As a philosopher (you get to call yourself that after you earn a degree in the field apparently) I often encounter questions that are both thought provoking and trivial at the same time. Thought provoking in that you think of something in a light you would normally never have thought of it in, and trivial for the same reason. These questions don't have pragmatic answers, and the answers are usually never taken past the theoretical. My favorite question of these is the existence of Free Will. I for one do not believe that free will exists and I will present you with my argument in a short and concise logical argument.

I am really interested in knowing what you all think about free will and whether or not you believe that it exists.

It is important first to establish an understanding of what free will is. I for one prefer the modern Christian interpretation of the idea. Free will is the ability all humans have to make decisions that affect their fates directly. These decisions are not predetermined, and the probability of selecting any possible action is equal for all possible actions, ie it is not possible for me to decide to defy gravity, but I can decide to make myself a sandwich or not with equal probability toward either one.

The counter argument for free will is often summarized as determinism. I'll umbrella all of these stances into one cogent idea so that this post doesn't take several pages (really it could). Determinism is a state in which all decisions and fate altering courses of actions are predetermined. The idea I had earlier about making a sandwich or not has already been determined for me, even if in my mind I think I can make the choice myself. The universe has decided for me that I will go hungry and complete this forum post instead.

My theory on free will is that Free Will cannot exist by its own exist makes it impossible for such a thing to be the case. To clarify, if we as humans have the idea of free will and free will exists, then we must have come to the conclusion of our own volition. But if Free Will is the governing law of the universe then we could not have had an equal probability choice in discovering it because that is all there is. It is far more probable that an idea of free will is created by the illusion that determinism gives us.

For those of you who believe in a divine being who gave all humans free will I have this to say: If you are forced to have free will then it is not free will at all since you didn't consciously make the decision to have it. The existence of free will has been determined, and is therefore null within its own definition.

So what do you all think? Free Will? No Free Will? Am I an idiot? I'm really curious about what you all have to say.

You might be wondering why this fits into creative writing, and to me I think it does because philosophical discussion on metaphysical topics is nothing if not creative. It stretches your brain and makes you consider the impossible.