I Willy Nilly Wrote This

Critically discussing whether people got free will

               Since the past two millennia philosophers , scientists , yogi’s , priests and some common folk all seem to have been interested in the question about the existence of free will. Debating whether humans make their own choices, not determined by prior causes and free from any divine intervention Or are they simply like a complex machine with every choice , decision and action already programmed and determined . To study this question we would have to probe into the human mind using the tools of various fields of sciences that look into the makeup of this animal; Psychology , Biochemistry and physics . Using advanced research already done in these fields we can critically analyse the existence or the extent of free will by looking at the biological , psychological and the physical underpinnings of human thoughts , decisions and actions . This philosophical inquiry is important and relevant as it makes us question the nature of consciousness , reality and our believes . Are we actually consciously making all our decisions and choices or do we function like robots with no free choice but with only the illusion of free will. Do we choose what thoughts emerge in mind or do they simply emerge as a consequence of the fixed state and configurations of atoms in the brain prior to the emergence  . When we choosing action A between A and B , Did we ever have the choice to choose B or was the choice  A already predetermined and we simply could not have chosen otherwise. These are interesting thought provoking questions .There are multiple angles that can be taken into account when addressing and inquiring about free will and looking at the question from various points of view is necessary to get a clearer sense of reality .

               First , let's look at some conditional and environmental aspects of free will . Imagine a simple real world scenario where  consumers go to a store in a shopping mall . The store is laid out in a certain manner by the company and is meticulously designed and arranged to sell and push certain products . Companies can use placement , advertisements , sales , every strategy at their disposal to attract buyers towards a certain product . Here you might say that it was the buyer’s final decision that he/she freely made to buy the product and hence they freely chose to give into the store company’s scheme . But if you look at it from a broader perspective , the consumer’s choice to buy certain things were limited to only what the store decided to sell and advertise . The store heavily used psychological tricks to influence their decision making . All the outside psychological influences on a person’s decision are innumerable and have a huge impact on any decision . Also not to forget the point that they were not free to buy stuff that was not displayed flashily by the store or products that were maybe placed at a shelf higher than their eye level ( a result of their height , something they cannot control ) . I can present another example to demonstrate this constraint by asking you to choose or think up an animal . Now you are free to choose any animal species known to science . In this case , despite the fact that you are absolutely free to choose any animal to your liking , I can, with an almost 100 percent accuracy , say that the animal you chose is not Trichuris trichiura ( a nematode ). This is  simply because Trichuris trichiura is not a common animal name and most people aren't aware of its existence . When given the free choice to choose any animal , your free choice did not include animal species you were just not aware of . Just like the consumers at the shopping mall are in no way able to make a totally free choice even though their subjective experience may tell them  otherwise , you can only make decisions and make choices about things you are aware of as a result of your nurture and  development since being born and the environmental factors and situations you are subjected to. I realize that this is not a very strong argument to say that because you do not know or are not exposed to everything ; (ie. every single fact about reality) you can not make free decisions , however it does demonstrate quite strongly that even if it exists , free will is not completely free. Choices and decisions are always constrained due to previous conditions of the world and environmental factors which are out of one’s control and even awareness .

               The consumer example also ties into the psychological effects on one’s decision making . Colours , make certain things more attractive. Text sizes affect the impact of the advertisement. Sales and promotions make people more inclined to make those ‘smart’ decisions . Celebrity endorsements , acts on people’s relationships and biases towards famous people . These are all strategies companies use to influence the psychology of the consumer which inevitably influence the choice making it not truly free . However there is a deeper argument about the psychological influence on choices and decisions . Most decisions and choices are an attempted towards fulfillment of a certain desire . What food to eat is a decision a person makes to fulfill the desire to not feel hungry , hunger being a feeling that originates automatically without conscious thought . Wishes and desires are cravings that are mostly a result of physical , biological , chemical or psychological forces acting upon an individual’s consciousness . A desire to eat is biological result of an empty stomach  . A desire to mate , a result of biochemical reactions in the brain .Similarly a tendency to procrastinate or feelings of free floating anxiety are results of unconscious processes in the psyche .All these wishes and desires emerge as a consequence of some physical (bodily) or environmental factors which a person has no control over . There is no such thing as a voluntary want . The ‘want’ is the involuntary component of an action . This is where psychological determinism comes in . Psychological determinism  is the view that people only choose what they most crave. Even if the choices were free , they would always be constrained by the person’s wishes and desires .

               These arguments present the case that if a spooky phenomenon like free will could exist in the universe working in humans , It is still constrained heavily by environmental and psychological factors . This is a low resolution birds eye view of the problem which shows that in no case a human can make absolutely completely free decisions all the time , irrespective of the existence of text book free will in the first place (The text book would be the bible in this case , or the Princeton encyclopedia if you’re cool ) . In a follow up essay, we would take a closer look and dive into the human body , shrinking down to the level of  neurons , molecules and even atoms to get a high resolution picture of the phenomenon, seeing if human biology , and the physical makeup of reality allows sentient beings to make their own choices in the first place .