Free Will – Understanding why you don’t choose anything
Summary (tldr)
In this post, I am going to attempt to convince you that you don’t have Free Will and instead your physiology has tricked you into believing that you do (I have no hope of succeeding I know lol). In spite of what your vanity informs you, you are nothing more than a biological organism that is responding to external stimuli through uncontrollable chemical processes that affect your brain through hormonal shots like adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, and oxytocin.
- You think you are choosing things but you are not
- Here is the case against Free Will…
WTF is Free Will?
Note: This post is more of an insight into why you don't have Free Will than a a full scholarly doc on the topic. There is an entire Taxonomy and Ontology on the topic which I've linked at the bottom if you are interested in knowing more.
Before starting let’s define Free Will vs Determinism.
- (Libertarian) Free will is a topic in Philosophy that claims humans have the ability to choose what they will do. Or to act differently if you choose.
- Determinism claims that you do have the ability to choose but every choice you make is based on things that have come before. Determinists (and me) also claim that Free will is just an illusion
Fatalism claims that everything is known including what you will for breakfast on December 12 2046. I don’t believe this is true so that you can make the clear distinction
Why are you you
Wisdom has been chasing you but you have always been faster!
Let’s start by downloading and examining your lifecycle data (yikes your life is a mess!) I can then use simple Mathematical modelling and Data Analytics to predict that you are making choices that connect through an infinite regression of dots/data from today to your parents, grandparents, great grandparents, your ancestorial tree, the evolution of life, the earth, the solar system, the Milky Way Galaxy, the Laniaka Supercluster, and all the way back to the birth of the universe,
Now you will immediately and indignantly counter claim to me you chose to have a mince and cheese pie at lunch time when you could have chosen the potato top; but the reason you chose the mince and cheese pie is that your Nana used to make it for you and you have begun a quest to find the best version of that pie ever since. Ask yourself why did you desire that Pie? Why don’t you just desire Mountain Oyster Pie instead (hint: causality chain)?
Let’s start with something easy to agree with using simple intuition. Consider your following attributes:
You didn’t have any control or influence of the following
- When you were born
- Where you are born
- Who you were born including Social and Economic status, Culture, Religion (these attributes are typically inherited from parents)
- Who your parents are
- Your gender
- Your physical attributes including appearance and health (physiology)
- How smart you are. (How quick is your download, how fast is your CPU and how much storage do you have)
- Any aspect of what your physiology like the way your heart beats, the colour of your eyes, your liver functions, your left or right handedness, your red cell production, etc.
- What you like and what you dislike. This is a central theme because it informs all of your behaviours and choices
- When your temporal existence ends (Onboarding and Offboarding)
Imagine if 1 or more of the above attributes where changed how profoundly different your life would be. Imagine if you were born as a Viking Warrior in old Scandinavia, you’d be worshipping the Gods Tyr, Wotan, Thor, and Freyer (Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri). and you’d be less concerned about workplace bullying and more concerned about making room on your boat for all the Merch and Swag you will be plundering.
Consider things you can’t do
- I want to fly but I can’t
- I want to play amazing music but I can’t,
- I want to swim like a fish but I can’t
- I want a body that let’s me play for the AB’s, I want a body that will let me become a UFC fighter
- I can only see less than 1 percent of the electromagnetic spectrum but I want to see more
- I want to hear more of the audio spectrum but I can’t
DESIRE: You can't control your desires
You cannot control the intensity of your desires or the objects of your desires in fact it is the opposite it is they that control you!
Up until now you should have no reason to disagree with what I stated above (even if you are one of those anoying know all’s that challenges everything just for the sake of it). Let’s continue into deeper waters…
A central theme in dispelling the idea that you have Free will is the notion that you can’t control your desires. The things you like and dislike and it is these things that make you choose your subsequent actions.
You can’t change any of your favorites!! Let’s try…
- Colour? Can you change it to Magenta
- Food? Can you change it to Paw Paw
- Sports? Why do play so aggressively, play passively! Can you also change the sport you love too Eskimo Kayak Racing?
- Music? Can you make Thrash Metal your favourite?
- Hobbies? Can you make it Airsoft?
- Porn Category and kinks? Can you change it to Kenyan midget wrestling?
- Art? Stop liking classic Art, can you change it to Nepalese Finger painting?
- Principals? Ideas? Values? People fight and die for these things. Wouldn’t it be nice to say just stop believing those things!
- Believe things I believe instead. Maybe the world would be a better place 🙂
- Love. Anyone with a sufficiently large data sample or who watches MAF’s knows that you can’t make yourself love someone that you don’t and also that can’t make someone love you
- Addictions: Why are you addicted to shopping? Alcohol, drugs, porn, tabbacco, vaping, food, gluttony, Migdget Porn, Sex, travel. Please stop now!
It must be easy to change all these things? After all you have free will don't you? If you can't then where the fcuk is your free will?
How about your Behaviour?
Wisdom has been chasing you but you have always been faster!
In the same way you can’t control your pupil dilation, knee reflexes when hit by a hammer, allegies, myopia, hyperopia, depression, abraxia, add, assburgers, you also can’t control your emotions.
Consider these simple thoughts:
- Why do you like this person and not that person?
- Why do you respond viscerally to some things and some people? Can you please stop!
- What makes you triggered? Stop being triggered!
- Why do you overeat? Stop overeating!
- Why are you addicted to that thing? Stop being addicted!
- Why do you suffer from depression? Stop suffering from depression!
- Your Fears? Stop being scared of those things!
- Your thoughts? You don’t even curate and moderate your thoughts they just appear and disappear
- Why do you overthink
- Why are you drawn to patterns
- Why are you creative? Stop being creative
- Why do you love your partner? Can you choose another one?
- You can’t make yourself love someone
- Hey Bipolar, Aspergers, Autistic, Anxious, Depressed people, please just stop being like that!
Again if you have Free Will then why can't you just change these things!
How about your Physiological response to emotions
You cannot control the intensity of your desires or the objects of your desires in fact it is the opposite it is they that control you!
Everyone everywhere anytime has experienced uncontrollable visceral responses to things. If you have Free Will ….just change the way you feel :P.
A Visual Guide to Human Emotion – Visual Capitalist
Where Emotions Are Felt In the Body, According to Research (greatist.com)
Animal Behaviour
Hey Cats and Dogs stop licking your balls!
How about animals?
- I know how your Dog will respond when I start preparing its food when it goes for a walk when it sees a rival when it sees someone it likes. I can tell a lot about it just based on physicality e.g. is it a poodle or is it a pitbull?
- Imagine if you are born as a Lion, will you start looking at long grain grass on the Savannah and say to yourself mmm looks more delicious than that young Gazelle? I think not.
- Hey bees stop making honey
- Hey, dung beetle stop looking for dung! Look for anything else because it’ll be better for you!
Lifecycle of a Human
You have certain patterns of behavior that are completely predictable. For example, by using my data analytics app I know how exactly how you will live your life from womb to tomb. Here’s just a snippet to give yourself a glimpse.
Daily
- Tomorrow morning you will wake up and get your FA out of bed
- You will have breakfast and head to work
- You will eat Marmite sandwiches for lunch
- You will pretend to work the afternoon and then commute home the same way you have done yesterday
- You will eventually arive home and your dog will be super excited to see you even though you are boring AF.
- You will eat the same dinners you have eaten in the past and fall asleep on the couch watching TV and eating Toffee Pops
Love
- You will search for the romanticized love that you have seen exists in all Disney movies, and Generic Romcoms
- You will meet someone who is not your perfect match and feel intense physiological stimuli when you think about them
- Eventually, you will grow bored with the mundane aspects of life and drift apart before separating
- Your partner will take half the stuff you worked your ar$e off for
- You will console yourself with Tinder and PornHub
Reference Links
I may have have referenced these links directly in this blog or searched and found something that supported my claim
