If we take any particular one of us and determine the events of our lives, if ever we could really dig that deep, that led us to do our sin, it's a wonder to think we could have done otherwise. And yet we seem determined to treat each other as if any one of us could have done other than what we end up doing. This notion that we could have done otherwise seems to be an incredibly certain one, but I doubt its true at all. I doubt we could ever have done other than what we do. We only assume we could have. That feeling, that illusion of we could have done otherwise, may be enough to help us in our lives going forward, I suppose, but as I see it that retrospect is simply part of the data that gets input into our brains which in the future may see us approaching a similar situation and choosing differently then what we did previously. Our illusion of freely choosing is perhaps vital to our move forward in life, but I'd wager it is truly an illusion.
I don't know, maybe this is mumbo-jumbo-ey stuff. But I can't help to think we need this mindset to move us forward in our society--this notion that free will is but an illusion to us. I like a particular thought exercise because I'm so geographically minded. If you are instructed to pick a city, any city, in the world. What starts happening in your mind as you decide on one? If you could settle down your thoughts and all that firing activity in your brain as you go through the process of deciding one, could you possibly know all that goes into that decision? I could certainly be saying to myself something like, well, Kiev popped into my head, but I've never been there and Adelaide just posted itself front and center in my psyche...but I too have never been there. Oh, remember when I read about Igram in Jakarta...and my mom lived in Atlanta.... and that weekend in Portland...I mean maybe our mind is doing something like that and yet it's these places that are just popping into our head as we're contemplating cities. What's making them pop other than all the data put into us in various ways throughout our lives? Someone's not choosing Ulaanbaatar because it never pops into this one's head, for instance. But that one might be quite aware of it, perhaps lived there for a time. It just so happens at the very moment that the question was posed, that person's brain was going in one direction already. And many cities well known to that person simply melted away from his/her memory during the moments of contemplation and, for whatever reason, cities prominent to that person just didn't happen to show up. But if the same is asked another day, it may be that a whole new host of candidates emerge for consideration. All because that other day provides different context, perhaps.
I think it's a good exercise because we can't fully trace what's going into our decision. We only think we can. Ultimately when we do decide on one, say given 2 minutes to think about it then you have to say it out loud, its nothing more than the result of millions of tiny things snapping into place culminating into that moment. We might 10 seconds later think 'well, I could have just as easily picked Boston, but I didn't", which I suppose is kind of true, but as the seconds melted away and the moment of saying one came, you simply said exactly what you were destined to say. Replayed a million times over, with every parameter being equal and you'd say the same city each time, without fail. Why? Because every thought we have every transpired activity in our brain are set, determined by the input given us throughout our lives. Our decisions are limited to the activity in our brains.
Further, as it pertains to religion. Religion has it that we are free to choose and that our choice either condemns or exonerates in the end. But it assumes our mind our thoughts are controlled by an unseen power hidden in each of us--a soul or spirit. Says Yuval Noah Harrari
Religion often, well the western ones, tell us there is an end and it ain't pretty to most of us because our spirits are too rebellious and cause us to sin. But it appears that is not so at all. We sin based not only on our mind activity but based on those plus our biology--our hormones and genes. Religion painting the false picture of reality seems to be a huge part of our desire to condemn, feel satisfaction knowing other gets their just desserts, and seek revenge. If a psychotic person is driven to kill another, and that other happens to be our loved one its probably hard not to feel hate for the killer. But if we could understand what made him, caused him to helplessly do that which he did, then perhaps we'd feel less desire to blame and feel more mercy. If there's a god watching all of this and feeling justified in telling many he never knew them, hoping to send them to hell or the worst possible imaginable place of suffering for eternity...well, he's a weenie to put it kindly, and certainly not worth worshipping anyway.Scientists studying the inner workings of the human organism have found no soul there. They increasingly argue that human behavior is determined by hormones, genes and synapses, rather than by free will--the same forces the determine the behavior of chimpanzees, wolves, and ants. Our judicial and political systems largely try to sweep such inconvenient discoveries under the carpet. But in all frankness, how long can we maintain the wall separating the department of biology from the departments of law and political science?