Ask Lemmygrad

No philosophers, Marxist or otherwise, can answer this question, because this is not a philosophical question. It's a scientific one that only (natural) science can answer. So it has nothing to do with Marxism (other than that the natural sciences and Marxism both acknowledge material reality).

This is a bit like asking philosophers whether there is an engine in your car. While they can sit there and debate and make all kinds of esoteric, smart-sounding arguments, a mechanic can simply open up the car and look inside it.

The question of free will is also a simple yes or no question: is there any room for "free will" in the composition of the universe and the laws of physics? And so far the answer appears to be a clear and unambiguous "NO".

Everything in the universe is governed by (almost) deterministic laws at the macroscopic scale, and by stochastic (probabilistic) laws at the microscopic (quantum) scale. That includes the behavior of every living organism and every part of a living organism (such as a brain), because no matter how big or complex a system may get, its behavior is ultimately derived from and determined by the interactions and laws of behavior of its component parts, all the way down to (ostensibly) fundamental particles.

This is true even when the number of component parts is so unfathomably large that the behavior of the whole system can never be fully calculated from merely looking at how the component parts behave. In principle that's just a computational limitation.

According to our current understanding of physics there is no "free will" particle and no variable or quantity called "free will" in any of the equations that determine how the particles which make up the universe (and everything in it) move and interact with each other. There may be some randomness, but you have no more control over that than you do over a dice throw (one that someone else makes, not you, so we're clear that we're excluding "trick throws" or anything of that sort).

So i don't know why we pretend like this is still an open debate. Believing in free will is no different than believing in magic and miracles. If it makes you feel better, go ahead, but it's not a scientifically defensible position to hold, even if in practice we all have no choice but to behave as if we have free will because that's the only way to function in any society.

(Oh, and determinism is also, strictly speaking, wrong because of quantum randomness. But that's sort of splitting hairs because a lot of that randomness tends to statistically average out at the scales which are relevant for our everyday lives. For the most part reality is fairly deterministic, albeit chaotic - meaning in theory predictable, in practice not so much.)