Review of Free Will, Do You Have It?

[Abby Heitzman]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Free Will, Do You Have It?" by Albertus Kral.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Free Will, Do You Have It? by Albertus Kral is a thought-provoking work of nonfiction. It explored the nuances of free will and whether or not we are free to make our own choices.

Most people would say we do have free will; however, when you think about it, unanswerable questions arise. First, what is free will? Free will assumes that our choices are random and that there are no influencing factors. We know that this is not true. All of our decisions are a result of factors also known as stimuli. Our brains process these stimuli in an organized manner. Once processed, these stimuli affect the brain and also effect future processes. Since we are not consciously participating in the processing of stimuli: it appears that we are doing what we want. When someone makes a decision, which we deem odd, we ask why. This proves that we have a rationale behind our choices, and this rationale comes from stimuli. All of these ideas lead to the theory of procirclism. It is the belief that human behavior does not happen because it is the effect of cause, but rather because it is based on the process of stimuli.

There were many things I liked about this book. For example, the book was split into manageable chapters and then further divided with headings. This helped me prepare for what I was about to read and provided natural stopping points to think. The book also contained a lot of examples and broke down complex concepts making them less intimidating. Science-based facts and logic helped me draw the conclusion that the idea of free will is not clear cut. This allowed me to follow the author’s thoughts and helped me realize that we actually might not have free will. Ultimately, the author leaves it up to the reader to believe or not. I really liked that it didn’t force an opinion on you. The book was really well-edited, with no grammatical errors.

There wasn’t really anything that I didn’t like about the book. Overall, the author wrote a great book that really made you think.

Due to the reasons stated above, I rated this book 4 out of 4 stars. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes nonfiction and often wonders about human nature. Some of the concepts in the book were quite challenging, so I definitely believe this book would be better suited to a more mature audience.

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Free Will, Do You Have It?
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