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‘Do humans have free will?’ is the Wrong Question
It seems more likely that people have free will in varying degrees and a range of will power on a spectrum.
You walk into a dealership to pick up your dream car. When you arrive, your eyes are bombarded by models you didn’t know existed. You are conflicted. You thought you knew what you wanted, only to find out that you really had no clue. That day, because you have the money, you pick one. The one you pick is not the one you initially intended to pick. ‘So what?’, you may be thinking. ‘People change their minds all the time.’
But…
What if I told you there is mounting theoretical evidence that suggests the choice to buy the car you bought was already made before you arrived at the dealership?
Some scientists now believe that human beings have no free will. They reason that humans are formulated in mind, body, and state by complex biological processes and the whims of environment, and are therefore, helplessly controlled and influenced by factors out of their control.
Defining Free Will
To determine whether this is a valid idea, we need to define what we mean by “free” and “will”, and then what we mean by these words when they are conjoined. Free…
