More on "Free Will"
It can't be denied that I, Jack Lee, am choosing to write this blog. It can't be denied that I, Jack Lee, will be making the decision to publish it as a book if and when it happens.
But what has led to these "choices"? How am I choosing? Did the choice to write this come from a decision I made recently, or long ago? What is my motive for writing it? How did the motive come about? The way it seems to me is that, since "I" am a product of my upbringing, DNA, experiences, education and all the chance events in my life that have led to my opinions, beliefs and knowledge, I can't possibly see how "I" made the decision to create this blog at all.
Look at it another way: had I become someone else, that is, for example, met other people, read other books, acquired other influences, had a different upbringing, had a family (and therefore less time to think so deeply about the kind of stuff I think about) then there may well have been a likelihood that I'd have been fundamentally different. I may have been, for example, a cricket loving frozen food salesman living in Kent, with two marriages behind me, a scar on my back from a car wreck, two children, two grandchildren, and no interest whatsoever in this kind of philosophical rumination.
But, thanks to all the events that have happened in my life, planned and otherwise, I am who I am, and I do what I do.
And now, thanks to the moment, these words are occurring on the page. This, rather than anything else, is happening.
So how, reader, is any of this "free will"? If I'm not who I planned to be, then how can what I do be what I planned to do?
Free will is granted us, perhaps. But if who we are isn't determined by us, then surely our actions cannot in any way be said to be "ours".
We are, like everything else, a product of The Grand Algorithm.
But what has led to these "choices"? How am I choosing? Did the choice to write this come from a decision I made recently, or long ago? What is my motive for writing it? How did the motive come about? The way it seems to me is that, since "I" am a product of my upbringing, DNA, experiences, education and all the chance events in my life that have led to my opinions, beliefs and knowledge, I can't possibly see how "I" made the decision to create this blog at all.
Look at it another way: had I become someone else, that is, for example, met other people, read other books, acquired other influences, had a different upbringing, had a family (and therefore less time to think so deeply about the kind of stuff I think about) then there may well have been a likelihood that I'd have been fundamentally different. I may have been, for example, a cricket loving frozen food salesman living in Kent, with two marriages behind me, a scar on my back from a car wreck, two children, two grandchildren, and no interest whatsoever in this kind of philosophical rumination.
But, thanks to all the events that have happened in my life, planned and otherwise, I am who I am, and I do what I do.
And now, thanks to the moment, these words are occurring on the page. This, rather than anything else, is happening.
So how, reader, is any of this "free will"? If I'm not who I planned to be, then how can what I do be what I planned to do?
Free will is granted us, perhaps. But if who we are isn't determined by us, then surely our actions cannot in any way be said to be "ours".
We are, like everything else, a product of The Grand Algorithm.
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