(Note: I use AI to help me translate my stories from Japanese to English.)
I have read some books about free will. According to some thinkers, free will is an illusion.
Benjamin Libet, an American scientist, discovered that our brains become active before we consciously decide to take action. For example, when we drink a glass of water, our brains are active before we become aware of our intention to drink.
Most people believe they live their lives making free choices — what to eat today, where to go, which book to read, and so on. But perhaps this sense of freedom, this power of choice, does not truly exist.
It could be that our decisions are already determined before we even make them. In the future, if highly advanced machines are invented, they might be able to predict our actions with perfect accuracy before we even attempt to make a choice.
People might become distressed if they believe they have no free will. They want to believe they have the ability to choose.
I am writing about free will now. I want to feel that I chose this topic. However, before deciding to write about free will, I might have unconsciously decided to write about it. I might not have had a choice.
People feel that they have free will. However, this sense of free will might be an illusion.
I do not know whether free will exists or not. But I like the paradoxical answer: free will both exists and does not exist.