The Illusion of Free Will 

This Will guy should be released immediately. We all know he did nothing wrong. He deserves freedom. #freewill

Reminds me of a speech about how no matter how smart, rational, and calculated your are. At a life changing decision. You will always go with your feelings. "Everyone is a slave to their will."

my favorite existential crisis channel

This is why I don't hold on to tension. People only think, feel, and do what they're capable of thinking, feeling, and doing. If you quietly watch people long enough, they become predictable. It's calming. And when they do what you predict, it's like a little nugget of irony and comedy. Everyone has their role. Just laugh it off and keep it moving

So basically, ignorant bliss > informed despair

I would totally listen to a podcast with you in it

the ending is bascially when your friend leak a huge secret about someone's dirt to you and then expect you to still act normal around that person.

"Everything that happens to you has been waiting to happen to you since the beginning of time itself." Marcus Aurelius

Some of us now may be suffering so immensely due to the fact that people have hurt us. We often take betrayals and ill-treatment from other people so personally and it causes deep wounds. I think an understanding of determinism can actually be very freeing rather than depressing and can heal some of the deepest wounds we have. If we understand that these people didn't know any better or couldn't actually act in the way that would have prevented our pain we can stop taking things so personally and begin to heal. Use this to free yourself from hate and bitterness you might be holding onto. It's one of the best uses of this information.

Crazy to think that 'destiny', an idea that is so engrained in us as fiction or fantasy, is actually completely true and something we all will follow.

This is where love for mankind can really come into effect where we show compassion for every singer person, including those we deem 'evil', because they just can't help themselves.

I've struggled with free will vs. determination for my whole adult life. It's hard.

The first time I saw the title of this video, i thought it said "The Illusion of Free Wifi".

This man is a living intellectual. His content is full of intellectual thoughts. It makes you think and analyze. Great content.

Nothing is absolute determined nor absolute free will. It's more of in-between.

The Free Will Paradox that will make your brain literally hurt 🧠 🤯: In the third density where humanity resides in avatar form to gain experience, we often debate over free will. Most people in the spiritual community can agree that the Source occupies third density avatars, in a sense, agreeing that we are all ONE consciousness under the illusion of separation, and we are the on a quest to connect back to this Source, after we have consciously outgrown the confines of this third density experience. Perhaps, we are all the Source playing out each life experience on a separate timeline, yet simultaneously meshed. As we realize with higher dimensions, these things become possible. The Source can often become misconstrued as being a separate entity from us; one that we must be drawn to-that we connect with through higher consciousness and higher vibration in meditation or prayer. However, we must realize that the Source is us, and we are the Source. The only differentiation is, the “Source” in its highest point of consciousness, is not only aware of all people/experiences simultaneously, but has already predicted each separate life experience and each interaction between the avatars to the most minuscule degree, leaving little to no room for deviations. The consciousness occupying the avatar is just following suit to its impulses and environment interactions, as set forth in motion. The less control one feels, actually indicates a higher level of awakened consciousness, realizing how their avatar just follows one impulse after another, moment-to-moment, as their consciousness appears to follow in sync, and decision-making is just a mere illusion. While maybe we are technically making the decision, we are bound to our environmental pull, which dictates our every move. If you just follow in sync to triggers and impulses, or behave through an environmental lens, then how is this free will? Every interaction has been predestined, while under the guise of being self-aware. Yet, if every interaction was carefully orchestrated to bring about higher consciousness to allow the individuated form to awaken at a certain point-to surpass the impulse-reaction cycle, then perhaps at this point someone would become self-aware enough to graduate into free-will. 🤔 Whether, a person’s consciousness is following in sync to their avatar, or their behavior is so manipulated by their environment that their free will is compromised, makes little difference, while being two separate concepts. Perhaps there is very limited free will, like asking a child if he wants peanut butter and jelly, or soup for dinner, or if he wants to wear a blue shirt or a white shirt to church-something that will likely not trigger the butterfly effect in the grand scheme of things. And yet, the Source knew every interaction from the beginning to end, like a movie. 🎥 🍿 How is Source consciousness expanded through experience, if it was smart enough to plan the whole play out from beginning to end? Maybe, we are merely in a movie for sheer entertainment purposes. Or, the Source knew every move, and yet still lacked the experience of it, and desiring to gain the experience, breathed life into the avatars, becoming asleep 😴 during the whole play-out, all to gain the experience to match the play. 🤔 I now believe there is no one on the other side. I believe we are the Source. The Source goes through phases. It puts itself in a state of forgetfulness to then remember. The remembering part is the whole point and the fun part of all the phases. Then, the Source is all-knowing again, and this can get lonely and boring. The Source then wants to have experiences again. I think there are a thousand years of suffering in this particular cycle, and then a thousand years of bliss, and the suffering somehow creates the experience of bliss. Then it evens out into perfection and all-knowingness, being the final phase of the Source, as we all merge into ONE. Once back in this state of perfection and all-knowingness, the Source then craves imperfection and chaos, and the illusion of separation, and challenges, and creates a master-play simulation to occupy avatars again, till it wakes up and remembers everything again. I think the Source does this over and over again. It's a consciousness that constantly goes through phases. 🔄 If the Source occupies all avatars, then your consciousness is the Source, and the Source is you, but it is also everyone else, as well. You are everyone else, and you only realize this through higher consciousness as you awaken to higher states of consciousness. You are at sync with all that is and the grand scheme. So, if the Source planned your every move, and the Source is You, then you planned your every move. This would mean you have free will; you just did not have pure free will while asleep occupying your avatar in its separated form. 😴 And in an asleep and primitive state, who would want free will? This would be terrifying, leaving room to possibly forever be stuck in the dream. 🛌 And yet, you cannot reach higher consciousness without the will to break free of limiting concepts. Your will is predestined, however. Here’s where the brain hurt comes… 🧠🤯 You cannot make a free will decision and be qualified to do so, unless you are all-knowing. The Source in its perfected form of being in an all-knowing state of pure ONE consciousness-is the only point at which free will can happen. This is when the Source imagines a whole new play, where it will occupy new avatars and have new interactions-Every step planned out; every itch; every stupid word; every embarrassing moment; every “mistake;” every sneeze, etc, and then the Source goes to sleep again, purposely forgetting to then awaken at the proper time and remember again one by one in each avatar, as all the avatars merge back into the ONE consciousness. 😴 There simply is no real free will in the third density. However, because the Source occupying human avatar form is powerful but does not know if this power, the Source used this inverted power to create the whole masterpiece. It knew it would not know who it was long enough to have the experience, and the not-knowing would trigger the simulation to create chaos, more confusion, and a dystopian nightmare, and this would then dictate every move and appear to trap humanity. Yet, as this whole play unfolds, at a certain tipping point, each avatar awakens through the suffering to know its true identity. As this happens, the simulation must obey, and everything flips. 🙃 It was planned out from the beginning to use the illusion of being limited and imperfect to then create the reality that would dictate our actions, while we were asleep, appearing to be an evil way to trap humans, as we started to awaken from our deep slumber. The perfection of the masterpiece is that it tricked us into forgetting and believing we were human long enough to have the experience, and it created the whole narrative in an inverted way from our resonance that we were inferior, to then force us to follow the narrative to then find our way back to the light. As we awaken, we start to remember again. As we remember more and more, we move into a different phase-a flipped phase. We move into unity, and as we remember who we are, the simulation must reflect that. We flip chaos, confusion, challenge, scarcity, sorrow, etc, upside down. 🙃 This phase is the blissful one, where you are moving up towards the Source, and not away from the Source. To forget, is to move away. To remember, is to move forward. In this phase, we realize in third density form, there is no free will; we merely do exactly what the Source had planned for each of our life experiences from the very beginning; we merely do the will of the Source. We quit resisting and judging, and we realize there is no judgement of others, because free will is merely an illusion in the third density. Judgement of others only happens when you are convinced of free will. The Source judges no one, and the only one that judges another is someone under the illusion that they have a choice and everyone else does too. We realize that shame, fear, judgement, guilt, jealousy, greed, etc, are simulated emotions. 🖤 And that these simulated emotions feed the simulation and the simulation must respond to match the Source’s beliefs to then bring chaos, confusion, scarcity, and a dystopian nightmare, etc. This judgement, fear, shame and belief that you are also powerless, is the inverted form of what you actually are. To fall under the illusion that this is reality is to trick yourself. This begs the question: Once the veil is lifted, and humans realize that we are the Source and each other, doing the will of the Source, and all the negative simulated emotions are just a virus in the simulation, and that we are very powerful beings feeding the simulation with our resonance, then at what point do things flip? Many are there waiting. I personally think that we have to jump into unity consciousness by not seeing ourselves as individuals, but mere individuated experiences in avatars. We should then be able to jump into the higher dimension of seeing all as one. This means you can see yourself in all and you know everyone is you too. I believe in order to jump, we must sync with the master-plan; being able to see the masterpiece in its perfection and to see the positivity in it, and to remember again. When someone is on the cusp, it is very difficult to see the perfected form of the plan, but to only see the negative and restrictive programming. I believe that once we hit unity consciousness, seeing all as ONE, then we gain our super powers, being able to heal, bring the dead back to life, levitate and a host of other abilities. 😁

This, to me, is the same as potentially finding out that we live in a simulation. It is a shock at first, but then I accept it and I realise that it makes no difference, it changes nothing for most of us in our daily lives. No matter how or why, we still exist, we still coexist. Why would we let this change us if we know that living our lives and being a good person is something we have already been doing for quite some time and that that is something that we are apparently relatively good at? Judging by everything we know, we humans, for whatever reason, are relatively good at building societies and cooperating, why would we let the societies for which we all worked, and still work, so hard to create and maintain fall apart because of something like this? I will simply continue to live my life, I will continue to be me, you will continue to be you and we will continue to be human, will continue to be we. I do not need purpose to be created for me, I can do that myself. Whether that is actually me doing it or my brain does matter, but it also does not. The same goes, or at least, I believe it should, for us all. We can create our own purpose just as we have created our own societies. Again, whether that is our brains doing this for us or not does matter, but it also does not. So, live your life, be a good person in whatever way you can and take care of yourself and others. Whether I am saying that to you or your brain does not really matter, as long as it has the desired affect.

"There is no free will. It doesn't exist." Starting to sound like Eren

Someone told me I didn't have free will and I immediately slapped them across the face.

9:40 He does deserve praise, not because of some moral idea, but because we want to encourage more of that behavior from more people.

dude wtf i just found this channel and it’s like if vsauce uploaded regularly i love it

10:55 thats what my philo tutor said. Free will was the first topic in the module, my mind was blown after that, the second week was morals and ethics, I asked him, if we don’t have free will why does all of these matter? He told me in order to properly function as a human being/student, I have to “forget”(except for exams) what was taught in the previous week and assume we all have free will lol.

10:00 onwards made me smile. If the illusion helps others and provides the best way to live be aware of the illusion but embrace it

Thank you, now I fell powerless

"It's all just RNG" -Dr. K

I never had the feeling of having free will. Since I was a kid I knew that I cannot do anything else that what I'm doing. It almost feels like you're a character in a videi game or a book or movie. You make "choices" but in reality choices are made for you and you could not have chosen anything different than what you chose. Even moral choices, like being kind or being loyal are not free choices, at least the way I feel it. I could not cheat on my boyfriend even if I wanted to. There would be something holding me back. And if I did cheat, there would be nothing I could do to stop myself at that moment. It's difficult to explain but I just don't feel like anyone had another choice than what they did, only the illusion of other choices... No matter how many times we rewind the past things are gonna play out exactly how they did...

This is a good round up that condenses the explanation down to 12 minutes.

Yeah I realised this some time ago and I think the best way for me is to see it as a story game: It feels like you could make decisiouns and influence what happends, when actually the whole story is already predetermined. But you can still enjoy it and experience this story. Also it feels kinda releaving in some way if that makes sense.

Would you consider your subconscious as yourself? If you do then that is still you making the decision.

The problem with determinism is that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle puts enough uncertainty into the whole thing, that the answer is a lot less black and white regarding free will.

People will still praise people who help others and punish people who others because, this is how we encourage people to do the actions we want them to do.

The whole thing about decisions being readable in the subconscious 300ms before we "actually" make them is one I've heard before and I don't buy it as evidence against free will: Perhaps the act of making a choice is free, but it isn't instantaneous --- it just takes 300ms to "complete", and the MRI is just able to detect the start of the process

We are all willing to believe the lies that keep us sane. Accepting reality is too mentally stressful for people to cope. That's why we pretend to have morals to each other and ourselves when we accept cruel actions instead all the time. The entire world is a joke. I just have to figure out how to not care anymore.

Then when our choices are affected by other people, friends or parents for example telling us what we should do which may not be what we was actually planning to do and end up doing what they told us to do, doesn't this mean our choices weren't actually all written from the beginning?

Why are your videos so good!?!? I can’t stop watching them!!

This hurts my brain in such a good way lol

I like it how despite this heavy topic you were still able to end this video on a positive note, not just for the hack of it, but because it makes sense to do so.

Guilt is a flawed concept. No one is ever guilty of anything they do.

This is The Best video on free will I've ever seen. Exceptionally well done.

It doesn't matter too much if we have free will or not. Regardless of whether a decision is truly our own, the impact of that decision would carry the same amount of weight. When you make a choice, whether you have control or not, you and those around you will still be impacted. That's my mindset to keep me getting bumbed out when I think about the concept of free will being an illusion

It's a Fallacy of False Dilemma to say that people either have free will, or they don't. Because such an idea excludes a third possibility of having some free will within constraints and limitations. When you exclude this third possibility without any justification or explanation, then this is a mistake in thinking and in logic. And this is a mistake this video makes. People are limited and constrained by their biological and psychological needs and wants. But within these constraints, people have some freedom of choice. When I make a conscious choice whether to eat a banana or an apple, then I choose between my feelings about the banana and the apple. So, I need to become aware of my feelings, before I can make my choice. And if you can measure my feelings faster than I can become aware of them, then you can predict my choice from these feelings. But this doesn't mean that I have no free will. It just means that I think with my feelings, and my brain processing is slow enough that you can measure my feelings faster with electronic equipment, than my brain can measure these feelings and become aware of them. This is evidence of slow information processing in the brain, rather than evidence for determinism and lack of free will.

Liber from latin, for them it meant liberty and book, (libro in italian) they associated the two words because they understood that knowledge is what makes you conscious, and consciousness is what makes you understand that you are controlled by your subconscious, then trough this process of understanding you start to see the situations from an higher point of view, so you can see and you know why you were about to take a decision, you understand why you are tend to take one specific decision, and you are able to control yourself more and be free. But, if you are able to control your decision, are you really controlling your decisions? Or is your knowledge that is controlling you? And you are just going to have a better life thanks to your healtier subconscious? In any case, knowledge is the key to a better life. Ps: I’m from italy, so if I made mistakes, sorry.

Being pre-determined to enjoy your videos I like that!

Edit- I'm not being a hater and do not spread hate please I repeat do not spread hate in the comments please 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 Now after watching this, I'm questioning myself about the reality of Life I regret making the decision to watch this video cause even though I like questions and questioning, I just hate this sort of philosophical things that makes me question my own existence, morality,decisions, what's real what's not and life By the way I'm not being a hater by saying all this I'm just presenting my opinion Have a great day

Free will in a world of controlled choices. If you like something you cant always get it and if you dont like something you cant always just will it away. There never was free will.

If we don’t truly have free will, then we need to hold strong attitudes because attitudes will have the strongest effect on our behaviour. If our attitude, an attitude that we truly accept within ourselves, is that we must be productive (for example), we will act in that way. Hold strong attitudes! Strong attitudes like “I will not let negative emotions affect me for longer than a few seconds until I take my attention off the emotion” will help you in many ways.

Maybe everything is predetermined, but we simply can’t afford to live based on this idea.

bro more shower thoughts,love that series

Great video. Aperture and The Exoplanets Channel are my favorite channels!!

That video is spot on. Great work!

This is true & bizarrely I found out through taking 3 grams of psilocybin mushrooms. During the trip I would receive the answer to a question just as I was about to ask it. It was weirdly funny but I understood that we already know everything there is to know at the level of Super consciousness or the ultimate self. Everything that’s exists is YOU, but the ONE cannot experience itself so breaks itself into infinite particles ( in our case bodies) & lowers its vibration in order to create what we think is reality & in turn we think of ourselves as individuals which in turn creates the ego. What we think of as free will is an illusion because ultimately everything that has ever happened or will happen is already known, but needs to be experienced.

Since I gave up believing in free will my life has become immensely more settled. I no longer rally against things that go wrong and say "why did that happen" or "who's fault was that". I just deal with it and much more effectively so. Even better, the things that go great in my life I now cherish as a gift, where as in the past I would have been so busy trying to control everything that I might not have noticed the good things when they happened. So that has been my experience. Cheers Pete

1:50 why have I never thought of cutting a banana like that

"You think you made a decision" but actually you decision was already made by your brain". What? Isn't the brain part of me. Just because you could read my mind before the signal is sent to my hands doesn't mean the decision was not made by me. What bollocks.

Incredible video, i wish i had friends to talk to about these subjects

My brother had bad anger issues and temper for many years, then discovered a brain tumor that was successfully removed. Not one anger episode since it was removed. Wild!

When someone says "we don't have free wil"l, most people think they're saying "you can't do whatever you want", when the reality is that we can *only* do what we want. We are forced to only to do what we want. This is what making a decision means. But we don't control what we want. Our wants and desires are not something we choose ourselves. So if we are limited to literally only do what we want, but we don't control what we want, where is the free will?

A lot of people need to see this, thank you.

At the most fundamental, atomic level, we are simply the sum of the molecular composition of our bodies and the way these molecules interact with the environment. Since we lack the ability to perfectly describe and predict the behaviour of these molecules, we have to invoke philosophical concepts like free will and morality for practical purposes, not because free will and morality are fundamental features of the universe.

So, Free will might not exist and we have to ignore it in order to live like the way of illusionism. Like the description In 10:01 "Although free will is an illusion, it's one that we must keep up with. Because faced with the choice between truth and good, it benefits most of us to always choose good. That's because truth can change everything upside down (including morality) of what we've known." Also In 6:41 " Desire, much like choice, comes from the subconscious. So a conscious effort to shape your subconscious is actually a subconscious effort to change your subconscious." Also like that part where Aperture tried to make us forget about everything he said in past ten minutes in order to avoid confusion 10:48

Investing your time and effort in activities and investments that will yield a profitable return in the future is what we should be aiming for.

" Free will " is an oxymoron.. "Where there's will there's no freedom and where there's freedom there's no will" ~ Swami Vivekananda

I like that a video like this exists. I stoped caring about everything but i still do what I'm supposed to do in every day life because either way nothing matters. Humanity in itself doesn't produce anything new we just do what nature wants us to do.No man can see whats infront of him because he is blinded by his own eyes, i came up with that thought awhile ago and have been following the topic ever since, I'm always wondering what the next step in evolution would be.

Great video, the end really eases the mind from exploding

*You took away my free will by giving me a choice to continue living in that thought.*

Aperture, you're the best person ever. I freaking love you man please never stop sharing these videos😭

Loved the message at the end.

As someone who has studied neuropsychological here are my thoughts on the subject. Thoughts are not always a choice. All animals have chemicals that create automatic response to stimulus like “fight or flight” however are choice after those stimulus or maybe even before are our own. Example being that the doctor with the tumor who started having thoughts of pedophilia, he may not have been able to control the thought of hurting a child but he had the choice to act on those thoughts. He could of had the thought and immediately sought help, told a therapist particularly someone with a medical background should of know that something wasn’t right. I have ADHD and can be prone to thoughts of violence as a result of emotional stimulus I may not always be able to control the thought of punching the kid whose kicking my seat on the plane however I am in control of what I do with those thoughts. I may have to meditate before I get in a situation that will anger me of course I may have to walk away. Everyone is capable of neuro plasticity we can change our automatic response to things with time and practice and unfortunately accountability. If their is no accountability their is no reinforcement to change if we just succumb to the idea that we as people are just are genetics we would of never evolved to what we are now and what we can be. An it really undermines people who have gotten better from treatment despite background and history. Is it much hard for some then others absolutely.. is it impossible for anyone no.

Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism. The way you play it is free will.

I've discussed this with my dad before randomly and we both just agreed that we have free will within our physical limitations. (I know that technically means it's not free will but it is, because you can't control the cards you're dealt but you can play that hand of cards however you choose within those restraints.

"Your brain makes the decision for you"??? 😆🤣🤣 Your brain IS a part of you.

I can sometimes tell when the subconscious decision making happens. But it never happens when I have to make a choice. Which leads to me thinking about it way too logical. Even just "What would you like to eat" becomes a question about needs, wants, missing out vs satisfaction. I think it's a part of my subconscious thinking not working correctly. So, to all of you who have struggle with split second decisions, you are not alone

I think about this all the time. Im only 10 seconds into the video but i always think about how if an advanced life existed near us they would view our 'free will' the same as we view a rock rolling down a slope. Predictable.

No, false, all it proves is that the brain (which for all intents and purposes is you) simulates the action before you do it. Before you speak to someone, you simulate your words in your head before you speak. Your brain activity just shows that you're thinking, that you're thinking about speaking, and that you're selecting the order of the words you're going to use. Nowhere does that suggest that you aren't the one deciding what to say or not choosing the order. This is useful because while climbing a tree you have to look at the tree and then your brain simulates you climbing the tree and simulating the path. You already know you want to climb a tree, you're selecting which tree to climb and you are simulating the path, which often times you have to deviate a little bit. As you climb you look up and you further simulate the possibilities of what you can do to continue climbing. We have free will, the fallacy is you are separating your brain from 'you' which is impossible because your consciousness and subconscious are linked, they are both you.

This poses a different set of question: Where does the subconscious end and you begin? Is the subconscious part of you and are its decisions your own?

6:50 😂look at the drawing

4:59 Some people don't have free will, and all people's free will is somewhat limited, but most people still have some degree of free will. That means our thoughts and actions aren't just chemical reactions of outside events. Saying that some people don't have free will on some issues means that free will doesn't exist at all isn't a logical conclusion, it's like saying everyone is sick because some people are sick and nobody is perfectly healthy.

I always get chills when watching Ur videos, keep up the good work ❤️

It's so paradoxical You telling us free will is nothing but an illusion but we should keep with that illusion to do good deeds lol

Dude literally just out here making a video with the title 'the illusion of free will' while the title should be 'how your brain works'

Looks like a very good summary of ideas from philosophers, biologists and neuroscientists. More specifically - Daniel Denet (about necessity of illusion of free will)

This sounds like we're constantly on autopilot

10:19 Nobody denies that various external factors influence a persons place in life. The debate is weather or not a person’s environment plus their chemistry fully predetermine their behavior.

5:28 So, that they won’t reoffend. There’s no point in punishment for punishment sake.

Renslayer: "In search of free will." Kang: You should watch "The Illusion of Free Will " by Aperture.

This didn’t depress me it opened my mind

The answer to the paradox can be the reason why children need someone and nobody remembers their old self because it is when we are given information enough to comprehend our choices.

Very great video... interesting and confusing at the same time.. its ironic how he says "knowing that we do not have a free will , will help us make better DECISIONS"

Just add butterfly effect to this concept. Our actions are also determined by millions of other events that occurred before we made a decision. Thanks for such enlightening, scary yet much needed video.

2:15 "Your brain has decided what you'll do" The thing is, The brain is mine, I am the brain, and what the brain decided is what I decided because it's me, how is that an illusion if I was the one who decided it? Your subconscious is a part of you, making it *you* who decided to choose between the banana and the apple, this doesn't make any sense.

For me the free will is when you know you are not free of what u doing just observing your life like a movie . I am talking like that because God showed me some experience that I cant described its just wonderful knowing there is no freewill we are just conscious of ours life. Its hard to explain but trust me i know what I am talking about

From a scientific standpoint, colors do not exist independently, but are instead creations of our own brain. However, given the reality we perceive is filled with colors, it is reasonable and enjoyable to appreciate and present vibrant red roses, pure white pearls, and marvel at the stunning beauty of azure skies, fluffy white clouds, verdant grass, and lush trees. Indeed, the scientific fact remains that the sun is perpetually shining and does not actually descend. Nevertheless, due to the Earth's rotation, we experience phenomena such as sunsets, sunrises, days, and nights, along with varying intensities of sunlight. Acknowledging and respecting these experiences and living as though sunrises, sunsets, days, and nights are real is a sensible approach. It is a scientific reality that both iron and oxygen are primarily empty space with a small portion of energy. However, considering their unique properties and the distinct ways we experience them, it makes sense to interact with them differently based on their observable traits. Scientifically speaking, there is no concrete "I" or self. Yet, to successfully navigate daily life and foster meaningful connections, it seems practical to behave as though there is a definite "I". In a similar vein, while science tells us there is no actual "free will," in our present experience, it seems judicious to act as if "free will" does exist to make choices, assume responsibility, and engage with the world. Comprehending the scientific truths behind these phenomena doesn't diminish the significance of our experiences and perceptions. It is crucial to strike a balance between our scientific understanding and the pragmatic aspects of existing in our perceived reality.

I have been thinking about this as well for years now! ​I actually had an argument about this with my friend the other day, and I told him that Free will is an Illusion. Just like how a number generator thinks of numbers, which is called a 'Pseudorandom number generator." I had one question for my friend, to prove that free will is just an illusion, I asked him, "let's say a man born in a tribe then was taught that killing another human is good and feeds his god, and to lose fate in this belief would cause death for him and amongst his family. So then, after years of fate, he stumbles upon another human. Will he kill the man or not?" Do you see where I'm going with this, right? Another study showed that a pianist's brain will play the sequence of movements of the fingers to play the piano. Before, the Pianist even has the will to play the piano. But then still, my friend refuses to agree with me, so I represented him with another question "if I stab you with a burning knife, would you scream?" He laughed then said, "of course, because it would hurt" Then I asked him, "was it you decided that it hurt? but it was your nerves that sent the signals to your spine, then your brain telling you that it hurt and return you start screaming subconsciously." so please tell explain to me why is "free will" not an illusion. At that point, he had nothing else to say.

In a way, I've already thought about this, but instead of feeling helpless, it made me more curious as to what the purpose of life really is. Why are we all here? What is supposed to be accomplished? I'm fine with the fact I have no choice in my decisions because at the very least my brain doesn't tell me to do horrible things. You've put some of what I've thought into much more understandable words.

Illusion of free will is not better for us. You can base a system of praise and punishment based on utilitarianism rather than morality, whatever that is. Also determinism cosupports itself with modern reformatory criminology and serves as a good argument against a punitive justice system.

we are our brains. We choose, freely.

Based on Carl Jung’s concept of the self, we could instead think of it like we are a combination of our conscious brain (the 5% of the brain that interacts directly with the environment, otherwise known as the ego) and the subconscious or “shadow”, the other 95% of our brain that is less knowable but still interacts with the ego. Our “self” is not just our conscious brain, but is instead all the many parts of the brain that govern our thoughts, feelings and actions. So free will may be a myth, but will is not.

After watching this I learnt that- 1. Subconscious isn't a part of you 2. Decisions made in the Subconscious is diff from the Decisions that you make.

I don’t get how people think that it’s intuitive that we have freewill. Yes, we have thoughts in our brains which cause other parts of our bodies to do things but, how do we know these thoughts are uncaused? Oftentimes, there’s an identified external cause of human actions(someone else recommending we do something, seeing an attacker running at us, smelling food, seeing a green or red light while driving, heating your alarm in the morning, attraction, love, beliefs a person holds, exedra). Physical things in people’s brains have also been linked to various behaviors. Sure, none of these things fully predetermined a humans actions alone but, how do we know that all the factors put together don’t predetermine a person’s actions? Even if no cause is identified, how do we know one doesn’t exist? It’s not like we can plan on having a thought before we have it. A thought comes to you to do something, and you don’t necessarily know what it came from but, that doesn’t prove that it came from nowhere. Just as you could hear a sound and not know what caused it but, that doesn’t mean the sound is uncaused. However, it’s my understanding that theories in quantum physics predict that nothing is predetermined, conscious or not.

The most inspiring and meaningful video about free will I’ve ever watched ❤