Free Will

Frontiers have changed in last 100 years. Now to do philosophy or sociology or humanity you need to understand science as well, you will need to understand neuroscience, latest developments in psychology, you need to read Stephen Hawking. Upanishads are important but not complete, people need to know more in the light of latest developments. This Indians don't understand.

Imagine free will as something like entropy in thermodynamics: it’s always increasing. In reality, entropy keeps expanding, and similarly, the range of choices and complexity we humans experience is always growing. Over time, the set of options and knowledge that we can use and act upon expands. But only a part of this vast set is accessible to us at any given time, where we can make choices easily, without much effort.

Free will is meant to help us navigate this effortless field of choices. These effortless options—where the energy cost is nearly zero—are what we practically call free will. It’s an automatic response to environmental input, almost like the brain’s operating mode for efficient decision-making. But this so-called “free will” isn’t fully independent; without new inputs, it would cease to function. In a real sense, then, free will isn’t absolute—our sense of autonomy fades without fresh information to guide it.

However, as we learn more and stretch our mental and physical abilities, the field of options where we can act effortlessly expands. With each increase in understanding, our functional "free will" grows. It feels like this effortless part of our mind is somehow separate from physical limitations, a kind of playground for ideas that don’t require much energy to explore—similar to how lifting 5 kg feels easy if you’re used to lifting 50 kg.

But still, nothing is truly happening without influence. It might seem nearly energy-free, yet it’s constantly nudged by our surroundings. We switch between ideas and impulses as if we’re moving through states of equal energy, randomly choosing what seems best. And we associate our ego with this switching, calling it “free will.”

Machines need an operator or input to function, and similarly, we need an environment that triggers us to act. A child growing in complete sensory isolation would have no input and little to no will to act—an outcome similar to the story of “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.”

Our so-called free will is simply moving between equal-energy states, choices we switch between without much thought, assigning our sense of self to this process. But all action requires energy. Our thoughts, decision-making, rewards, and even survival instincts are tied to the energy we’re willing or able to spend. The more energy we have, the freer our thinking can become.

True freedom would mean being able to do anything, but the body has its limits—you can’t jump off a 10th-floor building and expect to survive. Our free will is always bounded by the constraints of the energy and the physical limitations we face.