What Is Free Will?
The idea that you can make your own choices.
What is free will?
Being responsible for your actions depends on this.
What is responsibility?
The organ that controls thinking and decisions.
What is the brain?
This movie features choosing between a red pill and a blue pill.
What is The Matrix?
Ancient Greek thinker who asked lots of questions about how to live.
Who is Socrates?
When your choices are caused by things that happened before.
What is determinism?
Making choices without being forced by others.
What is freedom?
The front part of the brain helps with decision-making.
What is the prefrontal cortex?
If someone commits a crime, this system decides punishment.
What is the justice system?
Philosopher who said we are “free” and responsible for our choices.
Who is Jean-Paul Sartre?
The belief that you are completely free to choose.
What is libertarian free will?
The idea that everything is already decided no matter what you do.
What is fate?
An experiment showing the brain acts before we’re aware of deciding.
What is the Libet experiment?
Blaming or praising someone for what they did.
What is judgment?
Thinker who believed everything follows strict natural laws.
Who is Baruch Spinoza?
The belief that free will and determinism can both be true.
What is compatibilism?
When outside pressure affects your choices.
What is coercion?
The study of the brain and nervous system.
What is neuroscience?
A classic scenario: should you pull a lever to save five people but harm one?
What is the trolley problem?
Philosopher who said free will and determinism can work together.
Who is David Hume?
The idea that free will does not exist at all.
What is hard determinism?
A situation where you must choose between two difficult options.
What is a dilemma?
The idea that brain activity causes our thoughts and actions.
What is physicalism?
If free will isn’t real, this idea about “deserving punishment” is questioned.
What is accountability?
Modern writer who argues free will might be an illusion.
Who is Sam Harris?