POP CORN

DOES FREEWILL EXIST?

WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE?

DO YOU EVEN HAVE A CHOICE?

Cashmore, Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, along with many other scientists, does not believe in the idea of free will, Cashmore believes in the idea that we are simply conscious machines, completely controlled by a combination of our chemistry and external environmental forces. When biologist Anthony Cashmore claims that the concept of free will is an illusion, he's not breaking any new ground. The ancient Greeks, people, have wondered how humans seem to have the ability to make their own personal decisions that result in non desirable actions other than their desire to "will" something.

Cashmore has argued that a belief in free will is akin to religious beliefs. Neither comply with the laws of the physical world. One of the basic premises of biology and biochemistry is that biological systems are nothing more than a bunch of chemicals that obey chemical and physical laws. Generally, we have no problem with that notion when it comes to bacteria, plants, and similar entities. So why is it so difficult to say the same about humans or other “higher level” species, when we’re all governed by the same laws?

The human brain acts at both the conscious level as well as the unconscious. It’s our consciousness that makes us aware of our actions, This gives us the sense that we control them, as well. But even without this awareness, our brains can still induce our bodies to act. Studies have indicated that consciousness is something that follows unconscious neural activity. Just because we are often aware of multiple paths to take, that doesn’t mean we actually get to choose one of them based on our own free will.

The physical world is made of causes and effects - “nothing comes from nothing” - but free will, by its very definition, has no physical cause. Some believe these causes lay in the environment , more specifically in physical and psychological reinforcements and punishments. When you do, see, feel something with a consequence, your brain takes "note" to use in calculations of future scenarios.It is only because we are not aware of the environmental causes of our own behavior or other people’s that we are tricked into believing in our ability to choose.

This ideology would mean, a person who commits a crime has no real choice. (S)he is propelled in this direction by environmental circumstances and a personal history, which makes breaking the law natural and inevitable. This is referred to as determinism.

The other main supporters of determinism are those who adopt a biological perspective. However for them it is internal, not external, forces that are the determining factor. According to sociobiology, evolution governs the behavior of a species and genetic inheritance of each individual.

The sciences have grown steadily bolder in their claim that all human behavior can be explained through the clockwork laws of cause and effect. This shift in perception is the continuation of an intellectual revolution that began about 150 years ago, when Charles Darwin first published On the Origin of Species. Shortly after Darwin put forth his theory of evolution, his cousin Sir Francis Galton began to draw out the implications: If we have evolved, then mental faculties like intelligence must be hereditary. But we use those faculties, which some people have to a greater degree than others, to make decisions. So our ability to choose our fate is not free, but depends on our biological inheritance.

Personality traits like extraversion or neuroticism, and the behavior associated with them, are triggered by neurological and hormonal processes within the body. There is no need for the concept of an autonomous human being. Ultimately this view sees us as no more than biological machines and even consciousness itself is interpreted as a level of arousal in the nervous system.

In recent decades, research on the inner workings of the brain has helped to resolve the nature-nurture debate—and has dealt a further blow to the idea of free will. Brain scanners have enabled us to peer inside a living person’s skull, revealing intricate networks of neurons and allowing scientists to reach broad agreement that these networks are shaped by both genes and environment. But there is also agreement in the scientific community that the firing of neurons determines not just some or most but all of our thoughts, hopes, memories, and dreams.

The 20th-century nature-nurture debate prepared us to think of ourselves as shaped by influences beyond our control. But it left some room, at least in the popular imagination, for the possibility that we could overcome our circumstances or our genes to become the author of our own destiny. The challenge posed by neuroscience is more radical: It describes the brain as a physical system like any other, and suggests that we no more will it to operate in a particular way than we will our heart to beat. The contemporary scientific image of human behavior is one of neurons firing, causing other neurons to fire, causing our thoughts and deeds, in an unbroken chain that stretches back to our birth and beyond. In principle, we are therefore completely predictable.

Deterministic explanations for behavior reduce individual responsibility. A person arrested for a violent attack for example might plead that they were not responsible for their behavior, it was due to their upbringing, a bang on the head they received earlier in life, recent relationship stresses, or a psychiatric problem. In other words, their behavior was determined.

The deterministic approach also has important implications for psychology as a science. Scientists are interested in discovering laws which can then be used to predict events. This is very easy to see in physics, chemistry and biology. As a science, psychology attempts the same thing, to develop laws, but this time to predict behavior If we argue against determinism, we are in effect rejecting the scientific approach to explaining behavior

Clearly, a pure deterministic or free will approach does not seem appropriate when studying human behavior Most psychologists use the concept of free will to express the idea that behavior is not a passive reaction to forces, but that individuals actively respond to internal and external forces.

The term soft determinism is often used to describe this position, whereby people do have a choice, but their behavior is always subject to some form of biological or environmental pressure.

So What Do You Believe?

If everything we do is just a command sent from our brains, after sifting through all the information we've collected over our life times, what does that mean for us?

Its my brain, right? My experiences that mold my decisions? So is it my will then that makes these choices?

Is it even my experiences, or my thoughts or is it all the ideas I've heard from others and all the glimpses of their lives?

Does that mean that everything I've done has somehow involved every single person I've ever come in contact with? Everything I've touched, seen, felt, heard?

Is it possible to have an original thought?

Are we all connected in everything we do, say, feel?