Free Will

I’ve been thinking about the idea of human feelings and emotions being ‘biochemical algorithms’ developed over millions of years on the East African savannahs as defined by Yuval Noah Harari in his books, Sapiens and Homo Deus.

It certainly leads to the conclusion that there is no such thing as ‘free will’, just another human myth to try and explain the only two functions that scientists are beginning to acknowledge, deterministic evolution through natural selection and the apparent statistical randomness of the universe, which preclude any such concept as ‘free will’.

When I look back over my life, contemplating, meditating on its course and the decisions that have supposedly led me to my current position, I honestly can’t see that any other decisions than the ones I made were truthfully, factually open to me.

I know that there are those who will claim my complete agency and responsibility for those decisions. But, the longer I live, open myself to and see the reality around me, the more I doubt the idea of ‘free will’, that in truth, all our decisions could be mapped out by an AI agent, given enough data, biochemical, psychological, and external/environmental, could predict every single decision I or anyone else would ever make.

Therefore, ‘free will’ is a myth (IMHO). You are certainly entitled to your own opinion on the matter…

–LE – 8/6/25