Is free will an illusion?
by Sharon Dirckx, The Good Book Co:
You are out shopping for snacks to bring to the office party and decide on breadsticks and hummus. Did you make the decision? Or did your brain make it for you?
The next day your boss announces cutbacks, and you have to decide whether to go forward for voluntary redundancy or not. You decide yes. Did you make the decision? Or did your brain make it for you?
We make decisions all the time. Mundane decisions like what to eat for breakfast, and important decisions like where to live or who to marry. Our decisions seem to be real and impactful.
But if we are just our brains, as some scientists propose—if our decisions are simply the product of synapses firing—are we really free in any meaningful sense? A number of scientists and philosophers strongly believe not. It may seem to us that our choices are freely made, but free will is actually an illusion, they argue. We simply do what our brains tell us.
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