Things are what they are.
Everything acts according to its nature.
Nothing escapes its own nature.
We cannot be other than what we are and our "choices" follow our nature.
Consequently, can we not say correctly that free choice is merely our ignorance of the fact that all our actions and choices are predetermined by our nature?
1. If you are offered either a handful of dog poop or a cold Dove bar---is your "choice" really much of a choice? Why? Why not?
2. Offer a heterosexual male a night with a hot chick or a hot dude...is the outcome really "choice"? Why? Why not?
If we fully knew what we are inside our seeming choices might appear more inevitable.
Some people have what is called a "danger" gene whereby they are thrillseekers.
Type A personalities selectively dominate in their social interactions.
The decisions, actions, "choices" made by these persons simply follow their personality type and genetic predispositions.
In nature itself, one thing follows the other as a consequence.
A boulder shaken loose from a mountain top "chooses" to fall downward.
Smoke from a forest fire "chooses" to waft upward.
The oceans "choose" to move toward the moon as the earth revolves causing the tides.
The things that happen are the result of events following their own natural bent.
Is free choice an illusion?
We don't speak of actions in Nature as "choices" do we? Yet, we speak of our own actions that way.
Mathematicians will tell you there really is no such things as "random".
You cannot program a computer to generate an actual "random" number.
There is always an algorithm underlying it.
Randomness is our ignorance of the nature of inevitable consequent events.
Just because you don't know what you'll pick to wear tomorrow does that mean you have a choice?
You've already pre-selected the clothes you have on hand, haven't you? The clothes you buy are the direct result of
your inner-directed urges which filter out one set of possibilities from another.
Aren't your selections the result of how you react to things in a given circumstance? Isn't a REaction different from an ACTion?
Is there a difference?
In short: IS FREE CHOICE AN ILLUSION?
You don't will yourself to breathe.
You don't will yourself to become hungry or crave this or that food.
You don't will yourself to experience sexual urges.
You don't willfully select the blink rate of your eyes or the constancy of your heartbeat.
You take all these actions as INVOLUNTARY "givens." You think nothing of them "choice" wise.
Your fears, your attractions and repulsions and your ambitious yearnings stem from something deeper inside of you than
mere neutral choices from some giant menu in the brain.
CAN WE NOT SAY OUR "CHOICES" are fictional constructs?
Are we not confusing our creative imagination with actual selective decision making?
Could it not be our mind's ego at work creating the false illusion WE ARE IN CONTROL of our "choices"?
If we FULLY KNEW everything that makes us tick, would we not see our day to day activity (except in the case of accidents) as foreordained
to certain extent?
What PER CENT of your "choices" are really and truly FREE choices??