An interesting book that discusses the existence of free will and its implications. One fun argument from the various one presented was considering free will from the non-deterministic aspect. If I were to choose an animal to write down now, I would go with a cat. Did I conciously created that thought, or was it something that just arised to me. Why didn't I think of a dog or a dolphin? Of course, I could change my mind and write down either of those two animals, but even then, what would have caused me to choose the animal I've chosen? As Schopenhauer put it in a quote from the book, "Man can do what he will but he cannot will what he wills." I find it interesting that when we trace down the origin of these supposedly free choices as the one between cat, dog, or dolphin, we will eventually reach a point where our desire(s) just arise with no sense of delibertion. Where, then, is the freedom in that process?

The book also discussed a lot of implications from moral to polical. The author argued that even if free will doesn't exist, it doesn't necessitate that rewards and punishments are meaningless since they themselves take part in influencing our actions.

One small criticism I would give is that while the argument for free will through the lense of unconciously emerging thoughts is a strong one, the author only brought up simple examples such as "picking breakfast", "deciding to stick to a diet or not", or "choosing what animal to write down. These examples are simple because there are only two (or close to two) competing impulses/thoughts. Furthermore, the decision are somewhat random and impulse-driven. I think it would merit the argument if the author bring up an example where a more complex and deliberate choice was made. For instance, choosing which company to invest in or which steps to take when solving a problem. I think that in those cases, the decision could still be traced back to a combination of thoughts that "just arise", but the author did not brought up those examples and stick to the impulse-driven one instead.