X-Message-Number: 17023 From: "George Smith" <> References: <> Subject: My Last Free Will and Testament Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 12:48:29 -0700 In Message #17013, Joseph W. Morgan expressed a commonly held view that we have "free will". The following is my opinion based on observations of the human animal in herds: Within the sharply defined and narrow choices most people operate, they commonly assume that they possess "free will". But in regard to their overall choices, they might as well not have it anyway. People are on the whole entirely predictable. In over 99.99% of the cases people make identical choices on the important issues regarding life (and death). "Free will" for most people is an issue of which TV channel they may flip to, NOT whether they will watch it or not. "Free will" for most people is an issue of which beliefs they will adhere to, NOT whether they will suspend their beliefs in favor of evaluating the facts of the matter. "Free will" for most people is an issue of believing that their "vote counts", NOT whether they recognize the statistical impact of their voting (which is usually as close to zero as most hand held calculators can go). My point is that for the vast majority of humanity they have an illusion of free will while their thinking, feelings and behaviors are circumscribed by the social controls which determine their thinking, feelings and behaviors in the first place. For the milling masses, "free will" is one of the links in the chain of their lock step slavery to the norm. For most people it would not matter if "free will" were an illusion or not. They behave like robots anyway. Pragmatically Yours, George Smith CI Member Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17023