Free Will is a Myth

Free will is a delusion which is confused with complexity.

Don't believe me? You probably don't, so let me explain:

Imagine humans were much, much simpler. The only thing they could do was push a blue button or a red button. The only thing they knew was that the blue button would give them pleasure and the red button would give them pain.

If the above described everything that a human was, all humans would push the blue button and no humans would push the red button... ever.

Perhaps you're wondering, but wouldn't they push the red button out of curiosity? Since the humans I've described above are extremely simple, then no, they do not have curiosity, so they would not push the red button.

But lets suppose they did have curiosity, an exact amount of curiosity, which would lead a human to push the red button from time to time. Lets also presume that there are ten such humans, all exactly the same, and all placed in exactly the same environment. All of the humans would push exactly the same buttons at the same time.

This is because every single action that a human does is due to a reason. If all humans have the same reasons, then all humans will do exactly the same things.

So, let's add some more complexity to this problem: Pushing the blue button causes someone else to feel pain, and pushing the red button causes someone else to feel pleasure. The buttons have the opposite effect on other people to what they have on the person pushing the button. The humans now have a bit of intelligence, and are also aware of the effect of their buttons.

Now that the humans are able to affect other people, they have the ability to show compassion.

Now what will happen if there are ten identical people in exactly the same environment? Will they each do different things based on their supposed "Free Will"?

The answer is "No". They will do exactly the same thing, because they have exactly the same reason. The reason might be their emotions this time, but because they have exactly the same emotions, they will do exactly the same thing as all the other humans.

Let me put this a different way:

When someone goes to court to be tried for murder, they have a psychological evaluation to see if they might have committed the crime due to a psychological problem. The fact is that ALL murderers have a psychological problem. Unfortunately if we let all murderers go free then there would be a lot more murder going on, so we don't lock people up to take revenge on them; we lock them up to reduce the chance of future murders.

Imagine that you were born as the murderer. You had the same parents, the same body, the same friends, the same experiences, etc... do you think you would have done anything differently to the murderer?

You wouldn't have, because there is no reason for you to do anything different. The murderer had a reason for committing the murder and you would have had the same reason. If you don't believe me, what makes you so special, that you would not have committed the murder?

Perhaps you had a better upbringing, or watched less violent television, or had enough money that you never needed to consider committing a crime.

We are the product of our genetics, our memories, our emotions and our intelligence, not the product of free will.