Free Will and Instinct

Inspired by the Boyd Rice v Bob Larson debates

Long have the religious and irreligious argued over the concept of free will, but what is the most likely answer?

Well, to begin, this is in part an argument of nature vs. nurture, which as is known a give and take idea, it’s a bit of both. People understand their nature through nurture, and vice versa- whether on an unconscious level or consciously. 

Similarly, will is based on instinct. People’s will is directed by their instincts, typically upon inherently carnal tendencies: feasting, fighting, fucking- we only happen to exist in an era where the options of which exploration and indulgence in these instincts is very easily possible. People can go on their phones and fulfill most every one of these needs, on a dopamine level; they can order food (feast), watch porn or get a hookup on an app (fuck), or argue on the internet because nothing feels better than arguing with intellectual inferiors on the internet (fight) for that primal feeling of adrenaline. This can obviously be seen as a byproduct of humanity’s intellectual development, which led to the social and technological advancements required to live as a free animal. 

Now, one could try arguing from a technological point of view of humans having things that animals don’t have, which is as previously mentioned an intellectual development byproduct. Consider the phone, which is the dopamine addiction in our pockets- dopamine addiction is not uncommon amongst mammals that aren’t human, like dogs.

A religious argument for free will is by divine decree, that man is more separate from the animal kingdom, however this is nothing more than an appeal to a (divine) authority fallacy which is nothing more than a self defeating attempt at an explanation. 

In the end, free will and instinct is a push and pull relationship, which can go either direction with most people in a happy medium. Like nature and nurture, it is a mix of both.