Dismantling The Illusion
You wake up each morning under the charming delusion that you're about to make a series of choices. What to wear, what to eat, whether to call in sick or drag yourself to work. But you don't actually make choices - you merely observe the outcomes of a series of predetermined processes that have been set in motion long before you even opened your eyes.
What if I told you that this comforting notion that you're the author of your life story, is an elaborate fiction your consciousness tells itself? Not in some abstract philosophical sense, but in a very literal, neurologically demonstrable way.
The Deterministic Reality
Consider a simple function that doubles a number:
This function is deterministic which means it will always return the same output
for the same input. If you pass in 2, it will always return 4. The output is entirely determined by the input.
You are the same way. Your choices are simply the outputs of a complex function that takes in your genetic makeup, past experiences, and current circumstances as inputs. You will always produce the same output for the same input.
The only reason you think you have a choice is because the function is so complex that you can't see all the inputs. In reality, it's many functions chained together, each one feeding into the next.
This function is still deterministic but you can see how quickly the result becomes obfuscated when you chain together multiple functions. Now imagine this extrapolated out to your entire life - every single thing that has ever happened to you is an input to your decision-making process.
That time you congratulated yourself for choosing the salad instead of the burger? That was the inevitable result of being bullied at school, your recent doctor's appointment, and the attractive woman at the next table. The illusion that you could have chosen differently is just your brain's charming way of maintaining its sense of importance.
If you could run your life again from the beginning, every singe thing would happen the same way.