Maybe this has come up before, but I still wanted to ask. Lately, I’ve been a bit confused about whether we really have free will or not. I’m not religious and I don’t really believe in metaphysics. I’d probably call myself agnostic. I’ve just been questioning life more than I used to, and this thought keeps popping into my head.
Do we actually have free will? Like, can we really choose things the way religious texts say we can? What made me think about this is how predictable the micro world seems to be—but when you go deeper into the quantum level, things get really chaotic and complex.
On top of that, as people, we’re constantly shaped by what we go through, and it feels like our reactions and choices get more limited over time.
What do you think about all this?
Free will does not exist in a biological sense. If you get hit in the head in a car accident, and you get brain damage, you can be a changed person. That is not free will. Sexual activity is an example of the lack of free will. That is why we have teen pregnancies when such pregnancies, according to a certain consensus, doom the people who are pregnant. That is why we have abortion.
Christian theologians for centuries debated whether we have free will, or predestination. They asked profound questions which are answered by science.