CHAMPAIGN, IL—Shedding new light on the concept of voluntary behavior, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign contend in a study published this week that the existence of free will can be disproven by the fact that people repeatedly eat at chain sandwich restaurant Jimmy John’s. “Our exhaustive survey of over 12,000 regular Jimmy John’s customers revealed patterns of behavior utterly inconsistent with the idea of human autonomy,” said lead researcher Gina Smith, emphasizing that no person with functioning taste buds would continually subject themselves to a dry, flavorless J.J.B.L.T. or a cold, inadequate Jimmy Cubano unless their behavior was predetermined by a chain of causal events behind their control. “If people had the ability to act consciously in their own self-interest, they would never purchase, let alone consume, this food. The fact that Jimmy John’s sells over 700,000 sandwiches a day proves that we exist in a clockwork universe where every action is foreordained by the initial conditions established at the time of the Big Bang. Ultimately, free will, like the existence of alfalfa sprouts on Jimmy John’s menu, is merely an illusion.” At press time, the researchers announced that the deterministic cosmos had once again led them to purchase a 30-piece party box of Bootlegger Clubs.
