Free will, the sense, that you could have done otherwise, is an illusion.
We make choices based on either what we have to do, or what we want to do. There’s no freedom in having to do something, but you’re also not free to choose your wants. If you felt like having tea this morning instead of coffee, then having tea is the only thing you could have done. You wanted tea, not coffee. Now, if we rewind the clock back in time to the moment before you decided, you’d pick tea again, and again, and again. Everything else being the same, your desire for tea will override the desire for coffee every time. And you didn’t choose that desire.
Everything in the universe is following the laws of physics. We don’t know all of the laws, and we’re limited in what we’re actually able to perceive and measure, so some of it seems like random chance. But at the end of the day, everything is playing out according to those laws.
Your thoughts, feelings, etc. are all just physical and chemical reactions happening in your brain, no different than iron rusting, water evaporating, unstable atoms decaying, etc. you don’t get any more say in what you think, feel, say, or do than you do over whether vinegar and baking soda are going to react with each other.
The only thing special about us is that we’re aware that things are happening, even if we can’t fully perceive the causes. We don’t really get any say in what the meat we inhabit does, even if it something feels like we do, we’re just along for the ride, but the fact that we’re aware it’s happening is pretty cool. There’s a quote, I forget by who and the exact wording, that we are “the universe experiencing itself” and I think that’s all we’re doing, experiencing. We don’t genuinely have any agency, not even about what we think about the experience, because thinking is a part of what we’re experiencing.
If somehow you knew the exact state of every elementary particle that existed the moment the big bang happened, and had a complete rulebook of all of the unknown laws of physics we have yet to discover, you could theoretically trace out the paths those particles would take from there, what other particles they would eventually collide and interact with, how those interactions would play out as they come together to form nebulas, stars, planets, and eventually yourself and everything else around you, and you could keep going tracing out the paths of those particles into the future and see what becomes of everything in the universe and how it all ends (if in fact it does eventually come to an end)
I could be wrong, and if it ever turns out we do have an actual say in what we think, feel, and do, that would be even more amazing. If not though, I’m satisfied to just be along for the ride to see where I end up and what I can experience along the way.
It’s rare that I agree with every single point in a long post like that, but here we are. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Consciousness truly is the thing there that matters the most. The fact that it feels like something to be. Sam Harris says that consciousness is the only thing in the entire universe that cannot be an illusion. Even if we’re in a simulation and everything you’ve ever experienced has been fake, the sense of experience itself is still real.
Free will, the sense, that you could have done otherwise, is an illusion.
We make choices based on either what we have to do, or what we want to do. There’s no freedom in having to do something, but you’re also not free to choose your wants. If you felt like having tea this morning instead of coffee, then having tea is the only thing you could have done. You wanted tea, not coffee. Now, if we rewind the clock back in time to the moment before you decided, you’d pick tea again, and again, and again. Everything else being the same, your desire for tea will override the desire for coffee every time. And you didn’t choose that desire.
I personally go a step further.
Everything in the universe is following the laws of physics. We don’t know all of the laws, and we’re limited in what we’re actually able to perceive and measure, so some of it seems like random chance. But at the end of the day, everything is playing out according to those laws.
Your thoughts, feelings, etc. are all just physical and chemical reactions happening in your brain, no different than iron rusting, water evaporating, unstable atoms decaying, etc. you don’t get any more say in what you think, feel, say, or do than you do over whether vinegar and baking soda are going to react with each other.
The only thing special about us is that we’re aware that things are happening, even if we can’t fully perceive the causes. We don’t really get any say in what the meat we inhabit does, even if it something feels like we do, we’re just along for the ride, but the fact that we’re aware it’s happening is pretty cool. There’s a quote, I forget by who and the exact wording, that we are “the universe experiencing itself” and I think that’s all we’re doing, experiencing. We don’t genuinely have any agency, not even about what we think about the experience, because thinking is a part of what we’re experiencing.
If somehow you knew the exact state of every elementary particle that existed the moment the big bang happened, and had a complete rulebook of all of the unknown laws of physics we have yet to discover, you could theoretically trace out the paths those particles would take from there, what other particles they would eventually collide and interact with, how those interactions would play out as they come together to form nebulas, stars, planets, and eventually yourself and everything else around you, and you could keep going tracing out the paths of those particles into the future and see what becomes of everything in the universe and how it all ends (if in fact it does eventually come to an end)
I could be wrong, and if it ever turns out we do have an actual say in what we think, feel, and do, that would be even more amazing. If not though, I’m satisfied to just be along for the ride to see where I end up and what I can experience along the way.
It’s rare that I agree with every single point in a long post like that, but here we are. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Consciousness truly is the thing there that matters the most. The fact that it feels like something to be. Sam Harris says that consciousness is the only thing in the entire universe that cannot be an illusion. Even if we’re in a simulation and everything you’ve ever experienced has been fake, the sense of experience itself is still real.