Free will is an illusion.
The more you know, the more possibilities exist.
There are things we know we know, things we know we don’t know, and things we don’t know we don’t know.
If you were a child, and given two options to choose from (a false dilemma), completely unaware of other possible options, I would say this makes you less free.
The more educated you become, the more possibilities and options you are aware of, and the ability to choose is expanded.
Our freedom to choose is limited by our knowledge and awareness of possible or potential choices.
If you are locked in a room, and you don’t know there’s a world outside of this room, you cannot decide to choose any possibility outside the room you don’t know exists, and you may believe you are free.
Only when you step outside the room does your world expand, and awareness of other possible choices increase, along with your freedom of choice.
In this way, the concept of “free will” is an illusion.
Only increased awareness, about the self and others and the world and the relationship to these things, brings about an enlarged freedom of choice. It is education and experience and stepping outside the comforts of these rooms we may not know we’re locked in that allows us to expand consciousness.
I think about the uneducated or those who lack awareness of themselves and the world, and it becomes immediately apparent that the whole concept of “free will” is severely misguided.
In this way I think that consciousness is expanded by increased awareness, of self, others, the world, and the various relationships amongst these things.
William Dare 