Where there is a will? There's no way.
Do you think you have a choice to do what you want to do? Or that what you will do is already decided. And you always do as you are supposed to do. The way things are now is because you wanted it? Or maybe a thing is as it is, because the universe is at is.
Free will means you have the ability to choose between different actions. And you are free to do what you want to do. Nothing is pre-written or determined.
Determinism means that our world – and the universe – is in some way rather like a machine. That everything is pre-written. Call it destiny, luck or chance. You have no choice in your actions. You never had. You never will.
Since all the time you are so much concerned about yourself. Let's begin with you.
You are a human being. A human being enslaved within a human body. Let's go further and your body is made of cells. Your cells are nothing but protein robots. It's behavior are just like your's, it eats stuff, regulates itself, it grows, it reacts to environment, reproduces and is subject to evolution. But of all the stuff cell is made of, nothing is alive. Stuffs just reacts with other stuff. And leads to more reaction. It has no will and is unconscious.
Cells builds tissues, tissues form organs, organs together work to maintain the body, which makes your survival. But no part of the cell or the body is alive. It's all mechanical. It's all dead matter. Moved by laws of universe. You digestion is unconscious. Whether you like it or not. You will feel hunger. You cannot consciously stop breathing. You cannot consciously stay awake all the time. The laws that govern your existence is already determined. Long, long before you even knew that you exist. There's not much free will here.
Moving beyond the body, you have your parents, your home, your friends, your so-called concepts about everything. But wait, did you choose to bring them? Or wasn't it pre-determined?
You did not decide your parents. You were born to them. It was not your free-will to choose your gender. Nor the genes which decides your height and other physical characteristic. The place you were born and the environmental influences just happened, and you were least concerned as you grew up busy playing all your childhood. Unconsciously you grew up to be who you are today.
Now it's hard to say, I am the way I am because I wanted myself to be as I am. I am a sum of everything that happened with me in the past. Can I have the will to somebody else? Confusing isn't it.
If my physical characteristics are pre-determined, maybe I can choose my mental faculties, precisely my thoughts. But it's already happened and happening. Let's have a look onto that:
If you experience momentarily and pay attention, you will see that you no more decide the next thing you think, than the next thing I write.
What are you going to think next?
Answer is that the very next thing I write. But wait, there's more to it.
Here you are reading this post. You never had a thought in your life or today, that you will read this post. But you happen to read somehow, and you are making a good effort to understand everything written. But there's also this voice running in your head that is just saying things all the time. Just notice. And it has nothing to do with is written here.
You are struggling to follow the train of thought about what's written or while you do something but suddenly you start to think: What will I do after reading this post?
Or maybe after you read it: the post was boring. Why did I read it? What's for dinner? Or maybe I should stop wasting time on social media and why the hell I am getting bored with life? Wait, what's new on Youtube?
These thoughts just appear in consciousness, whether or not you like or dislike. We do not author the thoughts. It's like we think them before we even think them. If you cannot control you next thought and you don't know what it's going to be. Then, where is your freedom of will?
At this moment confused aren't you now? What the hell am I reading here?
Let's do a task: think any city.
If you did not think: again think any city anywhere in the world.
Now, did you find any evidence of free will? Look closely.
Let's move aside all the cities name you did not knew. There's no free-will there.
Then there are many other cities, which you knew, but it did not occur to you, example Istanbul. You know Istanbul is a city but your neuro-logical circuits of it were not engaged. Were you free to choose that which did not occur to you to choose? Based on your state of mind, Istanbul did not occur to your mind. And the city you picked, you picked because it was in your mind, somewhat related to your past. Now if your present choice is determined by what has already happened in the past. Where is the freedom in that?
Your choices made by mind are all unconscious. You feel the illusion of making a choice. It's like watching a movie. As long as you watch, you feel the characters are real. But as soon as it is over you know all were just actors acting to a pre-written drama. You just don't know it, while watching.
Strangely the most ancient language of the world, Sanskrit does not have a term or word called free-will. They knew for certain that everything is written. From the way planets revolves around sun to the way we live our life. The story is not about us. Everything is connected. Your thoughts in the participation doesn't matter.
To conclude. Free will is not an illusion. There is no such thing as illusion. Simply because it doesn't exist. You do not have free will. And now it will make you depressed a bit. Doesn't it? And you would argue it's not true because it takes something away from us. What does it takes? An ego-centric view of life. That you are not the center of life. That life centers around. You stop worrying about yourself. It's difficult to state that the power that brought you till here will take you where you belong. But it's tremendously liberating if you try to live. We find out that we are linked to the past and history. We are part of system. Your all bodily actions you know happen unconsciously, your digestions, respiration and excretion. So does your mental actions, it's all unconscious. Stop imagining you are anywhere in it. The only thing conscious is You. And the only true statement is that: You are. Let your whole life be unconscious. From what you do now to what you will do next. Anyways you happen to read this post unconsciously. It wasn't your will. After reading You will still be. And You will be free from this state till the next one will appear.
There is this movie of life going on infront of you. And it looks like you are watching it. But the movie will be over when time comes and it wouldn't even ask you whether you should leave it or not. The actors are going to die all the way along with the watcher for certain. The light that fills the screen will also go out sooner or later. Then what were you all the time the movie was playing?
The screen.
The movie of life is playing. Everything around you is happening as it should. You as the screen don't have any will. The screen doesn't complains whatever happens in the movie and to the actors. It doesn't even care if the watcher likes the movie or not. The screen is just screening, unconcerned and always liberated. The movie will begin on its own and it will end when time comes. Because everything that has a beginning has an end. But the screen was always there and will always remain. So should you be. Things will happen. Sometimes bad. Sometimes good. But that doesn't affects you. And because being a screen you are just nothing all the time the movie runs. And this does not limits you. This just gives you the potential to show anything and in process become everything.
Anyways, was it a conscious decision and free will to read this blog?
Or: like everything, it just happened as it was supposed to be.
zphilosopher