Free Choice
Choices matter, there's no doubt about it. The direction you take and the next step you make is critical to what happens next.
Without it, the step after that is not possible, it could not be possible as it depends on the step before.
Accomplishment, any accomplishment, any new skill, any achievement based on effort is only possible because of the steps you take, the behaviours you do.
But, it's not about choosing which step to take. We don't choose. We can't choose.
We are not as free as we think we are.
We could not have done something different and we could not have acted without our action being intrinsically linked to something prior.
Free choice is an illusion.
Your reaction to what you have just read, was not your choice. You did not decide to agree, disagree, re-read, understand or be confused.
Which ever one of these states (or another) happened to you.
It could not and would not have been any other way. You could not have chosen to react differently to this.
Everything you are, everything you have experienced till now determined what you 'chose'.
And what you are thinking is also, not your choice, it's just happening but happening in a way that is unique to you, and determined by everything that came before.
But choices matter, what we say and do matters, our behaviour matters because it becomes our experiences. It is also prompts further behaviours in ourselves and others.
Your chosen path matters to who you will become and what you will achieve, it's just that you weren't the one who was free to make that choice.
This isn't a philosophical debate. It's how things appear to work according to scientific research, experimentation and reasoning.
Understanding that what I choose now, in this moment, is determined by everything I have experienced thus far, allows me the possible, potential creation of a different me, one that will respond differently when faced with the choice. One who has received sufficient experiences to, when it comes to it, choose differently. But even then, in this future moment, I will not be free to choose.
#behaviour
#science
#behaviouraldesign
