Free Will does not exist.

Rebuttal: 1. My stance on free will does far more than take only "electrical signals and chemical reactions" into the equation. Also, you seem to be falling into a personal incredulity fallacy here. Just because something doesn't make sense to you does not mean it is not true. The whole line of your thoughts is stopped immediately because you're simply saying "it isn't true because I don't think its true." Science does in fact tell us that through mapping our brains they can see our "thoughts" happening in real time. There is a recent study that shows we make our decisions before we are consciously aware that we have made our decisions. [1] 2. The argument is not that a certain set of circumstances will force us to make a decision. It is that every decision we make is based on what we were taught, how we were raised, the environment, everything. The fact that someone makes a selfless choice does not mean that they made the choice because of their own free will. If they were brought up being taught to be a "gentleman" over and over growing up, and they thought about it beforehand whether or not to push a woman out of the way of an incoming car, they will do it. A lot of the time we don't have time to think to come to this decision, we simply act. The argument is that they did not freely choose to do this, but their upbringing, physical state, emotional state, et cetera made it a certainty. There is no world in which they would have done any other action. The lack of free will (Determinism [2]) does not mean that one will be selfish or selfless, act moral or immoral necessarily. It means that our choice could never have been made another way. Expanding: Something many people bring up on this topic is a coin toss. They say even if through determinism we will 100% of the time always choose to flip a coin to make our decision, that coin toss will be randomly occurring, but it is not. In reality depending on the weight of the coin, the power we hit it with, and at what location, with what air resistance et cetera it will always land heads or tails. The probability of it landing how it lands is 100% and would never change in any universe if the state of the universe were exactly the same. In order to say free will exists you have to believe in a soul, or something that is not physical that will help determine your actions. I don't believe this to be the case, and no evidence I've seen has ever convinced me of a soul. In fact quite the opposite. If a tumor is growing in your brain, it can effect the decisions you make. [3] If one had a soul or some external construct other than the brain, you would think a brain tumor would not have such clear noticeable effects. Additionally, if one's brain is damaged in the right areas, you can take away specific abilities of theirs. Were a soul in control of our actions or thoughts you would assume this would not be the case. I'll link a specific one on face recognition. [4] In order to say you have free will, you have to say that were your atoms traded with another person's that your life could have possibly been different. If you had their brain, you were brought up the same way in the same set of circumstances, you would have made different choices. I submit that you likely would not have. Until we as a society have the technology to measure all of these things, we can accept the illusion of free will, but I submit it is worth knowing that every action we take is likely predetermined. The realization of this will help our society eliminate crime because we will understand that people's decisions are based on their environment and their needs. If we assist people in making a more friendly environment for children and adults both, we can facilitate the end of crime once we can recognize the factors that go into each crime instead of believing that they could have done something different. If you are happy with your life, I submit you should thank your parents and everyone you've ever known for helping you think the way you do. --- [1] - http://exploringthemind.com... [2] - https://www.merriam-webster.com... [3] - https://www.abta.org... [4] - http://brainmind.com...