Consider:
Let's say someone has thrown a baseball at you. You can either catch it, or try to dodge it. In order for you to have "free will" in this scenario -- in other words, in order for you to have a choice for whether to catch it or dodge it -- then you must have a thought which stimulates the nerves in your body to activate the muscles whether in your arms/hands (to catch the ball) or legs/torso (to dodge the ball).
In order to have free will, those nerve impulses had to have two different possible tracks, both of which can be traced back to the original thought: the choice. The thought initiated a chemical reaction in the brain, which generated the nerve impulse. This chemical reaction involved the motion of particles.
Newton's laws state that any change in motion must have a stimulus; without the stimulus, objects tend to stay in motion or tend to stay still. But this thought was a stimulus.
However, if "free will" exists, then what generated the thought? Nothing was acting upon it. And if something was acting upon it, what generated the action? There can't be two possible nerve routes if Newton's laws are to be preserved. Whatever the ultimate action is, whatever the choice was, it was necessarily inevitable all along.
This proves therefore that either of the following is true:
1) Everything is predetermined.
or
2) Something that generates thoughts is not subject to the laws of nature.
This is either a proof of predeterminism or a proof of the existence of a soul. Pretty interesting, huh?
Let's say someone has thrown a baseball at you. You can either catch it, or try to dodge it. In order for you to have "free will" in this scenario -- in other words, in order for you to have a choice for whether to catch it or dodge it -- then you must have a thought which stimulates the nerves in your body to activate the muscles whether in your arms/hands (to catch the ball) or legs/torso (to dodge the ball).
In order to have free will, those nerve impulses had to have two different possible tracks, both of which can be traced back to the original thought: the choice. The thought initiated a chemical reaction in the brain, which generated the nerve impulse. This chemical reaction involved the motion of particles.
Newton's laws state that any change in motion must have a stimulus; without the stimulus, objects tend to stay in motion or tend to stay still. But this thought was a stimulus.
However, if "free will" exists, then what generated the thought? Nothing was acting upon it. And if something was acting upon it, what generated the action? There can't be two possible nerve routes if Newton's laws are to be preserved. Whatever the ultimate action is, whatever the choice was, it was necessarily inevitable all along.
This proves therefore that either of the following is true:
1) Everything is predetermined.
or
2) Something that generates thoughts is not subject to the laws of nature.
This is either a proof of predeterminism or a proof of the existence of a soul. Pretty interesting, huh?