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1-Page Summary of Free Will
Overview
Freedom of choice is an illusion. You don’t control many things in your life, and the way you read this passage isn’t one of them. The following key points will explain why that’s true.
Recent research shows that people think mostly based on their brains, not free will. This is important because we need to understand the way our brains work in order to make better decisions. The author explains how this works by explaining a few key concepts and using examples from everyday life.
Big Idea #1: You can’t actually control what you do or why you do it. The concept of free will is an illusion.
If someone asked you why you drank a glass of lemonade, what would you say? You might respond that it was your choice or decision. In fact, most people believe they can make decisions on their own. However, when we look closely at the process by which we arrive at any particular decision or action in life, as well as new research about the human brain and its ability to change even into adulthood, it becomes clear that our choices are not always reactions made freely from within us but rather based upon external factors like genetics and environment.
Researcher Benjamin Libet found that he could detect activity in parts of peoples’ brains that signaled movement before they decided to move. This suggests that our decisions are made subconsciously rather than consciously, which means we can’t always control them. We would have complete control over our decisions if only we had total access to all the brain activity happening within us.
Our thoughts and behaviors are not controlled by us. They’re inspired by our genes, which we can’t control.
You don’t control the millions of bacteria in your body, so why do you think that you can control all the random processes happening in your brain?
Big Idea #2: While free will is an illusion, our awareness of what we think or do is something we can control.
So if our thoughts and actions are inspired by brain processes we can’t control, shouldn’t we just sit around all day?
We do have some awareness, but we can’t make decisions unconsciously. For instance, if you realize your back hurts, you might move in your seat to get more comfortable. You can’t make the decision to go see a physical therapist without thinking about it first.
So, if we’re aware of pain, we can be motivated to do something about it.
Although this is not exactly free will, it’s still an amazing phenomenon. You didn’t create the pain in your body or the thoughts that you should see a doctor about it. These thoughts just popped into your mind without any effort on your part.
Even though our decisions are predetermined by biology, they still matter. You can’t know why you wanted to choose lemonade instead of water, but it’s important that you did. Our choices also have serious effects on the world, even if we don’t create them. Don’t think everything is outside your control and fatalistic! Instead of thinking that everything is beyond your control, realize what you can influence in your life and focus on those things. For example, it wouldn’t make sense to teach self-defense by emphasizing how much an attacker is controlled by his subconscious mind because while this may be true to some extent, the decision to defend yourself is more important than anything else.
Big Idea #3: With no free will, we need to rethink how we treat criminals and how we conduct social policies.
The idea that we have no free will has major implications for society. For example, if someone knows something is wrong but does it anyway, he should be punished. If a psychopath kills someone “for fun”, we think he should be punished as well.
