On Free Will

From the vantage point of my 82 years I look back on what my life has been and I sense that the course of it has been mostly, if not totally determined by factors over which I had no control. To begin with my genetic makeup and disposition were completely determined by my parents and the chance meeting of the sperm and the egg that led to my being. My early life was absolutely determined by my parents and the philosophy of life they had, the character of which they had in turn derived from their own births and upbringing. My early years were sheltered ones and I was immersed in the culture and milieu of the Lutheran community and the immigrant status of my grandparents. I was also in a small rural community in north central Iowa and this largely isolated from urban life.

My life was also affected by the depression of the 1930s and by the ramifications of World War II. These led inevitably to my education at Fort Dodge Junior College, and at the University of Iowa, to my employment by Shell and my career as a chemical engineer with them, to my meeting of my future wife, my marriage and the family I have participated in generating. My relatively early retirement and my introspective nature have led to the consideration and thought I have given to the events of my life. This consideration and these thoughts had led me to the sense that I have not really made any real choices any time in my life, the course has always been dictated by the situation that presented itself to me. I have accordingly decided that the abstraction known as free will does not in reality exist at all.

My conclusion that free will does not exist at all means that virtually all of human thinking, political and religious thinking in particular is incorrect in that it assumes that an individual decides his actions. It further means that the relatively easy character of my life is not the result of any effort on my part. Rather I have been the recipient of a rather felicitous act of circumstances.

From having been immersed virtually all my life in the social milieu that assumes free will does exist, I find it difficult at times to phrase what I have to say in “non-free-will” terms but such lapses are lapses and not a change or reversion from my present thinking.