for our own "successes" which often depend heavily on luck. Understanding the causes of our thoughts and feelings, even those we don't control, can paradoxically give us _more_ creative control over our lives by allowing us to influence the inputs that shape us. While we don't have the kind of freedom where we are the ultimate, uncaused cause of our actions, acknowledging the causal nature of our minds allows us to build a more realistic and perhaps more compassionate view of ourselves and others. --- **Further Ideas and Questions to Explore:** - If punishment isn't for retribution, how exactly would a justice system based purely on deterrence, protection, and rehabilitation work in practice? - The text suggests our moral intuitions _should_ shift as we understand the causal basis of behavior more deeply. How might this impact areas beyond criminal justice, like how we view personal failure or success? - The idea that introspection reveals the unauthored nature of thoughts is presented. How could someone experiment with this for themselves? What might they notice? - If we are "the storm" rather than controlling or being lost in it, what does that imply about the concept of "self"? - The text mentions experiments where people were led to believe they intended actions they didn't control. What are the ethical implications of research like this, and what else might it reveal about the feeling of agency?