Just about everybody has heard a philosophical idea behind free will, well, or lack there of.  During any philosophical there always seems to be some theory that bubbles to the top, these are generally fairly unoriginal, based off of movies or completely baseless, but how could you disprove them? That’s the true spirit of philosophy, making whatever logical leaps you can to justify one part of life, no matter how large or small. I don’t like this. A logical leap or a theory that can’t use bits and pieces of evidence sprinkled throughout the world seems like a child’s what if rather than a real theory. But I can’t blame people who have these far fetched “what ifs” of theories, after all, they don’t have free will.

Yes, I just said that most these theories were baseless and generally what I don’t like about the spirit of philosophy, but I have thought about the potential for humans to not have free will and, I think it makes sense. My theory is that humans are capable of making their own decisions, but the way that they will think and act could all be determined with enough knowledge of the world (some we don’t currently understand for example specifically how brains work) and an infinite amount of time. I’d like to think that it has a basis in the scientific community, but in all honesty it is a theory based off a theory, and truly requires one to be proved for the other to be even considered, but enough hype around it, here’s the idea.

So we got the big bang theory, right? Massive amounts of mass in the center of the universe all compressed into whatever that would make decides to shoot out in all different directions and essentially start what we know as the universe today. Now if this part is true, which is an obviously big if, then there is no doubt in my mind that we don’t have free will, because every decision, event and happening has been determined by the initial kinetic energy of the mass from the big bang. How was the earth formed? Boom, big bang. How did the earth become exactly as it had to be to sustain life? Boom, the matter that had to be there was all clumped together from having the right kinetic energy in the right direction, making a mashed potatoes of a celestial body. How was the first life on earth formed? Well we don’t really know, but we do know that certain atoms had to be positioned in a certain way to make it happen, and how did they get there? The initial kinetic energy that shot them out. Even if they interacted with other matter while shooting out, that interaction could only have been wholly determined by the big bang. One thing leads to another, evolution happens, dinosaurs, asteroid, you know the drill. Then we come to David in second grade, why did he fail that math test? Boom because he didn’t study. Why didn’t he study? Because he didn’t want to. Why didn’t he want to? Because of the way he was raised, or the specific tendencies inside of his brain? How were those formed? By parents mostly. Why were parents like that? These questions continue and keep going back further and further until it comes to the conclusion that all of those things were formed the way they were because of the interactions that happened from the different kinetic energy from the big bang.

So what? We don’t have really free will, or any decision we make is at least destine to happen based on how we were formed and interacted with others. What should we do about this? Well, here is the disappointing part, nothing. Honestly if we act like we have no control over our lives – true or not so true- then it will have an affect on our brain.  The best thing to do is try to act as best you can in the way that you think you can. Its a disappointing conclusion, but most theories are best dismissed if they may have a negative impact, true or not.