I have a tendency of going '75 foot tall firebreathing reptiles have bad breath, True or False?' so I can sympathize with your concern. WRT Your actual topic: I appear to have free will. If I so chose to do so, I could walk away from my desk right now, draw all my money (Or at least a lot of it) out of the bank, hop into the car and drive until I ran out of cash/hit a 'hard' border. But I won't do that. I think a fruitful line of questioning is 'Why don't more people cave to impulse?'
I also think it's possible only I have free will(IIRC it's called Solipsism?). What do you think of other humans/animals and their free will? I think this is equally for and against free will. People always seem to act the way evolution programmed them, or by a not-always-helpful byproduct of how evolution programmed them(Evolution is such a bad programmer). Evolutionarily speaking, which is better: 1)To act on impulse, even though you'd suffer in the end 2)No impulsive thoughts at all 3)To consider acting on impulse, and the future implications With the situation you described, I believe #3 is the path your brain took, and that evolution is to thank. You could keep driving if you chose to do so, but you won't chose to do so.Why don't more people cave to impulse?
Yeah, Solipsism is the belief you're the only (verifiably) conscious person in existence. Basically skepticism on drugs. I do consider impulses part of the person, though. Like, I have the impulse to smoke a cigarette, but I can choose to resist that or not. That impulse is a part of me, though, that has causes in decisions I made in the past. And that's basically my stance on that question: Free Will exists because the decisions I make are per definition mine - I am the brain that made that decision. I don't make choices because something outside me compels me to, I make them because I weigh the consequences. Also, god yes, get your shit together evolution smh