My lady, you have no free will!

The next time you are laughing, remember you have absolutely no control over it. You may try to rationalize as to why you elicited that embarrassing snort that drew unneeded attention from all the quarters, but then your conscious mind has known how to delude yourself.
All these post-hoc attributions to reasons for your laughter that your rational mind concocts, they are just that – concoctions. Your unconscious mind is responsible for the laughter, and also for majority of your actions. German Neuroscientists have discovered something called – “Bereitschaftspotential”, which can be translated to “readiness potential”. Your brain seems to enter a special state immediately before any action. What it means is when somebody asks you to switch on the fan, or type something on the keyboard, your brain enters the unconscious state prior to the point when the action is initiated, in other words, your unconscious mind is responsible for your voluntary action! My lady, you have no free will!
Your conscious mind has the power to “veto” that action, at the very last moment. You may not switch on the light after all, as you wish to be surrounded by the darkness and imagine yourself to be the Batman. What goes on in “hypnosis”? You lose that power to “veto”, as you enter a purely unconscious state and lose all conscious rationality. So when the hypnotist asks you to dance, you dance. When he asks you to jump off the cliff, you do so.
At this point of time, if you have been closely following what I have been saying and are even remotely intelligent, a doubt may crop up in your mind – isn’t “dancing” or “understanding” the orders of the hypnotist – a conscious act? Don’t we require remarkable control and proficiency in order to twerk like Miley Cyrus?  Well dear friend, you will twerk like Miley only if you have been conditioned to do so. What I mean to say is that when you are learning any new skill, you are in a hyperconscious state – but with practice, it becomes more a part of your subconscious and you no longer need to think about it. Do you think about the directions when driving from home to work? Does Saina Nehwal think through every move on the court of badminton?  If she were playing with conscious mind, it would slow her down considerably and she would lose the match.
You believe that your opinions are indeed unique to you, and there is a considerable aspect of free will involved. But you are “disgusted” by something, that’s why you hate that thing or believe that it is wrong. Your social and cultural conditioning right from your childhood and the instinctual conditioning that you have received from your arboreal ancestors is responsible for your opinions and your morals and your conscience. This all is now a part of subconscious/unconscious – and the way you respond to scenarios and situations arise from this sort of conditioning.
But remember your conscious mind has the “veto” power. You don’t have to adhere to racial stereotypes or sexism just because you are conditioned to do so, your rational mind does possess the faculty to think and say “no” to the many wrongs of the world.
You may not have the free will to act, but you are free not to.
References:
·         ‘What we believe but cannot prove’, edited by John Brockman
·         http://io9.gizmodo.com/5975778/scientific-evidence-that-you-probably-dont-have-free-will