Benjamin Lebit wrote a paper a number of years ago dealing with this business of "Free Will". The upshot of the paper was that we have a measure of "Free WONT".
"Libet's experiments suggest that unconscious processes in the brain are the true initiator of volitional acts, and free will therefore plays no part in their initiation. If the brain has already taken steps to initiate an action before we are aware of any desire to perform it, the causal role of consciousness in volition is all but eliminated.
Libet finds that conscious volition is exercised in the form of 'the power of veto' (sometimes called free won't); conscious acquiescence is required to allow the unconscious buildup of the readiness potential to be actualized as a movement. While consciousness plays no part in the instigation of volitional acts, it retains a part to play in the form of suppressing or withholding from certain acts instigated by the unconscious. Libet noted that everyone has experienced the withholding from performing an unconscious urge. Since the subjective experience of the conscious will to act preceded the action by only 200 milliseconds, this leaves consciousness only 100-150 milliseconds to veto an action (this is because the final 50 milliseconds prior to an act are occupied by the activation of the spinalmotor neurones by the primary motor cortex, and the margin of error indicated by tests utilizing the oscillator must also be considered).
Susan Blackmore's common sense interpretation is "that conscious experience takes some time to build up and is much too slow to be responsible for making things happen."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet
Now what I remember asking a number at the hall was:
Me - "Is it possible that Jehovah could have created a different world?"
Them - "Yes."
Me - "Could he have created a world wherein humans had pseudo-free-will?"
Them - "What do you mean?"
Me - "By 'pseudo-free-will', I mean the kind of 'free-will' where we imagine that we have free will, but we don't. Could he have done that? Could Jehovah have created a world where we had psuedo-free-will?"
Them - "I suppose so."
Me - "If he could have, and we wouldn't have been aware of it. Why didn't he create a world where Adam and Eve were given the same provisions for life and death as before, only that these didn't ACTUALLY have the ability to disobey, but instead imagined that they did?"
Them - "The angels would have known."
Me - "Could he not have done the same likewise with them?"
Them - "Well, yes. Where are you going with this?"
Me - "Where I'm 'going' with this, is that I'm wondering if this was possible, why it is it wasn't done the way I suggested. Namely, that Adam and Even and the angels and all 'intelligent' creation were created without free will, but instead pseudo-free-will and that these could imagine instead that they acted with restraint, instead of prohibition. If it was in fact possible that Jehovah could have created Adam and Even in this manner, so that when they heard the command about the eating of fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, that they considered it, and instead of eating from it, didn't, then why didn't Jehovah do that instead? Adam and Eve could have simply imagined that they had the volition to disobey, but lacking the ability, no crime would have ocurred, and the world today would have been perfect?"
Them - "Well, Jehovah would have known they didn't have free will."
Me - "So it's all about him, huh?"
Them - ????!!!
