Free will

If you start exploring the question of existence of free will, you are caught between an undeniable experience of it and an inability to make sense of the concept intellectually. To make anyone's inquiry into free will concept more fun philosophers use numerous definitions which opens the doors for confusion, talking past each other or dismissal of the free will concept entirely.

Most probably the most widely used definition is the first search result in Google - the all knowing Wikipedia. In Wikipedia free will is defined as - the capacity for agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. If you take things at face value then this makes sense. You can observe yourself and others looking at the landscape of possible realities from which you can and do commit to only one at any given moment. But what if you try to look behind the curtains, were the variables that lead you to a choice free for you to chose? 

Free will, an illusion?

You didn't chose your parents, you didn't chose your genes, you didn't chose your environment, you aren't choosing which thought comes to your mind, nor which emotion you are going to feel the next moment. At this point many people put down their flag and triumphantly conclude that there is no free will but that conclusion is a red flag because it's made in a vacuum, disregarding every opposing fact. If free will is an illusion then why did people evolve a sense of free will? Why do societies that are based on the belief in free will (a supposed illusion) work? Why does belief in none existence of free will lead to less moral actions (we will get to the evidence later)?

These are questions which are left unanswered and for the the life of me I have tried to answer them, but the best you can get is flimsy if your being generous. You might say that evolution of free will was an accident which doesn't reduce individuals chances at reproduction but all it takes to see how false this idea is is to see how people treat each other - as free agents. If free will would be an accidental, useless feature, well then it wouldn't be at the center of how people interact with each other. Any other explanation would mean that an individual with free will is more fit (evolutionary speaking), how can an added illusion improve ones chances at survival for generations and in as diverse environments as one can be in? Unless it's not an illusion but an adaptation which improves ones chances at survival.

Which goes to the next point, basing a society on an idea that individuals aren't free agents leads to horrific results. Unfortunately there was an experiment not so long ago - Soviet Union and at it's center communism ideology where it was believed that individuals didn't posses enough agency to overcome social class oppression and limitations and therefor the state had to make choices for the poor, constrained people to free them from bourgeoisie class oppression. The end result of Soviet Union charade: eventual collapse, state of chaos in all of the occupied countries after regaining independence and millions died: in forced labor camps (gulag), on the way to the gulag, out of famine, in few purges and massacres. If you truly believe that individuals poses no free will then it only makes sense to treat them as "end results of external environment" and it that case "I know what's best for you and I'll enforce it upon you" attitude is easy to justify.

In their research article "The Value of Believing in Free Will" Kathleen D. Vohs and Jonathan W. Schooler tried to answer the question whether moral actions are influenced by belief in free will? In the first experiment participants read texts that ether encouraged a belief in determinism or were neutral. Afterwards the participants had to solve computer-based math problems where they had the ability to cheat. Participants that read texts which encouraged a belief in determinism cheated more often. In second experiment participants read texts that encouraged a belief in determinism, free will or were neutral. Afterwards the participants had to solve 15 paper-based mathematical, logic and reasoning problems. After participants finished they had to shred their papers and take 1$ for each correct answer. Participants that read anti-free will texts took more money (cheated more).

An idea is true if it represents reality accurately. If you base your actions on true ideas then you have a better chance at accomplishing your goals. If you want to go from point A to point B and you see that there is a tree in-between then by taking the extra steps to walk around the tree will lead you to the desired outcome. You could also assume that the tree is an illusion and try to walk right trough it. If the belief in free will being an illusion leads people to undesirable outcome then how can it be considered true?

The face of free will

If free will exists then how does it look like? It's definitely not as free as some imagine it to be. It seams hard to oppose the idea that the world is deterministic. The best you can get is to point out unpredictable or random events but then again you can see that there used to be unpredictable events which are now predictable due to increase in the amount of knowledge. Therefor it would be logical to conclude that an event is unpredictable/random if you lack knowledge to understand it. Humans aren't exceptions, there are plenty of studies showing how changing external environment can influence choices made by people. As an example Yale researchers found out that seemingly irrelevant circumstance - holding a hot or cold cup of coffee influenced participants judgment of strangers in a way such that the participants who held hot cup judged strangers to be more generous and caring while the ones holding ice-coffee did the opposite. Actually, studies aren't even necessary to show how very much constrained people are by their environment. If it's cold outside you put on warm clothes. If you see a red light you stop. If your hungry then you look for food. A man who's actions wouldn't be determined by the environment would soon find himself dead.

When something is free, it's free from something specific and still constrained by everything else. From what would free will have to be free of for you to consider it free? It seams to me that one too many philosophers have wanted free will to be free from determinism i.e. free from reality. Humans are made of multiple autonomous parts, some of the parts exist in order to perceive reality and sometimes these parts perceive reality in different ways. One is likely to feel angry after being insulted and a desire to act is felt but due to reason the individual might see that acting out based on anger might not be the best course of action instead a different action should follow or none at all. Ultimately nether emotions, nor reason is responsible for making an action, you can have a feeling or reason about something for hours without committing to an action. Free will is required to make something happen, the moment of deciding to act. Free will is free because it is unconstrained by emotion, thoughts, intuitions, not even by what your conscious of.

Free will - truly not an illusion

Imagine a simply physics question. You are in a train which is moving at the speed of 90 km/h. Outside the train stands your friend. How fast are you moving?

The correct answer is that this is an incomplete question. To measure speed you need a point of reference. From your point of view the train isn't moving at all, because no matter how long you wait the train doesn't change it's position relative to you. From your friends point of view the train is moving at the speed of 90 km/h and so do you. But you could also take a step back and look from the outer space. Rotation of the Earth around the sun is more or less 107,000 km/h and to the outer space observer you would be moving at that speed. If somebody was observing you from a different galaxy then your speed, from the observers point of view, would be around 720,000 km/h. From the point of view of an observer outside the visible Universe you wouldn't exist at all.

The foundational argument against free will is as follows: "Everything we do is caused by forces over which we have no control. If our actions are caused by forces over which we have no control, we do not act freely." This argument is made from the same perspective as in the physics example observer outside the visible Universe. This argument inadvertently assumes an omniscient perspective because it demands acceptance of the fact that everything which has even the slightest influence on determining your action is determined and everything is a lot. When you extrapolate a principle ad infinitum you usually find that it collapses at one point or another. If you are accelerating then you increase your speed over time therefor if you accelerated for an infinite period of time you would reach a speed of infinity. No, it turns out that there is a universal speed limit - speed of light. If you would continually decrease the temperature of an object then the object would become colder and colder without a limit. No, it turns out that you would reach absolute zero. If you know something about a person then your are better at predicting his actions therefor if you knew everything then you could predict his actions with 100% accuracy. No, you can't know everything. The point is that if you assume something impossible then you can conclude something impossible.

It's self-evident that people aren't capable of perceiving reality well enough to eliminate uncertainty from his internal state of mind and the external enviroment and for this reason the world will be a landscape of possibilities from which one has to make a choice. Even if the choice you are going to make is determined, you aren't aware of it, your friends aren't aware of it, nobody is aware of it. If is impossible to become aware of the choice you are going to make then dose it make sense to look at the choice your going to make as something determined?

If you assume determinism and perfect knowledge then from that point of view there would be no place for free will and the concept itself would seam unneeded. But only one of those assumptions is true while the other is an idealistic fantasy which can lead one to false conclusions. In reality limited access to information leads to a necessity to have a will which isn't tied to immediate environment but can instead exert itself above all other wills leading to the most free will.