Free will is an illusion

My opponents claim seems to spring a leak, as soon as he/she brings the idea of impulses and tendencies into the argument. To claim that we cannot control our impulses is rather short sighted. When we are acting "impulsive", we are acting without reason or rationality, but those impulses only prove to merely influence our emotions. Influence is not the same as control. My opponent will need to convince us that we do not ever have control of our choice to act reasonable, or impulsive in any given situation. I think my opponent has made the mistake of not recognizing the sequence of events that governs our actions. Lets say an object is heading straight toward you at a great speed, you use your senses to understand the situation. Your eyes see the object and sends that information to your brain ( its a large rock). At this moment, you have a choice to act rational, or impulsive. Since past circumstances have not gone well when you stood still and tried to reason with the rock, you decide to forego the rational choice and get rather impulsive and just in the nick of time you're able to evade a collision with a large rock. Just because this sequence of events seems to happen instantaneously, doesn't mean it happened outside of our ability to control our function. Our memory is superb with categorizing our emotions and relating it with circumstances that are happening now. Because we can remember how we felt the last time a large hunk of pumice raced toward our head, we have an emotional blueprint for instant( or what seems to be instant) reference to base our decision from. Just because this phenomenon seems instantaneous, it gives us the illusion of some other force at work that we cannot control. If you're going to argue that instinct is at work, and we can't control that, then I will ask you to reconsider what instict is. Some may believe we are born with instinctual capabilities, but how do you think a newborn would have faired with the large rock. That newborn has no past emotions to help it make a conscious decision of what to do. Is instinct really something we are born with, or is it an illusion made up of our emotional blueprint? Not to say I don't believe in instinct, I just question our perception of what instinct is and where it truly comes from. If my opponent is going to argue that we have no control over our emotions, I will concede that point to him/her, but if my opponent is going to argue that we are governed by our emotions, then this will be a short debate. Science and philosophy are pretty much on the same page when it comes to using emotions as a guide for our decisions. It's a bad idea to do so! !! ! In fact, it may not be possible to make decisions or actions based solely on our emotions. Lets say I come home one day to find my house engulfed in flames, my instincts tell me that it's not going to be a pleasant experience if I go into my house, that emotion in this circumstance would be considered " self preservation". However, I have kitties and I know that my life would be meaningless and empty without them (Ya, I'm only one cat shy of being a crazy cat lady). Now, I have two contrasting emotions to tassel with, and whether I choose to save my cats, or save myself, I will either be acting in contrast to my emotions of self preservation, or in contrast to my emotional attachment to my pretty kitties. Bottom line is, we are not governed by our emotions, we can and do act contrary to our emotions.