An essay on free will - Section 2

By nature, some people are more inclined to enjoy certain activities. I’m sure we can all think of an instance, where you or someone you know just has that natural drive to do something. I have been a thrill seeker for as far back as I can remember. As a child, I would jump off of buildings into snow; I’d build jumps for sleds; I’d ride snowmobiles as fast as they’d go; I was into gymnastics and all sorts of physical things. No one pushed me to do these things. I simple had an innate (in born), strong desire for such things.

On another level, I was always searching for answers, and getting into arguments until something made sense to me. My mother joked that I would grow up to be a lawyer, because I would argue people into corners, and tear apart their reasoning until there was nothing left. My siblings were not like this. We grew up with the same basic environment, but I ended up being the only agnostic-atheist out of a long line of christian fundimentalists on both sides of the family. On my mothers side, their history goes back to the Mennonites (similar to the Amish). My mother’s family helped found one of the largest churches in my area. On my father’s side, we have missionaries. So, here I am, the little black sheep. I take no credit for my release from religion. I was simply lead to it by my strong drive to face reality.

Now, I can’t prove for certain what exactly caused me to be the way I am, but we can look at some obvious, more extreme cases which are scientifically proven to be founded in biology. Look at certain mental disorders, such as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. These are caused by pre-natal exposure to alcohol.

I once knew a guy who had serious behavioral problems. My girlfriend and I had him pegged for a FAS Disorder. One day, we were sitting in our sociology class in college, and the professor started talking about FAE (a term that is being phased out in place of FASD). Our “friend” (I use quotes because, by then, he had shown quite a bit of bad behavior) fit into the category so well, that it was ridiculous. His brother had some sort of retardation, so it stood to reason that his mother was drinking during our friend’s development as well. He had serious issues with compulsive behavior. He was a compulsive liar, and would act without thinking. He did not understand consequences and felt little or no sympathy for other people. On one hand, he could be a lot of fun, because he was just balls-to-the-wall crazy when we’d go out. On the other hand, he could be incredibly obnoxious, and could take things to far. When your “friend” starts talking about blowing up vending machines with grenade powder, making up stories about you and other friends, or breaking into various businesses, it’s time to call it quits. You might say some of this is normal post-high-school male behavior, but when you look at all of the other behavior involved, it’s right in line with FASD.

The point of all this is, from birth, he was inclined to this activity. He never chose to be subjected to alcohol in the womb, and have his mind warped. His exposure to prenatal forces is mild compaired to that of many others. Look at the brain of some people with an FASD. Besides FASD babies, we have crack babies, meth babies (it’s all the rave these days), heroine babies, and so on.

Substance abuse is not the only cause of biological problems. Some mental disorders are passed down through genes. Bipolar Disorder runs in my family. My great uncle had Bipolar Disorder; my brother and sister have also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so I’ve witnessed first hand what that can do to a family.

People that claim all of these disorders are made up, just to make excuses for people’s behaviors obviously have not actually studied them one bit. Why is it that everyone who has a degree in psychology or sociology accepts these things as valid disorders? Could it be because they study them thoroughly and have enormous amounts of scientific data to back it up? You don’t even have to be a scientist to observe many of these differences in humans with these diseases and disorders-you just have to spend time around them. Since we do have people that study these things, you can look at some of their findings. A picture is worth a thousand words:

FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders)
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0127302/ThinkFASpage4.htm

ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder)
http://www.adhd.org.nz/neuro1.html

Clinical Depression
http://www.scienceclarified.com/images/uesc_09_img0510.jpg

OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
http://www.brainphysics.com/graphics/petscan.gif

Schnizophrenia
http://www.scienceclarified.com/images/uesc_09_img0510.jpg

Clearly, there is something wrong with these brains. I’m going to extremes with all of this to prove a point, but what you should be gathering from this is that your biology and environment define you.
Whether you have a disorder or not, these two elements shape and control your personality, and we have no reason to believe there’s anything else to it. It simply wouldn’t make any sense. If biology and environment can account for all of these aspects of personality, it’s obvious you have no magical “free will” spot somewhere inside of you.. The fact that you can severely change a personality through the physical manipulation of the brain proves that there is nothing overriding all of this. It might be a little scary, but you are a slave to these factors.

You can’t simply will yourself out of clinical depression; you can’t will yourself out of Bipolar disorder; you can’t will yourself out of FASD, or ADHD, or Borderline Personality Disorder, and so on. It’s not like people chose to have these disorders in the first place. These things ruin lives. That’s why they’re called disorders, because they’re horrible things that no one wants.

Now, for the sake of covering all bases, let’s pretend that there is some sort of “free will” center that hangs out inside of you somewhere, and that biology and environment don’t determine your personality and the choices you make. What would account for the difference in choices between two people if biology/environment were not factors? What makes the free will of one person stronger than that of another? If we are not all given a level playing field by having equal free will centers, then that must mean god is creating people with these differences.

Even if you believe that god can help you to not sin, why is it that all people sin? Is it because people don’t really want god’s help? If so, then can you be blamed for having a faulty design? People do not choose to not want god’s help anymore than many children choose to not like broccoli. Whenever you make a supposed choice, there is something in your head driving that preference, and it’s not under your control.

If I were to give you a choice between getting shot in the face or getting a massage, you would choose the massage, unless you really, really, really don’t like being touched. Either way, your mind is already made up. You’re only going with what you have a preference for. Now, let’s take a situation where it’s a really hard choice, and part of you doesn’t want what the other part does. Many people use this as proof of free will, because there is an inner struggle. Let’s say that it’s a choice to either steal a wallet full of 100 dollar bills, or to return it to the owner. Part of you really wants that money, but part of you thinks you should return the money to it’s rightful owner. Some would say that this is a struggle between good and evil; that satan is tempting you, and it’s up to you to be strong, and use your free will to choose the right thing. So when you choose to return the money or keep it for yourself, you might say that you exercised your free will, because it was a hard choice and you had an interal struggle. Really, your brain is just struggling to decide the best course of action, and neither desire for either choice is outside of your physical brain. One just happens to be stronger than the other.

Now, let’s take something that isn’t a matter of good or evil (unless you consider certain deserts evil). If you are given the option between only eating ice cream or only eating cake for desert for the rest of your life, it will be a difficult choice if you like both of those almost equally. Does this mean that your brain is choosing one while your free will chooses another? Not at all. It’s perfectly logical and reasonable to have a hard time making a choice when more than one option is tempting. You most likely enjoy having money, but you also enjoy doing “the right thing.” Also, you most likely enjoy at least two different deserts. Now, when you look at your final decision, what was responsible for that decision? Did you choose to like one over the other, or was your choice based on what you simply desired the most? I think we all know the answer to that question

When we’re speaking of issues of right and wrong, it would make a little more sense to think that satan is tempting you to make the other choice, but when we’re talking about desert, I don’t think satan has a preference for one over the other…unless it’s devil’s food cake, but let’s not get into that. With this in mind, if you can have an inner struggle that is not over good and evil, does it not make
sense that all of these struggles are merely between different parts of your own self? Why anyone
thinks that having an inner struggle proves free will, I will never know, but hopefully, after reading this, certain people will never use it again.

Some of you might think I’m beating a dead horse with 10 different sticks, but when people don’t accept that it’s dead, you have to utterly destroy it…and then, send them a memo.

Now, whatever the reason you give for what determines our choices, it all comes back to god. In christianity and some other religions, god is the creator of all. In most religions, he is omnipotent and omniscient. If, at the moment god creates the first element of the universe (whatever that might be), he knows how everything will interact and play out, based on his creation, so our fate is set in stone. If god knows no boundary of time, and can see or be any where in history, present, or future, it’s as if he’s dictating every single event in time.

Reposted with permission of AKR