Does Free will exist: Simple question but difficult to answer. 

Here is my summary:

1. Ask the ancients: Yes there is free will and you have choice that you can make and face the consequences of your choices!

2. Ask the theologian (especially Abrahamic tradition): Yes, there is indeed free will in human, gifted by God himself.

3. Ask the philosophers: 1/2 of them will say- yes there is free will and other 1/2 will say- no free will exist.

4. Ask the neuroscientist: No free will, and apparent free will is just a illusion created by our brain via neurotransmitter activities and neuronal firing.

5. Ask a psychologist: No free will, it is just a defense mechanism, appearing as an illusions to help us function in this chaotic world.

6. As Darwinian evolutionist: No free will, and the choice we make is the function of Darwinian survival of the fittest to make us survive.

7. Ask a Judge of supreme court and any court judge: They will say, YES there is free will. Without free will, the legal system cannot work and they accept the free will to exist, in a normal (non psychotic) person.

8. Ask a modern day skeptics/new scientist: They are trying to find a middle ground by making "compatibilist" as new fashionable choice saying there no free will in broader sense, yet, we are free to chose is limited sense in limited settings. Compatibilism says free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent. Compatibilism says that causal determinism is true, but we still act as free, morally responsible agents when, in the absence of external constraints, our actions are caused by our desires. In short: No free will globally, but have limited free will locally.

9. Ask a quantum physicist: Nope, there is no free will. Choice is just illusion in the spectrum of probability phase space!

10. If you ask me: Here is my view:

Free Will: A 3 step process.

A. We first discover the wonderful thing called free will. I want to move my hand, and there it is. I can move at my will! I am free!! I can do anything I want.

B. Oh no.. am I really free? Is there anything such as actual freedom or free will?

Everything seems to come from deep subconscious and I am not free.

I am just a victim of my subconscious (psychoanalysis) or my neuronal firing in my brain, or victim of the nature (non-theistic worldviews) or the God (Theistic world view). There is no such thing called freedom!

C. Ohh.. I see.. I am free after all. Actually, I was and am always free! It takes a long time to see, why and how I am free after all with true free will. All the esoteric traditions actually have been saying this for long time. No wonder! 

A short note on the Esoteric explanation for our True Free Will. [An Explanation of Point number #10]

We see things happening, changing, transforming all the time. Even without a concrete apparent teleology, we can agree on the fact that, it is changing and becoming something else.

Now let us start with our apparent free will that we still have. For example, I want to move my hand, and there I can. I want to write this short essay and there I can!

Because we came out of this Nature, Universe or From GOD, whatever you prefer to call it, that must have similar property or intentionality or free will for itself. Remember, "as above, so below and as below so above"?

For the universe, (nature or God), with its own free is trying to observe and appreciate itself by constant change and transformation. Because, we are also part of universe observing itself, we have that rudimentary degree of freedom left in us to be absolutely free. Yes, Our free will is restricted but it is still qualitatively IDENTICAL to that original unlimited free will (Point #2, Free will is a GIFT of GOD).

For any nonphysical entity, the degree of freedom (DF) of the free can be unrestricted, just like a wave function of a photon before being measured. But once you have physical form and that physical form can be witness or measured by other entity, in order to be faithful and consistent with the laws of Nature, the degrees of freedom for the free will get restricted as a Necessity (Ananke). It cannot be otherwise to be absolutely free yet having any physical form. MATTER is the mother of restriction by definition and also by empirical evidences. MATTER is the GREAT degree of freedom (DF) DEVOURER.

All ancient traditions or even our own intuition tells us that the universe was started at a free will, out of compassion or love. That free will got decayed as we human appeared in current form. But that leftover free will that we still have is the highest amount of free will that any physical entity to enjoy and simultaneously can perceive the presence of free will and can execute his free will on the nature itself.

So the nature is executing its free will on nature itself, but in doing so, its original freedom got restricted. Even with this restricted degreed of freedom, it is HIGEST achievable FREE WILL for any physical being. 

So our so called restricted free will is actually THE HIGHEST that you can ever find anyone physical in the universe.

In conclusion, not only we have FREE WILL, but also we have absolute HIGHEST degree of FREE WILL possible in any conceivable universe!

@2022