# Free will

- kind: problem
- status: open
- year: -300

**Statement.** Are our choices free, and is freedom compatible with a universe governed by laws?

Compatibilists hold that freedom means acting on one's own reasons without coercion, which determinism does not threaten. Libertarians and hard determinists deny this. Libet's 1983 experiments on readiness potentials were taken to show decisions are made before awareness; later work suggests the signal may be noise that builds toward a threshold rather than a decision.

## Sources

- [Wikipedia: Free will](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will)

[Being and self](/wiki/Space:metaphysics.md) · [Philosophy](/wiki/Continent:philosophy.md)

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