Free Will and Knowledge.

In recent years I have somehow developed a tendency towards determinism. In fact, staunch belief in 'free will' appears to me as a sign of naivety and blind optimism. My friend often ask me about my reasons for such hostility towards the notion of free will. I tell them that I don't understand the whole idea. They look at me kind of strange. However, when i question them about it ; it appears that they don't understand it either.

The usual conversation is always something like this.

X: We are free because we are responsible for our own actions. We do certain things because we wanna do these things.

Q: What makes you think that an intrinsically motivated will is the cause of all your actions?

X: What do you mean by cause here?

Q: You believe that everything has a cause, right?

X: Yes, I do.

Q: Then believing in free will means that free will is the cause of all our actions , right?

X: That is true.

Q: I don't understand it. You concede that everything has a cause but free will is the 'uncaused cause' of all our actions.How is it possible mate ? The idea does not make much sense to me. The idea of causality is antecedent to the notion of free will (since free will is the cause of all our actions) yet belief in free will demands negation of causality because its the uncaused cause of all our actions.

X: Ah, what?

After years of such futile discussions, it occurred to me that the whole debate is not worth it. The problem lies somewhere else.We tend to believe that we are free because of many reasons.

Firstly, we tend to think that we humans are masters of this universe and can govern it as we like. We don't realize that in this infinite realm of time and space we suddenly one day find ourselves existing after years and years of non-existence, without a choice of our own. Our place of birth,time and family are determined and don't involve our own free will. How can one even think of exercising free will in such a cosmic order?

Secondly, as Spinoza and Nietzsche have argued, we think we are free because (to some extent) we are always aware of what we do. Just because we are aware of what we do gives us a false hope that we do exercise free will. However, we don't realize that the question is not what exactly we do but why we do what we do?

Thirdly, we don't have the complete knowledge about ourselves and others. That always leaves room for indeterminacy as to how one will act under certain circumstances. Therefore, this lack of knowledge leads one to believe in free will. I have no doubt in my mind that a complete knowledge about our own nature leaves the belief in free will redundant. In other words, being omniscient makes the notion of free will meaningless in my opinion. One can conclude from my discussion that free will is intimately connected with knowledge. The more we know the more we learn the ability to 'accept and endure'.

Ignorance is bliss! : )