Try to believe the sky is green right now. Not pretend. Not imagine. Actually believe it. You can’t. Even if someone offered you a million dollars, you couldn’t genuinely believe the sky is green. Your mind won’t let you. This shows something strange about belief. We talk about “choosing” our beliefs, but that’s backwards. Beliefs choose us. When I look outside and see blue sky, belief happens automatically. The evidence hits my brain and belief follows....
Determinism is simple. Everything that happens was caused by something that happened before it. The coffee cup falls because you knocked it. You knocked it because you reached for your phone. You reached for your phone because it buzzed. It buzzed because someone texted you. Go back far enough and you get to the Big Bang. Every event since then has been one long chain of cause and effect. Including your brain states....
Most people think free will means you can choose what to do. That’s not the real question. Of course you can choose. Right now you could choose to close this tab, make coffee, or text someone. Nobody disputes that. The real question is whether you could have chosen differently. Not just whether you had options. Whether, if we rewound the universe to this exact moment — same brain state, same thoughts, same everything — you would actually pick something else....
Let’s say free will is an illusion. Your brain makes decisions before “you” know about them. Every choice follows from prior causes stretching back to the Big Bang. Should we still lock people up? The obvious answer is no. How can you blame someone for something they couldn’t help doing? That’s like punishing a rock for falling. But then I think about deterrence. Even if my decision to steal your bike isn’t “free,” the possibility of getting caught still influences that decision....
You decide to reach for your coffee cup. Simple choice, right? But here’s what’s strange. Scientists can predict that choice before you’re aware of making it. They hook electrodes to your brain and watch the electrical activity. A few hundred milliseconds before you “decide” to reach, your brain shows a spike of activity. The decision happens first. Your awareness of deciding comes second. This isn’t just true for coffee cups. It works for bigger choices too....