Recognise free will is an illusion and reap the emotional benefits | Psyche Ideas
Francis Mersonpsyche.co
Recognise free will is an illusion and reap the emotional benefits | Psyche Ideas
Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.
You believe that you are free, and that you make choices, and you have a complex human mind that is selecting what to pay attention to—but it’s all a myth. You and your sense of focus are simply the sum total of all the reinforcements you have experienced in your life.
“men believe themselves free solely because they are conscious of their actions and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined”
But for our commonsense notions of human agency and morality to hold, it seems that our actions cannot be merely lawful products of our biology, our conditioning, or anything else that might lead others to predict them.