What do you mean I might not have free will? Look here, I just decided what I wanted to write. See there, I just changed my mind. I might do so again. Or I might forget the whole thing and go for a walk. So, you see, it’s me, it’s mine, it’s free – the will to do as I decide.
That’s a myth, maintains Free Will NYT Robert Sapolski, reflecting determinism, which postulates that all our decisions and behaviors are invariably determined by previous events and by natural law. Free will advocates, on the other hand, point to the human capacity to make uncoerced choices.
Libertarianism holds that individuals have complete free will and is thus incompatible with determinism, while compatibilism attempts to reconcile free will and determinism, arguing that they are not mutually exclusive (though suggesting our underlying desires and preferences may be influenced by previous events and experiences).
The Western world seems tangled up in its own underwear over this debate given the difficulty in establishing causation with any sort of scientific certainty. While specific studies have been hyper-focused on select causal links e.g. the role of genetics as a factor, the application of determinism to predict future states with any degree of certainty beggars the imagination given the menu of deterministic factors: physical (physical laws); biological (genetic factors and physiological conditions); psychological (past experiences, memories, and learned behaviors); and social (social environment and cultural norms)…
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