This morning when I woke up, crawled out of the dimly lit cave that is my room, and trudged to the food pantry in my kitchen, I had a choice to make as to which cereal I could eat. "Will I choose Captain Crunch or Cheerios?" I thought to myself. "Captain Crunch it is." This morning I made a choice, or so it would seem.

Every one of us, unless you had a very unconventional upbringing, grows up to learn that we always have the freedom to choose this thing or that, to do this or that, and this feeling of freedom persists throughout our entire lives. It is typically never questioned by an individual whether or not he or she is a free agent unless that individual has studied one of the many eccentric topics in philosophy--that of determinism and free will.

I will run you through one of the more conventional strands of thought regarding determinism and free will, and defend it against a possible rebuttal. The argument is as follows.

Everything in the universe has some cause, and every cause effects an indefinite number of subsequent causes. This is the assumption we must make if the argument is to ever get off the ground. Furthermore, whatever is happening right now is the product of what actualized one second ago, two seconds ago, a million years ago, etc. Anything that happens in the present moment has to have been preceded by the causes which allowed for the conditions of the present moment action or event to occur. Because our thoughts and actions are contained within this universe, they too are caused. Because our thoughts, and subsequently our actions, are caused by things in the past, which we have no control over, we are not free agents.

The best science leads us to believe that thoughts are the product of physical movements and changes in the brain. Because of this, the particles in the brain responsible for thoughts are not excluded from being part of a sequence of material causes completely out of our locus of control.

Now one might respond by saying that it certainly feels like he or she is choosing this thing or that and that his or her actions are conducted freely by him or herself. I would respond by saying that this is only an illusion. I think the fundamental confusion lies in the options that people are presented with, and the choice they are willing to make. People are always presented with a myriad of options, but they are only ever able to make one choice. The one choice someone is going to make is the choice they will most want to make, and the ability to choose what one wants is another reason why we think we have free will. However, while we always choose what we want, we never have control over our wants.

The reason we don't have control over our present wants and desires, which result in our apparent freedom to choose, is because they are caused by a myriad of events in the past--our past experiences, our dispositions, psychological factors, etc. I couldn't tell you what exactly caused your current desire because I'm not a prescient being. But it is a matter of fact, for instance, that my current desire to choose to watch Game of Thrones over American Horror Story, or to choose green things over blue things, is a consequence of a bunch of causes in my past, causes of which I can never have control over.

You don't have to accept this argument, nor can it be empirically proven to you, but I find it hard to deny its logical appeal. This isn't a grim view, at least I don't think so. I still go about my day acting and choosing happily as if I were acting entirely of my own free volition. Maintaining this view does not rob me of the illusion that I have free will which, to be honest, is the only thing that matters anyways. In fact, this view might lead one to be more accepting of others. Because when we acknowledge that others could not have been any way other than the way they are, we are less likely to condemn them for their beliefs or actions.