So, let's get something straight here:
The concept of free will depends upon love for illogicality, and the glorification of insanity.
What do I mean by that?
Well lets think. What is the difference between a person, and a rock? A rock's movement can be calculated with geometry, and it never strays from the math. You throw a rock and where it lands is completely predictable. Humans, on the other hand... well you never can be quite sure what one will choose to do next. So we might say that free will can be measured by unpredictability. The more unpredictable something is, the more it appears to have free will. After all, if every action you take is entirely dependent on surrounding stimuli, then you haven't chosen to do what you're doing. All you have done is responded as the most complicated chemical reaction in the known universe. Your movements could be anticipated and deemed inevitable, if one had enough knowledge.
So, if you really want to have free will, you must have the ability to break from the chain of cause and effect, and do something for no reason at all. Something completely unpredictable that wasn't brought on by a logical response to your environment, or series of thoughts. Something totally illogical. Something insane. If it's reasonable, did you really choose it?
Or maybe it is enough to simply be random. You don't have to be completely insane to have free will, you just have to let your actions be determined by the random tendencies of your mind. Then you are a free agent. Then you are making choices.
Or are you? Randomness is the other law which the universe uses to function. So if you're going to reject cause and effect in the pursuit of free will, and act in pure randomness, that is also to be expected in this universe. I might also deem that inevitable, if not predictable through probabilities.
So, is there any way to act, then, other than "because of (fill in the blank)," or due to random firings of the brain? Can we really be unpredictable? Can I be completely unreasonable and insane?
Why do I want to be unreasonable and insane? Why does that feel good? I remember a moment when I felt like I really had free will for a second. I was walking home from school and suddenly decided to take a completely different path, that I had never ever taken before. Why? I didn't know. It was a longer way home. It was uphill. It wasn't sensible. But I did it, just because I could. I could decide to make no sense. At least I imagined that I could. And it made me feel more real.
But, is making a choice because you properly synthesized a set of information and reacted accordingly really less of a choice? Why is a choice with no foundation better than a choice that makes sense? We want to make wise decisions, right? Well, wisdom requires logical calculation.
And yet, there is this sense among humans, that illogicality is valuable. Maybe you haven't noticed it before, maybe it's just something that my particular sphere of acquaintances enjoy, but it seems so to me. We feel more alive when we're spontaneous. We love what is weird, chaotic, freaky. Just go watch, "Salad Fingers" on youtube, right now. You'll see what I mean. Why did they make Salad fingers? FOR NO BLOODY REASON. And there's crap like this all over the collective human consciousness. We are nuts. We're insane. And we love it.
Maybe we don't have free will. Maybe it doesn't exist. But we value it, still. And I have no idea why. Because it seems like being perfectly sensible would be better for survival.
Also, I wonder why people resist the idea of the universe popping into existence for no reason, if this reasonless-ness, this complete unpredictability, is the essence of what we value about ourselves. We like to imagine that somebody chose to create the universe from their higher will, for a reason. But if it was so reasonable, isn't that just God obeying some sort of law of cause and effect? Is that really such an amazing act of will? Perhaps the universe beginning, from nothing, FOR NO REASON, is the most stunning display of free will of all. Maybe it's the only real instance of choice there ever was.
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