We have no Free Will

Quote: Many scientists say that the American physiologist Benjamin Libet demonstrated in the 1980s that we have no free will. It was already known that electrical activity builds up in a person’s brain before she, for example, moves her hand Libet showed that this buildup occurs before the person consciously makes a decision to move. The conscious experience of deciding to act, which we usually associate with free will, appears to be an add-on, a post hoc reconstruction of events that occurs after the brain has already set the act in motion.

I think it is true that free will does not truly exist because most of our actions are already predetermined in the brain. Free will is simply an illusion. It is therefore misleading to think that we have control over our actions, which we are free to choose as we please and that our future depends on every small choice we make, throughout our lives. Depending on our location in the universe, we might be living in what someone else considers the future, just as happens with the past. Therefore, if there is a being able to observe all this, without being bound to space or time, as the god of whom Kant spoke or as Benjamin Libet demonstrated, then this confirms that everything is predetermined, only that we are not aware of it.

Another point to note is that if every effect has a cause and if everything that occurs in the present is the unavoidable result of events which took place in the past, then there is no room whatsoever in the universe for something like free will. Most importantly, there can never be free will if our brains are responsible for everything we do and all the actions we make. A good example is that bodily functions such as the regulation of body temperature, blinking enough to prevent drying of our eyes or breathing are all controlled by the brain, and we do not necessarily have to think of doing these actions before they can happen.

We do not choose to be born at a particular time or from a particular family. This means that we do not have free will and that everything is predetermined.

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