Determinism vs Free Will

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You reading this right now. Are you on your device because someone told you to? Because it is secretly written behind a red curtain? Or is it due to your own choice, that you wanted to? I will be trying to dissect this dilemma today, allowing you to choose which one you want to believe.

Determinism is the point of view that yes, everything is decided by some other factor and not you. Whatever you do. Want to eat pizza today? Well, the way you have been brought up, your taste palette, the weather, that birthday party with the burger incident, all of these add up to ultimately making the choice for you: Pizza for dinner sounds amazing. You couldn’t possibly make any other choice, because your neurons are going to fire a certain way. Not because you wanted to, but because your past and your present circumstances forced you to, under the guise of “You know what? I don’t live with my parents anymore, if I want to eat pizza today, that’s what I am going to do.”.


On the other hand, free will—the belief that you, as an individual, are capable of making choices independently of outside influences- seems just as plausible. It simplifies everything. Only you decide. Nobody, or nothing, else. It’s the idea that you could, at any moment, choose something entirely unexpected—not because of a predetermined chain of events, but simply because you wanted to.

Let’s go back to the pizza example. According to free will, you’re not eating pizza because your past experiences or your taste buds made the decision for you. You’re eating pizza because you sat down, considered your options, and decided that it was what you wanted in that moment. Free will tells you that you can go against the grain. You could choose sushi, even if pizza is your favorite, just to do something different. The choice, free will says, is entirely yours.

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