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The very nature of free will makes it impossible to have unless the human mind is made of a fundamentally different substance than the rest of the universe... i.e. a soul. However, if we take the materialist stance and say that the human mind is made of matter, and thus subject to all the rules that govern other forms of matter, it cannot have free will.
Personally, I <i>do</i> believe that the human mind is made of something different. I do believe in such a thing as a human soul. However, since this, like many other beliefs can't be proven (and the fact I don't really want to go into why I do believe in souls), I'll move on to another point.
If you think about it....do we really know what causes the chemical processes in our brain, when we get right down to it? For example, lets say I was drinking a milkshake. I would think, "Mmm...this is tasty." My senses would tell me what the milkshake tasted like. A chemical process would occur, delivering the information about what it tasted like. Since I found it pleasurable, there would be another chemical process due to emotions, which are in this case, pleasure and contentment.
However, what was it that made me think that the thing even tasted good in the first place? Some people don't like milkshakes, so their chemical processes would be different, since there are different chemicals for different emotions. Something had to cause a difference of opinion. So, the question is...are there chemicals that control our opinions?
Maybe having an opinion is the key to free will. While an opinion could be influenced by external stimuli (other people, outside events) and internal stimuli (chemical processes), it is still an opinion nontheless. A little bit of free will is preferable to having none at all.