Defeating Deterministic Dread

Have you ever met that kid who keeps asking "Why?"

MOM: "You can't play in the park today."

KID: "Why?"

MOM: "Because it’s storming outside."

KID: "Why?"

MOM: "Because we live in Florida."

KID: "Why?"

MOM: "Because there’s no state income tax, and your dad got a job here."

KID: "Why?"

MOM: Sigh.

Even as children, we intuitively grasp the infinite chain of causality that unfolds before us. One of my earliest memories revolves around this realization: "If everything is a result of a preceding cause, and that cause is also the result of another cause, what do I actually control?" This thought haunted me throughout my formative years.

Eventually, I found the term "determinism" after some perilous Google searching that landed on a very certain hotline number more than couple times. If you are unfamiliar with the term, Determinism suggests that free will is an illusion because all of our decisions are the result of prior causes and conditions beyond our control, all the way down to an atomic level.

A considerable number of thinkers throughout history appear to favor determinism, including names like Democritus, Hobbes, and Laplace (whom I naively thought I had left behind Differential Equations). I found physicists and philosophers who so eloquently talked about the subject, that I was drawn in. One of the most enjoyable speakers I’ve found on the topic is Sabine Hossenfelder. As I watched debates on free will versus determinism, I observed that many who defended “free will” were actually championing the belief in free will—a distinction that’s crucial. Eventually, my perspective shifted toward the possibility of indeterminism. I kept my skepticism of free will, but now believed that not everything may be predetermined; some events, especially in quantum mechanics, could be simply random.

An example I like to use when talking about this with friends, is how I learned in school about the distinct brain structures of psychopaths, which are identifiable through brain scans. I wondered, “If a psychopath has no say over their brain’s malformation, how can they be blamed for heinous acts like murder? Should anyone truly be held accountable for their actions?” Of course they should, but a deterministic lens makes it harder to answer confidently.

To say I struggled with this, would be an oversimplification. I fixated on it too much. The English language seems ill-equipped to capture the paradox of consciously recognizing one’s own lack of free will, so I’ll spare most of the details. Just know that it sparked intense internal conflicts like: “If one truly believes they lack free will, why should they bother doing anything if it’s all predetermined?” But, the act of pondering this or choosing inaction is, is a form of action, which is also.. predetermined. Shit.”

But here’s where things took an unexpected turn. That sense of constriction, of being at the mercy of cosmic causality, became a kind of freedom. It was like the universe gave me permission to break away from the traditional path, simply by letting me see the world this way. I started questioning everything in my life—why was it there, how did it get there, and where would it lead? As you might have noticed from the rest of this site, I’m not exactly living the most conventional life anymore. And I doubt I would be if I hadn’t had these realizations.

I want to emphasize that the purpose of this post is not to convince anyone that they do not have free will. Instead, I want to share another revelation: it doesn’t truly matter. Whether we possess free will shouldn’t concern us because it’s not how we experience the world. Consider the chair you’re sitting on—it’s mostly empty space (mostly being 99.9999999% empty space!) Yet, you perceive it as solid and tangible. The chair’s emptiness doesn’t affect your daily life. Similarly, our perception of free will shouldn’t plunge us into existential despair. We experience life as if we have agency, and that’s what truly matters. This isn’t to say that I think people should avoid the topic of free will and determinism, I still find it very intriguing and worthy of discussion. However, trying to take advantage of the knowledge that you do not have free will is futile. So, I hold that we shouldn’t sit on our empty chairs and hope we were lucky enough to have been gifted great lives by the universe… instead we should go out, make decisions, and demand it for ourselves!