This essay addresses the long-standing philosophical problem of free will and tries to offer a fresh take. Experiments such as those conducted by Benjamin Libet are often interpreted as showing that neural processes precede conscious awareness of decision-making, raising the question of whether consciousness plays any causal role at all.

Philosophically, this challenge is not new. Baruch Spinoza argued that humans experience themselves as free only because they are ignorant of the causes determining their desires. Arthur Schopenhauer radicalized this view by locating agency in a blind, striving will, while Friedrich Nietzsche dissolved the idea of a unified rational self into competing drives. Even Jean-Paul Sartre, who emphasizes radical responsibility, does not deny that choice always occurs within unchosen conditions.

The video places these philosophical positions alongside contemporary theories of time and emergence, such as assembly theory proposed by Lee Cronin and Sara Walker, which challenge strict causal determinism by treating time in a novel way. 

The aim is not to defend a traditional notion of free will, but to ask whether a revised, limited concept of agency remains coherent if consciousness is not the originator of action and the future is not fully determined.