Saturday, 25 April 2020

Do people have FREE WILL?

It's been a while since my latest blog post but here I am again with a new essay I've written for a course in NEUROECONOMICS (Introduction To Neuroeconomics: How The Brain Makes Decisions) I'm currently working on using COURSERA

One of the peer-graded assignments I had to do was to write about the topic of FREE WILL with the prompt: Do people have free will or is it an illusion? Is neuroeconomics the death of free will? The word limit was 500 so this is it. I hope you like it and feel free to leave a comment and share it with other people.

These views are my own. No copyright infringement. Sources are cited at the end of the essay.

We are made to believe that for those of us who live in a democracy we have such freedoms as  freedom of speech or freedom of religion to name a few but the real question to discuss here is whether or not we have free will.

When I started thinking how to approach this question I thought of more than one perspective to consider it from. Two of these will be taken into account: the religious/moral perspective and the psychological perspective.

To begin with, some people who believe in God and Catholicism have no second thoughts when stating “God gave you FREE WILL” meaning, in my opinion, that you are free to choose what you want to do. Nonetheless, digging deeper into this notion can lead to further inquiries such as: how free any individual can be to choose what they want to do without feeling guilty, remorseful or selfish in religious terms right? There is plenty to be said about this concept in religion but I will leave you with this excerpt I took from Wikipedia discussing the concept of FREE WILL in the Roman Catholic Church:

The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church asserts that "Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will".[1] It goes on to say that "God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. God willed that man should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,' so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him.""[2]

Secondly, psychology being a science which studies people and their behaviours brings a new light to religion not being the only field capable of explaining choices. Considering this matter, there are professionals in the field who try to explain the way in which the brain functions when faced with a decision to make. Doctor Danil Razeev made a compelling argument discussing this topic. This is his lecture on it: "Can Neuroscience Measure Free Will?". Another opinion on the subject matter wrote an editorial on the web and this is an excerpt I found to be quite interesting:

“How can a person make self-determined choices, make sense of the world, and even self-actualize when neuroscientific evidence seems to indicate that our brains are making decisions before we even realize it? Are we claiming responsibility for events that have little or nothing to do with conscious intention?” [3]

All things being considered, it is my personal opinion that the notion of free will is subjective to the person and the place where they live, the governments they have and the desire each of them have to do what they feel is right for them as long as it does not forfeit another individual’s right to do and act the same way.


Citations:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_in_theology “Roman Catholic” third paragraph , end of quotation 34
[2] ] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_in_theology “Roman Catholic” third paragraph , end of quotation 34
[3] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/proceed-your-own-risk/201311/do-we-have-free-will Paragraph 10 - Editorial written by Seth Schwartz Ph.D.

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