I've been exploring the idea that we do not have free will and it's kind off fucking with my mind. What do you guys think about this topic ?
I reconcile this by setting goals and imagining what situations I may encounter and how I must react and which choices I must make to reach my goals. Knowing that we are not really in control of our wants which is what drives our choices, I feel this method is like pre-programming yourself so you'll be more likely to make a well thought out decision.
I don't believe in free will but it doesn't bother me. All the important decisions in life are made for me by pre-conditions. I am not free to fall in love, or out of love, to quit my addictions or to become addicted, to sleep on demand or likewise wake up, to remember or forget, to be happy or sad, gay or straight. Life just happens and our consciousness is its product. Sure, we can kid ourselves that, say, we can raise our right hand or our left but that's the sort of decision that involves the infinite spiral of self-reflection - all we really experience is the uncertainty of knowing in advance how the 'choice' will play out.
The problem of Free Will used to trouble me as a believer. I was taught that God was omniscient, and that the future was no different to him than the past. So, if the future had already been written in the mind of God, anything I did was simply following a script, predetermined by the One who could, if he wanted to, effect a change. And when we read the Bible, we’re confronted with Paul’s hideous logic:
“What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
One of you will say to me: ‘Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?’ But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?”
Romans 9:14-21 (NIV)
In this worldview, we are merely puppets on a string, fabricated by the potter God to be his clay tools. Disgusting!
What humans do to themselves! This is all predicated on an imaginary being for whom there is not the slightest shred of evidence.
Maybe there are varying levels of free will. For example, I'm not free to stop paying rent because I'd rather spend money on other things. But right now I am choosing to dick around on the internet instead of preparing for my interview tomorrow so... there's that... Probably not helpful ha ha.
There's a whole essay I wrote on this subject. In the end, I decided both yes and no, but it's too hard to explain here.
Well, there's a psychological theory that we don't have absolute free will - that our brains are wired to respond in a certain pattern. There's absolutely zero religious influence to the studies. NPR had a story about it... probably a couple years ago?