Free Will?
Are human minds decisively supreme
Or merely agents, not determinants,
Of what was, is, or shall yet come to be?.
Does each have absolute autonomy,
Or is it just one element within
Some vast, intergalactical design
By what believers recognise as ‘God’?.
Can humans cause prime actions by their thoughts,
Or just respond to circumstantial states
Which seem to offer options to their sense?.
Freedom of choice minds seem to have, but not
Command of what controls alternatives.
So what’s the worth of ‘limited free will’?.
Do minds change consequences or adjust
The dates and forms of pivotal events?.
Do their inventions and discoveries
Denote control of situations, or
The working-out of pre-existent facts
Which had eluded earlier attempts
To come to terms with what minds thought they knew?.
Can minds transcend those physical constraints
Which limit every scientific law
And fix materials’ propensities?.
Have minds control of either time or space?.
Can they dictate, with certitude, the ends
Their own predictions lead them to expect?.
My doubtful answers to these questions leave, in me,
No doubt that human minds are not completely free.
