On the Source of Free Will [In Less Than 430 Words]

No one:

not Socrates [The unofficial

Plato trinity of god-man

Aristotle philosophers]

not Confucius

Kant

Christ, even [Official Member

of the Trinity],

has yet come up with

a philosophy of universal consensus.

And so,

making no overly presumptuous attempt,

I endeavor only to add myself

to this great list of failures.

I neither have the time

nor patience

to present a complete philosophy.

Hence: some scant ponderings

on the Origin of Free Will.

I) And where to begin,

but with a definition?

A) Bank of Whims:

the place in your head

from which thoughts arise

for no explicable reason.

1) Example: 11 p.m., any given Friday:

Making your merry way

down Eaton Street dressed in appropriate

jungle themed attire

(for some celebratory end-of-Hell-Week bash),

you suddenly catch yourself debating

whether it's worthwhile to buy Shaw's brand

macaroni & cheese over Kraft for

financial desperation's sake.

Non-sequitur, much?

2) Given: Said Bank of Whims

is intrinsic to every human being.

3) Not Given: source of this

Bank of Whims (though possible ones include):

a) Evolution

b) Divine gift

c) Divinely guided evolution

4) Verdict: (a-c) are immaterial

as the Bank's existence is

undeniable regardless of its source.

B) The Bank's Function

1) We cannot withdraw our whims at will.

Rather, they come (or don't) in accordance with

chance. These sporadic materializations

fuel many of our actions in such a way that we are

forced to be free, because we cannot control which arise

and which do not.

a) Whether we elect to enact these whims is

ultimately our preference.

b) If we don't adhere to any, alas:

we've become some Matrix drones.

c) If we adhere to all of them,

we cast ourselves as pawns of some god,

depending on your personal conviction,

not that it matters (I refer you again to IA3b and IA4, respectively).

II) Enter Reason:

the source of the standards by which

we choose to (or not) to act upon

our whims.

A) Reason's tenets

-for the sake of this argument-

are intrinsically defined as universal, irrefutable.

1) Example: Never, under any circumstances

would Mr. Desperate Hopeful order

'THE GARLIC SPECIAL!' on a dinner date.

His reason would discard such a whim with disdain!

And he would order pizza, barbecue chicken, or chocolate cake

(for his companion of course, and thus, extra bonus points).

2) And so, when applied to particular whims over others,

the laws of reason should modify our wilder ones

to yield a species of dignified individuals

with free will.