An issue closely connected with the problem of self and other is freedom of the will. According to a well-know dilemma, it appears that no human action can really be called free when viewed from the objective standpoint. Objectively, the body of a human agent is just a complex system of movements, of chemical and electrical changes which take place according to physical laws.
Science tells us that what we call our mental states, such as thoughts, intentions and feelings, all ultimately depend on these movements and changes. This might be taken to mean that, given the total physical state of a person’s body at any one time, its states resulting from subsequent variations in its external conditions are in every case fully determined. If that is so, then my sense that in performing an action I could have chosen to do otherwise is sheer illusion. For in choosing that action, I was merely following the laws which govern my bodily movements and changes, from which I have no freedom to depart. If, on the other hand, my bodily movements are not fully determined by prior conditions, then my sense of my decision’s being up to me or to my will at the moment of choosing is illusory for a different reason; whatever freedom I have is only the freedom of randomness or indifference.
t One can choose not to listen to the arguments. Yet seeking truth about reality can never be the same as throwing in one’s lot for a cause
If the sense of wholeness is ever to be regained, it can only be by an extended process of abstract thought; in other words, by the construction of a metaphysic
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