A Perfect Model of Freedom
As stated many times laws have two parts: conditions and consequences. Freewill is determined by our ability to choose the conditions. Captivity is determined by the consequences. All laws have conditions. Freewill relates to the conditions (or cause) of law. Determinism relates to the effects (or consequences) of law.
The laws of nature do not always give us choices over the conditions. At this writing a hurricane is headed for Florida. All Floridians can do is to prepare for the hurricane. They cannot change the course of the hurricane. The same is true for earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, and other violent upheavals we call natural disasters or acts of God.
Scientists consider all laws of nature deterministic. Because of the conditions of natural law, some scientific theorists claim man does not have freewill. The late Mr. Stephen Hawkins voiced that opinion when he said, “It is hard to imagine how free will can operate if our behavior is determined by physical law, so it seems that we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion,” (From his book Grand Design)
It is a classical non sequitur. It is true that we cannot change the course of nature, but we can prepare for its onslaughts. But that is incidental to the important issue. The truth is that all laws have conditions; whereas some of those laws, such as tornadoes, are beyond our power to control, many laws can be manipulated by understanding the conditions. For example, because our scientists understand electricity, they are able harness the power of electricity to benefit mankind. We understand the law of gravity; therefore, we use gravity to our advantage. The examples are infinite as demonstrated by our advancement in technology.
On the one hand our physical bodies appear independent. That is to say our heart beats, our blood flows, our hair grows, etc. without any apparent effort on our part. On the other hand, science has learned about ways to help us improve our health because they better understand how the body works. The upshot is because we can organize the conditions of law, we have freewill. We are not animals. We are not machines. We are not robots although we have some of the attributes of animals, machines, and robots.
One thing that theoretical scientists who claim we do not have free will ignore is the fact that we have tremendous ability to organize the conditions of innumerable laws. That is why we are able to harness electricity, fly to outer space, manufacture cars, build cities, etc. The list would soon go into the hundreds of thousands.
All laws of our world have conditions and it is because of those conditions that we may exercise freewill. Freewill is the ability to make choices. Technology, invented by man, provides millions of choices, thus increasing freewill.
Freewill is in concomitant variation to our ability to govern conditions of law and to obey or disobey law. Obedience to law increases freewill. Disobedience to law decreases freewill.
The reason theoretical scientists deny freewill is because they deny the existence of the dual nature of man. Science sees man as composed of only a physical body subject to temporal laws. If that were true, then science would be correct. We would have no freewill. The physical body is a biological machine as Mr. Hawking suggests.
The biological machine has two parts. It has a brain which governs every action of the body, and it has the body which is entirely governed by the brain. The body can do nothing without the brain. If scientists appear to make the body act independently by applying electrodes, it is only because they are imitating the actions of the brain. The brain, though it governs the actions of the body, does not have freewill for it too is a biological machine.
