Free Will Exists

As stated in the resolution I am going to demonstrate that in the fields of science, history and philosophy, the existence of free will is an impossibility. Before I go any further though, I want to make it clear that free will either exists or it doesn’t. If the choices we make are 99% controlled by physical or divine forces and 1% directed by “free will”, then free will exists. However as I will show, there is no compelling reason to believe are decisions are not determined by either divinity or material factors. Science: Scientific Evidence~ I, ThermidorSnow decided to initiate this wonderful debate. Well kinda. The issue being that the decision was likely made before I even had become aware of it. As researchers have discovered over the past century, an individual becomes conscious of a decision, only after they have initiated action. The groundbreaking experiment was made in 1984 by Benjamin Libet in regard to volatile motion, more specifically he asked subjects to flick their wrists at random moments. Libet monitored the build up of electrical impulses in the brain(the brain telling the wrist to flick) and had his subjects look at the second’s hand of a clock and then report the moment they became conscious of their will to make the decision. Libet remarkably discovered that the electrical activity in the brain occurred roughly half a second before the subject became aware of the decision[1].Thus: The brain unconsciously initiates movement before we are conscious of the decision. The individual feels as if he has made the decision, but in reality the conscious mind plays no part. Additionally, a recent experiment demonstrated that decisions to cancel or veto an action(which are initiated at the subconscious level) are also subconsciously decided[2]. Occam’s Razor~ Whether or not these findings are precisely accurate, there is a bigger problem for the belief of free will: it is an implicitly unscientific force. Occam’ Razor is the scientific rule of thumb which states that the hypothesis with the least assumptions is likely the correct one[3]. The belief that individuals make decisions not on brain chemistry, subconscious impulse, or environmental factors assumes that contrary to evidence, the conscious mind makes decisions externally to the rest of the brain. Even if some decisions can be made consciously, for what reason is one to believe that conscious decision making has not been determined by psychology, environmental conditioning, or is little more than complex reaction to stimuli? In absence of contrary evidence, the skeptical mind ought to accept the determinist position that human beings make decisions subconsciously, or at the very least, by a conscious mind that is the product of material factors rather than by a hypothetical force called “free will”. Non-Science To fully understand why one should dismiss the concept of free will, one must look beyond naturalistic science. This is in-part because free will as a concept is not a scientific or modern idea but is a contention developed by western theologists. First let us examine why within the context of Christian theology, free will is a concept founded upon contradiction. The Paradox of Free Will~ Themainline Christian interpretation of the Bible tell us the Judeo-Christian God is omnipresent(existing at all places), omniscient(all knowing), and omnipotent(all powerful)[4]. God is additionally the creator of universe and all loving(or at least the source of ultimate moral goodness). Reasonably, one may expect within this framework that God as all knowing, all powerful, and as the source of moral goodness would create the best of all possible universes. The German philosopher Friedrich Leibniz first came to this logically conclusion over three centuries ago[5]. Leibniz goes on to posit that since we are living within God’s creation(the best of all possible worlds) all events are inevitably for the best since God has essentially made the rules of the game, created the players, and foresees the conclusion. Where then can one find room for free will? How could all be for the best, or furthermore, God be all powerful if individuals exercise free moral agency? A paradox is formed, the paradox of moral agency that has been recognized but not solved in Jewish and Christian traditions alike. as the Jewish Theologian Maimonides puts it best: “[God] knows everything that will happen before it has happened. So does He know whether a particular person will be righteous or wicked, or not? If He does know, then it will be impossible for that person not to be righteous. If He knows that he will be righteous but that it is possible for him to be wicked, then He does not know everything that He has created[6].” The Bottom line is if human beings are the creation of God, then God’s knows our destinies, He created the universe, He created us, and he wants the very best for us. If he does not know our future then he is neither all knowing nor existing everywhere at all times. If he does not have the power to determine the best of all possible lives for us, then he is neither all powerful nor the ultimate source of benevolence. Therefore, within the framework of a Judeo-Christian universe, free will cannot exist. It is very unlikely if not impossible for free will exist within the framework of the Judeo-Christian universe. Therefore if the Juedo-Christian model, the origin of the idea of free will, is to believed then it is far more reasonable to conclude that all of our actions are predetermined by divinity(God). Only when the notion of individuals exercising free moral agency is introduced does paradox develop. That is it for now, as one can see, I have blended philosophy, history, and theology to form my second section. In later rounds I will defend the contentions I have made above and introduce new arguments to better demonstrate that the belief in the existence of free will is unfounded. Sources Cited 1. http://brain.oxfordjournals.org... 2.http://www.sciencedirect.com... 3. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be... 4. http://www.cogwriter.com... 5. http://www.gutenberg.org... Liebniz’s essay on theology 6. http://www.panix.com... Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah