Free will doesn’t exist, but we can’t perceive ourselves as anything but free creatures.
The way I like to see life is like a striped funnel: you’re going in that direction and will ultimately die, and there are a series of things you will encounter (the various colored stripes) and others you can and can’t encounter.
I can only perceive me as endowed with free will, but I can think of a synthesis between free will and determinism. So if my father and grandfather had some kind of illness, I know I will probably have it too, if I’m born in Germany I know I’ll never be U.S. President, if I was born poor I know that I probably won’t be able to do some things.
But if we’re talking about “how reality works”, we aren’t really free.
Free will doesn’t exist, but we can’t perceive ourselves as anything but free creatures.
The way I like to see life is like a striped funnel: you’re going in that direction and will ultimately die, and there are a series of things you will encounter (the various colored stripes) and others you can and can’t encounter.
I can only perceive me as endowed with free will, but I can think of a synthesis between free will and determinism. So if my father and grandfather had some kind of illness, I know I will probably have it too, if I’m born in Germany I know I’ll never be U.S. President, if I was born poor I know that I probably won’t be able to do some things.
But if we’re talking about “how reality works”, we aren’t really free.
This makes me think of MGS2’s ending