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Writer's pictureYamit Armbrister

Do We Have Free Will?

It is impossible yet to scientifically prove that we have free will. We can assume and argue about it, but we can't prove it.


What if free choice is all genetic?

What if one day science will discover that we just think that we chose to be doctors, teachers, or cops but we’ll find out that genetically it was already burned into our chromosomes? That there's a cell that know anything we’ll choose before we do?

As of now, there is no chromosome called 'free choice.' There is no cell that we know of that is responsible for free will, so why do we keep saying: you have free choice, and when do we most often use it?


Many times, free will is being discussed in the context of good and bad, and most of us accept that there is a difference between the two and that we are free to choose between them.

Free choice is the basis we demand from humans. When we tell someone, you have a choice, what are we actually asking of them? We expect people to morally choose good and not evil.

Why is unique to humans? One of the main differences between humans and animals is that we are supposed to draw conclusions from past experiences at a high intelligent level, or conclusions from the experiences of others, and from those experiences we draw hope for a better future because we have learned something.


The fact that we learn from the past and hope that the future will be different, even if it's only in our imagination, even if the results in the past were not good, and even if now isn't all strawberries and whipped cream, we can base our choices for the future to be different.

In other words, free choice is making a decision in the present, based on the past about the future. Sometimes the choice will be contrary to the present data we have, it may even seem irrational or imaginary, but we can still make a choice to do or behave differently based on what we have learned.


So, if our past and present are not as good as we hoped, how can we make an optimistic decision for the future? Because we learn from past experience and from our present. It may be that we have learned that we need to be patient, that changes take time or that things improve with time and so on, and this gives hope that the current situation will improve. will change.

This ability to connect the past and the future in the present, gives us, humans, the possibility to think and make choices. Animals can't do that.


For example, sometimes we choose freely to suffer in the present because we estimate that it is a sacrifice worth making for the future. Animals live only in the present. They don't have the ability to plan for the long-term and they can't save money now for buying a house in the future.


So, it may not be possible yet to genetically prove free will, but we should believe we have it, because without believing that we have a choice between bad and evil, we are not different than animals.



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