Do You Have Free Will? (No.) 🧠

What neuroscience, evolution, and trauma reveal about the decisions you think you’re making (8min Read)

TL;DR Summary

• Your brain makes decisions before you’re even aware of them.

• Biology, trauma, culture, and evolution shape most of what we call “choice.”

• Free will might be an illusion—but one that helps us live, heal, and grow.

• You’re not totally in control, but you’re not powerless either.

• Agency lives in awareness, not in absolute freedom.

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Let’s Start Slow…

I know I’ve been on a roll recently with the hot takes…

This is the last one for a while, next week I’ll talk about something less contentious… Maybe!

This week, however, is about free will, and I know there’s a lot of baggage around this.

And I’d like to invite you to just get curious for a couple of minutes with me.

I promise I’ll wrap everything in a nice bow by the end, but we’ve gotta break some shit first (that’s the scientific term).

For example, what if I told you, you can still be religious and not believe in total free will.

Wild, right?

So if you’re feeling a little tense already, I want to ask you to just pause.

Not to agree. Just to pause.

Ask yourself: What if I’m not as in control of my choices as I think I am?

And what if that’s not a threat, but a relief?

Alright, let’s dive into this!

Where Did the Idea of “Free Will” Even Come From?

You’re probably not surprised to hear that it came from religion & philosophy!

The idea of free will was central to many early religious and philosophical traditions.

In Christian theology, free will was necessary to explain sin and salvation: if God gave us commandments, we had to be free to follow or disobey them—otherwise, what would judgment mean?

Thinkers like Augustine wrestled with this, arguing that humans inherited a tendency toward sin (original sin) but still retained free will to choose redemption.

Later, Thomas Aquinas tried to solve the puzzle: If God already knows everything we’ll do, how can we still be free?

His answer was that God may know our choices but doesn’t cause them, he doesn’t make us choose them.

So from the start, free will was less about how the brain works—and more about how to make sense of morality and meaning in a divine world.

The Philosophers Enter: Responsibility & Rationality

In ancient Greece, Aristotle saw humans as rational agents—able to weigh options and make voluntary choices.

Stoics, meanwhile, emphasized fate and determinism, believing everything unfolds according to nature’s law… but we could still control our attitude about it.

Fast forward to the Enlightenment: philosophers like Descartes and Kant doubled down on the idea of a conscious, rational self.

For Kant, being moral meant being free to choose.

If everything was already determined, he believed right and wrong wouldn’t really matter.

Then Science Showed Up

The birth of psychology and neuroscience in the 19th and 20th centuries introduced a problem: what if we’re not as rational or free as we thought?

Freud pointed to unconscious drives.

Pavlov showed we could be conditioned like dogs.

And brain scientists started measuring reaction times, noticing that the brain acts first, and awareness follows.

So here we are.

A debate born from theology developed through philosophy and is now being radically reshaped by science.

The question is no longer just “Do we have free will?”

It’s “What do we mean by free will—and do we need it to live meaningful lives?”

To answer these questions, I’d like to break down a “choice” step by step, going all the way down into our biology, and then zooming all the way out to how evolution, culture, and trauma shape these choices.

Let’s begin!

Step 1: Your Brain Decides Before “You” Do

Imagine you’re about to say something in a conversation.

You feel yourself choosing your words. It feels intentional.

But here’s the kicker: your brain made the decision seconds before you were aware of it.

This was first shown in the 1980s by neuroscientist Benjamin Libet.

Participants were asked to move their hand whenever they wanted—and researchers found that electrical signals in their brains ramped up 350–500 milliseconds before they consciously decided to move.

That’s not a fluke.

Similar results have been replicated with better tools—like fMRI studies where brain activity predicted a person’s decision up to 7–10 seconds before they were aware of it.

So ask yourself: If your brain already decided, what exactly did you choose?

And if that’s happening all day long—what else are you not really choosing?

So already, at the moment you think you’re choosing, your brain’s decided for you.

But why did it decide that?

Step 2: Zoom Out — Decisions Don’t Begin in the Moment

Let’s say you snapped at your partner last night.

Was that really a conscious choice?

Let’s rewind the tape:

• You skipped lunch, so your blood sugar was crashing.

• Work was overwhelming, and you never had a chance to downregulate.

• Your nervous system has a history… How did your parents handle conflict? Were you encouraged to speak your mind or stay quiet?

• By the time you walked through the door, your limbic system was on high alert, scanning for threats.

• And your prefrontal cortex—the part of your brain that helps you pause, regulate, and “choose”—was under-resourced.

So, was that outburst truly a free act of will? Or was it a stress-pattern running its course?

The plot thickens…

Step 3: Childhood, Trauma, and the Default Brain

If you’ve ever been in therapy, especially trauma recovery, you’ve probably encountered a frustrating truth: sometimes you know better… and still can’t do better.

Why?

Because the brain isn’t just reacting to now.

It’s reacting to then… To blueprints shaped in your earliest years.

Attachment patterns, stress responses, conflict templates.

All these are wired before we have language, let alone logic.

The anxious achiever who panics at "not doing enough" isn’t making a decision.

They’re running a nervous system pattern laid down years ago.

This is one of the reasons I believe IFS is so powerful.

It goes back to the Parts of us created in these early moments and allows us to create new blueprints in the present moment that serve us better, but more on that in another blog!

So, even the way you respond to criticism today traces back to habits you didn’t choose.

But where do those habits come from?

Step 4: Evolution Designed You to Survive, Not to Choose

Let’s zoom out even further.

Why do humans crave social approval? Why are we so driven to avoid pain or rejection?

These behaviors are baked into us because they helped our ancestors survive.

Millions of years ago, being excluded from your tribe was a death sentence.

So the amygdala became hyper-attuned to threat—especially social threat.

You didn’t choose that system. You inherited it.

In fact, most of what drives us—cravings, fears, impulses—emerged not to serve your happiness or virtue, but to keep your ancestors alive.

And if evolution shaped your instincts, can we really call them your choices?

If you’re just the newest version of this ancient machinery, what part of that was ever up to you?

So where’s the room for ‘free will’?

If every decision is shaped by the laws of physics, biology, and history, is it really you deciding?

Or are you just the endpoint of an unimaginably complex causal chain?

Still not convinced? I get it. Let’s do a thought experiment.

Thought Experiment: Pick Your Next Meal

Imagine I ask you to pick your next meal.

A burger, sushi, or a salad.

Feels like a choice, right?

But think deeper.

Maybe you grew up loving burgers, or diet culture tells you to pick the salad.

What did you see on your Instagram feed earlier?

Even your current hunger levels are driven by hormones like ghrelin, which you didn’t control.

Maybe one of your friends is watching you make the choice.

Did you even consider anything outside of the “choices” I GAVE you?

Still, think what you picked was your “free” choice?

But Wait—What About Quantum Physics? Complexity? Morality?

At this point, you’re probably like, “Damn, maybe there’s something to this argument afterall…”

Fear not though, there are plenty of objections and counter-arguments, here are some of my favorites!

“But what about quantum randomness? Doesn’t that mean we’re not fully determined?”

Sure—some events in the brain might be influenced by quantum noise.

But randomness isn’t the same as freedom.

If your decision is based on a dice roll in your neurons, that’s not you choosing.

That’s just another external force.

“But complex systems produce emergent behavior! Doesn’t that make room for free will?”

Emergent complexity is fascinating.

But even emergent systems obey the rules of their parts.

A hurricane is complex, but it still obeys the laws of thermodynamics.

So does the brain.

“But I FEEL like I’m choosing!”

Yes.

And you also feel like you’re at the center of the universe.

Doesn’t make it true.

The sensation of “I chose this” may just be what neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky calls a “convincing afterthought.”

In other words, your brain makes a decision before you’re aware of it—but then your conscious mind quickly weaves a story explaining why “you” chose it.

That story feels real. But it's just that—a story.

Neuroscience shows that many brain regions activate prior to conscious awareness, especially in motor planning and decision-making.

But by the time your conscious self catches up, the action is already in motion—and the feeling of will is like a narrator rushing in after the fact to make it all make sense.

It’s not deception, exactly.

It’s more like your brain needs the illusion of authorship to keep your sense of self coherent.

“But if there’s no free will, what about morality?”

Great question.

Accountability doesn’t require free will—it requires cause and effect.

We can still protect people, rehabilitate, and guide behavior.

We just do it with compassion instead of blame.

So, Can You Still Be Religious Without Free Will?

I promised you I’d give the religious among us some relief, so here we are.

If you were raised with the belief that free will is central to your faith—especially when it comes to sin, salvation, or divine judgment—it can feel like this argument is asking you to give up your spirituality.

It’s not.

There’s a growing number of theologians and religious philosophers who believe in something called deterministic grace.

Meaning, what matters isn’t your choice to believe or act rightly, but your openness to being shaped, healed, or guided by something greater than you.

In that model, God isn’t waiting for you to pass some willpower test.

God knows your story and loves you anyway.

See, I told you both were possible!

So What Can You Control?

Here’s where it gets nuanced.

We may not have total free will, but could we have some?

Some neuroscientists argue that deliberative reasoning, future casting, mental rehearsal, and prefrontal override give us slivers of agency:

• IF the nervous system is regulated enough.

• IF the stress load is low enough.

• IF we’ve had access to tools and safety.

Those are some big ifs.

That’s why therapy works.

That’s why mindfulness matters.

That’s why psychoeducation and social support are crucial.

Not because they make us free. But because they reshape the path the brain is likely to take.

This is why I’m so passionate about my work.

IFS and neuroscience give each of us unimaginable power to do this reshaping, but not everyone has access.

Final Thought: Why This Matters for Mental Health & Trauma

If you’ve ever blamed yourself for not healing faster, not choosing “better,” not “fixing” your patterns… this is your permission slip to stop.

You didn’t choose your trauma.

You didn’t choose the coping that followed.

And while you may not have free will in the cosmic sense, you’re not powerless.

You have the ability to notice. To understand. To shift—little by little—the patterns your brain learned to run.

That’s not control over everything. But it is a kind of agency.

And it’s enough to begin.

So Where Does That Leave Us?

Here’s the thing: even if free will is an illusion, it’s the best one we’ve got.

I don’t believe we truly have total free will.

But I do believe living as if we do makes the most sense.

It helps us take responsibility, make plans, and act as though our choices matter, even if every decision is shaped by factors we can’t control.

Free will might be an illusion.

But it’s a useful one.

Like a user interface on a computer—what we see isn’t what’s really happening, but it helps us operate the system.

Maybe that’s enough.

What do you think? Does this make sense? Or am I way off?

Let's debate in the comments and until next time… Live Heroically 🧠

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Supporting Research

• Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W., & Pearl, D. K. (1983). Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential). The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain : a journal of neurology, 106 (Pt 3), 623–642. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/106.3.623

• Soon, C. S., Brass, M., Heinze, H. J., & Haynes, J. D. (2008). Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nature neuroscience, 11(5), 543–545. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2112

• Sapolsky, R. M. (2023). Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. Penguin Press.

• Gazzaniga, M. S. (2011). Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain.

• Maté, G. (2011). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts.