So let's say I'm having a conversation with my friend.
I offer him two choices.
The first choice:
100$
The second choice:
1000$
Now, I clearly know he's gonna pick the 1000$.
Am I violating his free will to chose even though I know which one he'll choose?
Let's discuss. Thank you.
To which, I reply:
I don't consider his choice to have been free will. Nor do I consider any choice to be as such.
"The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion."
I consider all choices to be 'at one's own discretion', but I consider acting without constraint of fate is physically impossible?
How is it physically impossible to have free will?
It's physically impossible for you to bend your elbow backwards without experiencing pain, assuming your nervous system is functioning normally, and your musculatory system is functioning normally. You can't bend it backwards in the first place because your joints are not connected in a way that allows that. Or if you break the joint, you will experience pain.
This is a choice that is impossible for you to make.
You can't choose to grow wings.
This is a choice that is impossible for you to make.
Why? Our conscious brain does not control the allocation of proteins in our body. We do not control our heartbeats.
If you look at your brain as 'the entity that controls you', rather than 'something you control', then free will is impossible.
It is impossible to say that your brain is something you control, because your thoughts are processed in your brain before you are made conscious of them... by your brain. Google for 'neuroscience fate determinism' and you might come up with articles explaining that. Predicting people's choices 5 seconds before they make them.
How do I explain myself typing words, as a scenario where my brain is controlling me and not a scenario where I am controlling my brain? Well clearly I am coming up with words to type, right? And to type them, I'm telling my brain to move my fingers, right?
Think about it sequentially, what happens in order for me to type? Well first, I have to have a desire to type. Where does the desire come from? Before that, I have to observe something that makes me want to reply with a message. What makes me observe things? My eyes, wherever they happen to be looking. Erm... I could keep doing that for a while. Let's look at it this way. Starting with the observation of a message I want to reply to. The observation is an input. It inputs sentences into my brain that I/it can understand. My brain then processes an action it wants to take. That is what my brain does before it makes me perceive the conscious thought of "I want to type a reply". This conscious thought is also something my brain observes in return. It observes its own output. Output becomes input. "I want to type a reply" is now sent to my brain. My brain interprets this and comes up with a reply to make. Every word I am typing now was pieced together by my brain, before I even typed it. The way I am explaining the lack of my own free will is based off of memory that already existed in my brain, about knowledge that exists in my brain, and how my brain sorts that data. I type with fairly good grammar, because that is what is ingrained in my brain. Not because I am choosing to. I explain this scenario with the words and sentence structure I do because that is what is ingrained in my brain. Not because I am choosing to.
I did not choose to make this reply. The act of making a reply is what is ingrained in my brain as response to the specific stimuli. My brain nearly forwarded this action as a conscious thought to myself that says, "I want to type a reply". The act of a brain making itself conscious of its own thoughts is one that can very easily fool those whose brains do not have deep critical thinking ingrained in themselves. This is why it's regarded as an illusion.
It is impossible to think before your brain processes the thought.
So when I say my brain controls me, what is defined as "me" given this context? "I" am simply a descriptive word that my brain associates with the personality, idiosyncracies, disposition, tendencies, memory, knowledge, and habits that are ingrained into the very same brain.
"I" am simply a collection of data.
I would always pick $1000, assuming there are no adverse consequences, because that my brain is ingrained with ideals of being efficient, opportunistic, bettering itself, etc. There's no way I would just choose a smaller amount unless you add extra stipulations, like "Either you or your brother gets one amount or the other amount of money". And in that scenario, there is no way I could end up choosing one scenario over the other.
There's another way free will is physically impossible. It's physically impossible because time travel, and theoretical merging/splicing of theoretical alternate timelines is impossible. Let's say I have to choose: Left or Right. Free will says I can choose either one. Determinism says I can only possibly choose one. Well. Think of time like matter. Matter cannot occupy the same area as other matter. Similarly, time cannot "occupy" other time. You cannot possibly choose both left and right at the same time. You can choose left at one point in time, and then choose right at another point in time. But it is impossible for you to choose left, travel back in time before you chose left, then choose right "instead of" left. Free will is a misnomer of itself. Free will is only possible with time travel. Determinism says you can choose left, then choose right. Determinism does not say you can be doing two different things at the same point in time.
It is a hard concept to realize that for free will to be posssible, you'd have to be able to allocate yourself to doing two different things at the same time, or to time travel and undo a choice such as to do the other choice.
It is not a hard concept to believe you are controlling your brain. This is why people easily believe in free will. But even then, your brain controls you.
I can still agree with one part of the definition of free will - "the ability to act at one's own discretion". This is possible with determinism. As with my "Brain controls you" example, one's own discretion would be defined as the tendencies/habits/patterns already ingrained in one's brain.
