Ramblings of a Nerd With Too Much Spare Time

(Note- written in October 2014; published in December 2017) I'll try to address the age old question- Do we have free will, or is everything in our lives predetermined?  It appears that we have capacity for individual thought, and can behave independently, but there are some that argue that our lives move as per the universe's plan. You have to admit, both camps do have features that appeal and make sense. The former lends some meaning to our lives, while the latter takes all pressure off us to do anything at all.  I somewhere heard an interesting tale, of a scientific experiment, where electrodes were plugged into a volunteer's brain, and he was offered some simple choices (like black or white, up or down, 3 or 4). The experiment revealed that scientists sitting in the adjoining room where able to predict his response, seconds before he gave it, bearing testament for the proposition that we truly lack free will.   To what level this is true, I don't know. M...