Free Will

We can't even begin to reach the bottom of the topic of 'Free Will' in one post. It's an old question as to whether there is free will to begin with, or whether we all just blindly obey the laws of causality and the patterns built into our own neural pathways. On an even higher metaphysical level, what if there is an omnipotent being or a mysterious Destiny that awaits us all, and we are simply mechanically performing the steps that will lead us to our fates? Technically, barring the invention of time travel, we do all in reality have those preset fates, and our progress toward them is mechanical, even if it seems to be otherwise.

Spooky!

The reason why I wonder about free will right now is that everyone seems to be doing the same things with their lives out there in the world. It's weird. Apparently, the age old patterns of life are unchanging, and infuriatingly so. In this brave new world we seem to have weeded out all the eccentrics and free thinkers, and embraced a bland mediocrity of domestic bliss, where 'different' is very much the same as 'undesirable', and it seems rather sad to someone on the outside of it all. On the other hand, perhaps as an 'exile' from all the regular norms of society this is all just sour grapes. Who can tell.

'Sour grapes: bitterness'

A long time ago, so long that there were still dinosaurs roaming the school canteens, and before making sense was mandatory, I never thought about free will at all. Now, as people all seem to inevitably progress down the same life paths with grand dullness, it seems as if no thought goes into anything. How strange it is! Perhaps this is how people are supposed to be, and yet aren't we supposed to be free thinkers as a species or are we really just as programmed into our animalistic behaviours as every other creature on the planet? We certainly seem to be breeding out of control, just like every other species, without natural controls in the ecosystem. Are we just rabbits in the grand scheme of things? Rabbits with nuclear bombs?

It's a silly thing to even try to talk about free will, as it truly is one of those unanswerable questions. If we ever determine the existence or non-existence of a soul, then we'll know if there's consciousness apart from the purely physical structure of our brains. Then, we'll know if there's free will or simply neurons firing semi-randomly and giving that impression. Do you think we'll ever know about souls or spirits? Will we even know soon? It seems unlikely, and the knowing would actually be less interesting than the question itself. Oh, that often unsatisfying answer! We're only really happy when the answer to a question reveals a larger question! It's far more interesting and wondrous to be a principled agnostic than go around claiming to know things on faith.

Oh, humans, clinging to the same lifestyle choices en masse while simultaneously questing for even bigger questions to ask? Nuttier than fruitcakes on Mars. I wish they weren't all so disappointing.

O.