Persuasive Essay On Free Will

Mankind has always felt unique and special, and while that may be true to some degree, we are bound by the laws of the universe. Free will is an enigma. We think that we make decisions on our own accord, but in reality, our decisions and feelings toward them were mapped out long before we were born. This notion has not been given proper credit as an acceptance of this fact could lead to a greater understanding of the universe and reality as a whole. I aim to prove that, without a shadow of a doubt, Free will is simply a dream.

My argument piggybacks on Leibniz’s concept regarding the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). This idea states that every contingent thing must have sufficient reason for existing. This means that a tree did not simply arrive n the forest one day as a 40ft tall sequoia, but instead, a plant evolved into a sequoia tree, went through a cycle of seeds, the wind carried those seeds, and water rained on those seeds, and they grew over time to become the 40ft Sequia we see today. This extends to all things in the world and the world itself; Everything is contingent and has reasons or causes for its current state of being. Now, if someone or something had full access to all the reasons and causes for all the contingent things, then they would technically be able to map out and predict everything that happened, and everything that is going to happen. Knowing the initial state of everything, this infinitely knowledgable entity could feasibly calculate the state of everything at any given moment in time. Obviously, we can not do this, but mathematics allows for a fourth-dimensional being who would be able to go about time the same way that we move left and right. If we assume, even in an observational capacity, that a being like this could exist, then time itself is predetermined. All things could be calculated to know their positions in time whether they had already happened or not. Therefore, the future and past are both written in stone and unchangeable. Any action that happens can be predicted under these conditions and so, time is constant. Assuming that nothing can be changed and everything that happens or happened was “destined” to happen, then any actions taken by a person are not actions that they freely decided to take. All previous causes and reasons for everything else around them and leading up to that decision were molded specifically to have that person make that specific decision. Although not necessarily aware of it, this proves that humans are not free to decide what they do, this is the same thing as not having free will.

Point Conclusion Form:

• According to the PSR, every contingent thing must have sufficient reason
• Therefore, every event in the past and future, with full knowledge of these reasons or causes, is predictable.
• If this is true, then the entirety of time is predetermined, the future is written as solidly as the past.
• If all events are predetermined, then humans are not free to decide what they do.
• If humans are not free to decide what they do, then they do not have free will.
• Humans do not have free will..

A factor of this piece that may be hard to accept is premise number two. It is hard to wrap one's brain around the idea of knowing every single cause or reason for the state of the world, but it's not the actual plausibility that matters. To exist, things have contingencies that have all come together to make their existence possible, like the sequoia tree. Imagine its fall and all the seeds from the sequoia fall off its branches. We don’t know, but it is possible to know, where every single seed landed that fall, which seeds grew into trees, and what kind of impact they would have as they grew. This does not mean that we have to know, but that the knowledge exists and is therefore calculable. This works in the opposite direction as well. If next fall all the we track all the seeds that fall, where they fall, how much sun they would get, water they would get, the ground composition, etc, if we took every single condition of the surrounding environment and played out the most likely scenarios, with all the knowledge for every contingency, then whether or not it is actually possible, the future events of everything is discernable.

This theory does have one major criticism in premise five. The actions that people take, may still be aligned with decisions that they “freely made”. This means that the action that happen coincide with a person's perceived free will. A decision that they made and were not coerced into making is a decisions that technically came from free will. The thought here is that Free will still exists because, under certain circumstances, people do appear to have free will. If I deliberate on a topic and am truly pensive in my decision making process and am not coerced in any direction or the other and come to a very distinct decision that I have vetted as my own, then under my veil of understanding, I have just freely made a choice. So, in effec, just because the Universe is predetermined, does not mean that free will does not exist.

This false because even though the decision was one that, given a world where free will did exist, would be the same, it would have happened regardless of perceived desire for that action. Just because the decision aligns with perceived free will, does not make it actually a free decision. Whether or not a person thinks they freely chose a decision or not, the outcome of reality would not have been effected. I chose to buy my very specific mountain bike after intense and extreme deliberation, but that intense deliberation in and of itself had been predetermined much before I came along. The factors that molded me into having the desires that I have can be calculated based on premise two and so, my perceived choices and free desire, is in fact not free at all. The very nature of our desires are contingent on reasons and causes and so these decisions, and all really decisions throughout time, can not be made under the mask of free will, whether the intention aligns or not.

Although not what people want to hear, this piece has shown through an expository and logical presentation to a vetted critical response that free will is nothing more than an illusion. The nature of the deeper depths of the matrix that defines that rule remain to be elaborated, but with this piece completed, we can focus effort on those pursuits instead. The acceptance of a lack of free will will allow a deeper look into theology as a whole and make it easier for people to understand and accept the scientific discoveries that promote this idea. Quantum mechanics reveal more and more about the very fabric of what makes reality everyday, the last thing we need is people with a stubborn mindset stopping scientific advancement for the uptinth time. Free will is not necessary for living a life full of purpose and drive and the sooner the world realizes the importance of social and cultural aspects of life over that of free will and theology, we can finally join together in unity.