Free Won’t: Using Your Prefrontal Cortex Veto
Do we actually make our own choices, or are we just carrying out patterns stitched together by biology, upbringing, and everything that came before us? It’s the oldest philosophical question there is — and modern neuroscience has thrown gasoline on the debate. But the value of this conversation isn’t theoretical. It’s practical. How you think about free will shapes how you think about responsibility, change, and who you’re capable of becoming.
Determinism: The Chain of Causes You Were Born Into
Determinism says every action has a cause… and that cause has a cause… all the way back to the beginning. Nothing is random. Everything unfolds from what came before it — including you.
The Stoics understood this long before neuroscience. They believed the universe runs according to the Logos — a rational, ordered structure where everything follows from something. Nothing is uncaused. Nothing stands alone.
But the Stoics didn’t stop at fate.
The Slice of Freedom We Do Have
Stoicism introduced prohairesis — your faculty of choice. You can’t control the world, or genetics, or your past. But you can control how you respond.
You don’t choose the weather.
You choose whether to complain about it or prepare for it.
A useful analogy: life is a video game. You didn’t design the levels, rules, or obstacles. But the joystick is in your hands. You are free within the system, not outside of it.
Neuroscience and the Case Against Free Will
In the 1980s, Benjamin Libet’s experiments stunned the scientific world: he found the brain begins preparing an action milliseconds before a person becomes consciously aware of deciding.
Later fMRI studies pushed this even further — researchers could predict choices several seconds before the person consciously “made” them.
That leads to the uncomfortable question:
If my brain decides before I do… who’s actually deciding?
“Free Won’t”: The Veto That Changes Everything
Here’s where Libet’s research gets interesting. Even though the brain initiates impulses before we’re aware of them, people can still override the impulse at the last second.
That veto power is what Libet called free won’t.
You might not control your first impulse — but you can decide whether you act on it. You’re the editor, not the author. Thoughts and impulses arise on their own; you decide what gets published.
This maps perfectly onto the Stoic model:
Your first impression isn’t chosen.
Your response is.
Simple vs. Complex Decisions
Critics of Libet’s work point out: flexing your wrist isn’t the same as choosing a partner, changing careers, or staying sober. Complex decisions involve memory, emotion, identity, values, future-planning — all the higher-order processes tied to the prefrontal cortex.
So even if micro-movements start unconsciously, that doesn’t mean your entire life is running on autopilot.
So What Does This Mean for Responsibility?
If your biology, trauma history, conditioning, and environment create your patterns, does that excuse you from accountability?
Not at all.
Responsibility isn’t about being an all-powerful, unmoved mover. It’s about being a conscious participant in your own conditioning. You don’t choose your first thought, but you absolutely choose the second — and your response to the first.
Agency grows with awareness.
Character develops through practice.
Freedom expands in the pause between impulse and action.
Free Will as a Trainable Skill
You don’t have to solve metaphysics to live deliberately. Think of free will as a muscle: the more you use your veto power, the stronger it gets.
1. Morning Mental Rehearsal
2–5 minutes visualizing the coming day.
Identify the friction points.
Choose your responses ahead of time.
(Stoics called this premeditatio malorum.)
2. Midday Pause
When a big emotion hits, create a 3-second buffer.
Ask:
Is this helpful?
Is this necessary?
Is this kind?
3. Veto Reps
Practice saying no to automatic behaviors:
don’t scroll out of boredom
don’t abandon the task because it’s uncomfortable
Every “no” strengthens your ability to choose a better “yes.”
4. Evening Reflection
What did you act on today?
What did you override?
What do you want to do differently tomorrow?
This is how you build practical freedom: one pause, one veto, one better choice at a time.
You’re Not the Center of the Universe — But You’re Not Powerless Either
Whether free will ultimately exists may be unknowable. But you don’t need cosmic-level freedom to build a meaningful life.
You need the freedom you can actually use:
the freedom to pause
the freedom to reflect
the freedom to veto
the freedom to course-correct
the freedom to shape your character in real time
You don’t control the chain of fate.
But you can strengthen your link.
You can choose your response.
And that is more than enough to change your life.
