Abstract
Free will issue has obtained for more than 2750 years unsolved. Why? 1) Failure of philosophy to find a definition of it. 2) Some say philosophers have been trying to find it. They fail because free will is not subject to clear definition, has no objective necessary and sufficient conditions like other concepts as fire. E.g., if you have combustible material, oxygen, ignition, and favorable conditions, you have fire. Not so with free will. In short, as double says, there is no deep sense of free will due to its ambiguous nature. To define free will is like defining what a great football game is: Some say it is high scoring with adroit passing, evasive running, many touchdowns. Others say it is a low scoring defensive struggle with many sacks. Nether is exclusive to the other. 3) Man’s propensity to say there is an explanation for everything has been helpful, for example, the Covid-19 vaccine. Such is not true with free will. It cannot be resolved by philosophy’s interminable fruitless methods. 4) Aside from the inability to define free will, another problem is determinism--the belief that all things are determined by laws of nature and past, which the human cannot get around. It is always present, and if one’s take on free will proscribes even a tincture of determinism, then free will can never be achieved.
I propose a 2-stage model of free will promulgated by William James which, via quantum mechanics, as its first stage produces a limited, indeterministic host of alternative possibilities followed by a 2d stage of a limited adequate deterministic choice by the will of one alternative which grants consent and status to it as a final actuality. The fundamental core of the 2-stage model, indeterminacy, breaks the pre-deterministic causal chain thereby yielding free will.