Has anybody else picked this up yet? It’s really done a number on me. Prior to reading it I would consider myself a Stoic. One of my central philosophies being that “The choices I make define who I am”.
So obviously being told that my choices were never even mine to begin with was kind of a slap in the face.
It rings true though. The choices we make at any given time are a result of our genetics, or environment, the media we’ve consumed, how tired we are…
I’m not a stranger to the concept of Ego death but it had been a hot minute since I thought about it.
Maybe a bit more info about what those inputs determining your behavior are would help.
Self determination theory gives three driving needs that humans share. Mastery, Autonomy, and Relatedness. I’ll focus on Autonomy as it is often misunderstood. People tend to conflate autonomy with freedom. While freedom often helps with a satisfying feeling of autonomy, they are not the same thing. Freedom is the sense of having choice. You have many options, and you have the power to choose as you see fit. Autonomy is the sense of wanting to do what you’re doing, and that the things you do matter.
As an example, you could be placed in the middle of the Sahara Desert. We’ll even give you all the basic tools to survive. Food, water, shelter. You are arguably incredibly free. You can go in any direction, or do nothing at all. The choice is yours. You would not feel autonomous. You don’t want to survive in the desert. Any direction you choose to walk seems the same as any other.
Alternatively, you could be a slave to a magical mind reading sorcerer. If you ever disobey him you will be punished severely. The sorcerer is kind though, and he uses his mind reading powers to always order you to do exactly what you want to do. This would give you a great sense of autonomy despite having no freedom at all.
Please note, I’m not trying to make any statement about “kind and benevolent” slave owners here. Just talking about psychology.
It turns out, that autonomy is way more important than freedom to us. That mind reading sorcerer is you. It knows what you want to do, and forces you to do it.
We can condition dogs to do any number of things entirely through positive re-enforcement. Sit, get treat. Lie down, get treat. Eventually the treat is no longer needed. You say sit, the dog sits. The dog has clearly lost an element of freedom due to this conditioning, and yet it is no less satisfied than before.
My advice is worry less about whether you existentially have “free will”, and more about whether you’re conditioned to be a positive or negative influence on the world and the people around you.