Free will exists

My opponent appears to suggest that only the very basic instincts in humans are ones arising from evolution. He suggests that otherwise our brains would "always vote for dcisions that have the most evolutionary benefits". With respect, that is not how evolution works. Evolution does not create a perfect being, one whose decisions are always the best decisions in the interests of survival of its genes. Rather, evolution is the process through which those traits that are LESS favourable have a tendency not to get passed on in the long run as they are eliminated through natural selection. My opponent mentions suicide and self-starvation. He further claims that these cannot be explained biologically. Whether they can or not is not relevant. A being that has evolved is THE RESULT of a process (evolution, natural selection). The being is NOT the means to a process. In evolution there is no such thing as "purpose". We have evolved as we are because less suitable traits were eliminated by natural selection and survival of the fittest. The process continues although some will argue that it is tempered by culture and society. Others will say that society is just another level to the process. Animals are social beings too. They have their cultures and rituals. Can suicide be an act resulting in better chances of propagating one's genes? Yes it can. For example someone who commits suicide so that his children would live. In other cases, a person who feels so dissatisfied with life that they cannot cope might terminate themselves and leave no offspring. The result will be a population with less people who cannot cope. Less genes that cannot cope. This whole process is part of evolution. These issues, however interesting, are tangental to our main argument and I am glad my opponent agrees with that. It is true that we do not always make decisions immediately. Sometimes we need to process the information for longer. That is also not relevant to my argument. I challenge my opponent to conduct a free will experiment. I want my opponent to consciously decide what he wants to think about. It should go like this: "I'm going to think about... (brief pause)..... A" (in my case "A" happened to be lightbulbs) Then I want my opponent to ask himself what made him choose the subject that he decided to think about. Why he chose that particular subject and not another. He will find that the decision comes about through a process outside his control. It will just "come to him". Alternatively he might decide that the subject to think about will be the first object he lays his eyes on in his room. However, there are a score of objects in his room. Why did he choose one and not another? That's an interesting experiment. However, it really does diverge somewhat from the main topic of this discussion. You see, my opponent says that when we change our minds, when we "oveerride" more basic decisions with more sophisticated ones, it is "the conscious person being in conflict with his brain". This begs the following question: What mechanism, according to my opponent, does the "conscious person" use for making the decision? He seems to be suggesting that it is not the brain. Many studies have been conducted to show that the more we think, the longer we think, the higher the electrical activity in our brains. In fact, thinking a lot gives one a headache! Not a "conscious-person-ache" but a HEAD-ache. My opponent appears not to give the human brain much credit. He appears to be saying that the brain only makes the most basic decisions, those "hardwired" ones. He seems to be saying that apart from the brain there is some independent, magical, never-seen, undetectable "conscious person". Is he trying to say "soul"? If so, he is moving outside the scope of the debate (see assumptions). Secondly, we all have heard of cases where a person who sustains head injury loses all recollection of their life. Some have lost their very identity. They no longer knew who they were! Is this because the magical "conscious person", independent of the brain, is actually located in our head, sitting there next to the brain? Does this magical thing get knocked out of our head when we sustain head injury? Is this why people in those situations have been known to lose their knowledge of "self"? Or is it more likely that the injury is just a brain injury and that the "self" is just some very complex information programmed into the brain? You see, scientists have identified the parts of the brain responsible for various things. But perhaps I will leave that for the next round. This observation, along with the above free-will experiment are again just little points to go to my argument. But the fact is that my argument would stand even without them. And I will now explain why. This debate is based on three assumptions. Firstly that there is not a god. Secondly that there is not a soul. Thirdly, that humans process information and make decisions using a device called "brain" which in turn functions on the basis of complex bio-electro-chemical processes. My opponent, in his Round 1 has accepted these assumptions as true for the purposes of this debate. I quote: **I accept all the premises proposed. I'll further define "conscious" as "mentally perceptive or alert".** You see, once my opponent has accepted that people process information and make decisions with a device called "brain" and based on electro-chemical processes, he cannot now go outside the scope of this debate and argue that there exists, outside the brain, some magical "conscious person" who has the power to ovveride the brain's decisions.