The Free Will in our Purpose

The will and personal change are the basis of our individual freedom, and if we are to achieve it, we have to radically break away from imposed patterns and programming we have been subjected to during our upbringing.

The Free Will in our Purpose

For centuries, the age-old conundrum of whether we have free will has been a controversial topic for a multitude of philosophers, scholars, and psychologists. Generally, there was an almost unanimous belief that not only does free will exist, but if we lost it, humanity would be doomed. However, the twentieth century saw the development of an opposite way of thinking, backed by a number of popular scientists and science writers who claimed that free will is an illusion, and that choice is just a trick of a brain.

A pioneer of this stream of thought was the American psychologist Benjamin Libet, who demonstrated in the 1980s that humans don’t have free will. Libet conducted experiments, based on the knowledge that electrical activity builds up in a person’s brain before moving any part of his body, which showed that this electrical buildup happens before the person consciously decides to move. The conscious decision to act, which humans associate with free will, is then, according to Libet, just an add-on – something that occurs after the brain has already set the act in motion.

This and other theories brought the death of free will, at least for the next couple of decades. To this day, many firmly believe that human actions aren’t the result of conscious choices but are caused by uncontrollable physical processes in the brain and body. According to skeptics, our bodies are just intricate physical machines, predetermined by the laws of nature and prior physical conditions. However, as of recently, this famous argument against free will has been once again debunked.

But before we speculate whether we have or don’t have free will, we must understand what we mean by it. Are we free? Do we know what freedom is, or at least, what it means for us, individually?

Freedom

The concepts of freedom and free will are hard to define but vital to both individual and social life. According to the general understanding, there are two types of freedom, and either of the types can be positive or negative.

Positive External Freedom is defined as having the external means to achieve our goals and fulfill our desires. On the other hand, Negative External Freedom is the absence of external constraints, pressures, or restraints that prevent us from doing what we want to do. Basically, you either have the freedom to go for your dreams, supported by the laws of your country and the society in which you live, or you’re in shackles, figurative or literal, and are unable to do what you please.

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