How Free Will Works
The Four Factors of Free Will Make Free Jim Lose His Cool
Free Will: Wheat, like everything else in our reality, is a product of four factors: the first factor is the genetic force which determines the wheat's attributes and what type of grain it belongs to.
In fact, it is like our genes which determine not only the characteristics we inherit from our parents, but also that we belong to humanity.
Free Jim: Yeah, I remember reading this book by this biologist, where she was talking about the genetic revolution today; how the main thing that biologists have discovered in the last ten-to-fifteen years is that our genes completely determine our characteristics.
They say that there's a "lawyer gene" and a "police officer gene" and that you can even tell if someone's going to be a murderer just from looking at their genes. They all have specific, but extremely complex codes.
Free Will: Hmmm, it looks like a tiny fraction of that knowledge you have is somewhat useful. So that "genetic code" is the first factor that determines our characteristics.
The second factor is the way the properties of the wheat grain are activated. This means that only wheat will grow when we plant the wheat seed in the soil, and not barley, carrots or rabbits. The only change that takes place is in the amount of wheat that comes out, and in the wheat's quality.
We also have inner characteristics inherited from our parents and they are expressed in us. Some are recessive, some are dominant, but both determine who we are. Are you following?
Free Jim: Yes, the first factor is the genetic potential, "the base," and the second factor is the actualization of that potential, "the growth" from the base.
Free Will: Good. The third factor is the contact between my inner, personal potential and my external surrounding. External conditions such as the type of soil, watering, and sunshine will affect the quality and quantity of the wheat grains. It is the same with us: our kindergarten teacher, friends, family, the media, the internet, TV, books, university-the environment I'm in affects the development of my potential attributes and characteristics in a way that changes in quality and quantity .
Free Jim: What you're saying is crazy! You're saying that everything's predetermined from inside me, in my genes, and from outside me, in my environment. So where am I in all this?
The first factor is genes: I don't determine them-they determine me. According to the second factor, because I was born to John and Laura King, the characteristics that existed in them will exist in me one way or another, meaning that I might be stingy even though my father's a spender. I mean, what difference does it make? It's the same quality but at a different level!
Free Will: So far so good...
Free Jim: Shutup! The third factor then comes in to say "everything I am is only the contact between the external environment I'm in and my genes!" Even there I haven't determined anything!
This is so logical and so twisted at the same time! Old John and Laura have thrown certain ingredients into the pot, and the environment has lighted the fire, and I'm cooking on the stove unable to decide where I'm going, whether I want to go or not...nothing! Absolutely nothing!
Free Will: Nice one! You've got it! :-)
Free Jim: This is really twisted! What are you smiling for!? You're not going to take my free will away from me!
Everything I think, everything I choose, and that I believe is "me," is actually "something" or even "nothing"-I don't even know what to call it, how to define it...I can't say anything about it!
I can't say anything about what put this code in my genes to prefer history over all the other subjects in all those books in my house! And I can't say anything about the code which put this house of books around me to choose a history book from in the first place!
Why should I go on living? This whole life means nothing! It's all fiction! What am I, a puppet!? Okay, so I'm just going to sit at home for the rest of my life, just waiting for it to go by. I have no control over my life anyway.
And I know that the only thing I'll want next is pleasure! Even thinking these thoughts I'm thinking now is because they're the most pleasurable thoughts I can be having. "I think that it's more pleasurable to search for the truth of where everything comes from than just to stop the investigation and escape to a movie or something." So why not!? I don't have a choice anyway, do I!?
Is this it!? Are we just supposed to try to enjoy our life for a few years and then die!?
Free Will: Hey, where are you running off to?
Free Jim: It isn't even "me" running off...you decided for me! I have no choice! I cannot decide anything! You've ruined my life!
Free Will: Come here, sit down...
Free Jim: Give me some hope, or a rope, or something! Tell me that I can somehow change something! Somehow! That there's a place where I can make my own decision!
Free Will: Calm down Jimbo. Sure there's hope. There is something that you can choose...
Free Jim: What? You better not be coming at me with some religion, because I can't believe in anything anymore knowing that it's just encoded in me to believe in something because that's what will give me pleasure!
...To be concluded in "Choosing a Supportive Environment"
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