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just take a step back and look at reality. distance yourself from it for a while. you will start to realize that your ego is just something that exists. what you consider to be "you" is, indeed, something, but when it comes down to it, it's extremely slippery to define. are you the thoughts in your head? are you the body that exists as a catalyst for these thoughts? are you some sort of combination of both? it gets complicated, too, as you think about the particles in your body entering, leaving in the breath you take, the atmosphere coming into contact with your skin, the millions of organisms that exist within your body and help with your various bodily functions.
but, as you distance yourself from reality and take an objective view, you will see that what you really are is all of existence. there is no seperation between where you begin and the universe starts.. its all the same thing, all made of the same "stuff" and energy (i'm of the personal belief that all matter happens to be energy, but that doesn't really come into play here).
so what does all this have to do with free will? well, as far as your ego goes, it doesn't really have free will. psychologists often debate the nature vs. nurture argument, and it is generally agreed that what we are is a mixture of the both. if you hold the nurture view, you believe that who our egos are is a product of how we were brought up. on the other side, the nature view states that our personalities depend on the chemicals and energy that make up our bodies, and that we are unique people because of the way the universe has played out. but neither of these makes sense with the notion of free will. if free will existed, the former view would be the result of your parents and upbringers "free will", which is not your free will. the nature view is also composed of elements that are out of our control.
quantum physics provides us with an element of uncertainty in the universe and this does add support to the view that there could be free will. the uncertainty in the actions of the universe could indeed be the exact manifestation of some sort of free will. i think, though, that this approach to quantum physics is a bit short-sighted. while, it may be true that events occur without predictability, that does not mean on some level that something is causing these events to occur, we just lack the means to measure these actions.
so, what i think is that the notion of free will does exist when you step outside of your ego and think of yourself as all the matter / energy of the universe. i believe the universe is infinite, and in this infinity, every action and event is played out. your ego is but one of an infinitely many possibilities that the universe has constructed. the universe has the freedom to try every single action and interaction and does so. my view does, actually, get a bit dualistic here. as the universe "chooses" every action, it can be argued that the fact that every action is played out destroys the notion of free will. i don't take a view on this point, i don't think it's possible to do so without completely taking a guess. i leave it at taking the dualist view of believing both to be true. the universe exists without meaning, however, as we are created randomly from this universal existence, we create our own meanings. while we may not have free will, the question comes of if our meanings, while created by random chance, still really have meaning. i don't think this question can be answered, i think that it comes down to your "decision" of if your life has meaning.
i don't know.. my views change often. it is an extremely interesting subject, one which i find myself contemplating frequently.
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Sometimes I widdles the future.
-Cletus
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