Throughout human history, the concept of free will has been accepted and believed to be the true proposition, regardless of its problems. The ability of the human mind to choose between two or more different options has reinforced the idea that humans are capable of making choices free from their environment. Looking back in time and evaluating whether the choices we have made are the right decisions or looking forward and making plans naturally leads us to believe that we have full control of our choices and the outcome they necessarily lead to. For example, people willing to commit a crime might have acted differently to avoid punishment. These people are completely free from their biological and environmental influences, so the events that led them to commit the crime are irrelevant. Since they acted of their own free will, they must be responsible for their actions and the resulting consequences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Many psychologists, one of whom is Sigmund Freud, believed that the argument for determinism was valid because our actions and thoughts are essentially controlled by our unconscious mind. He described the unconscious mind as an entity that does not possess all the characteristics of a conscious mind such as judgments and behavior. He believed that those judgments and behaviors were determined, yet could be manipulated with intense therapy to overcome the force of deterministic laws. This proposition is called compatibilism and assumes that determinism and free will are compatible and can coexist without any contradiction since there are some behaviors that can be controlled or imposed on an agent. The element of coercion assigns free will to deterministic behavior. Erich Fromm praised this statement by stating that the reason deterministic views appear to be true is because humans are too afraid to take control of their own destiny. This is an extremely comforting belief that has managed to survive despite its criticisms. However, like any other ancient belief, free will has been questioned in ancient and modern times by many respectable philosophers, from the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus in 135 AD to Descartes, Locke, and Hume in the 17th century. As a result of his constant arguments, new ideas and new categories to fit those ideas were born into an umbrella term called determinism. Although there are many different definitions of determinism, the most general statement concerns the nature of the universe which postulates that every event was predetermined and therefore predictable. While this argument is a statement about the universe, it necessarily threatens the positive position of free will. If we assume that there is a hill with rocks and puddles, if we also assume that we can physically measure the size of this hill and if we put a ball on top of it, depending on the starting position of the ball, we would know exactly where the ball will end up down the hill. Placing more puddles and rocks for the ball to roll through and making it as complex as possible will not cause the ball to randomly change its intended position. There are physical laws that govern the movements of objects in our universe. Every single bump that the ball has to endure can be measured and accounted for, which will ensure that the ball lands in a precise spot. If this physical proposition were true, it would be irrational to argue that when the ball hits a rock or puddle, the direction of the ball will not align with the.