The illusion of Freewill & the purpose of your life…

In this article, ill try to explain what we consider as freewill and do we really have controls over our will or as some people might call it, destiny. One of the reasonable definitions of freewill that i have come across is “Free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.”

Lets take an example of simple choices one can freely make…like you can choose to watch movie now or read a book. Further you can attempt (in a reasonable manner) to choose your life partner & can if things work out, can have children and raise a family.. hmm, nothing exceptional so far. But lets dig deeper..how do you define yourself as ? you are certainly not your body, its the individual inside your body..its the thinking you. From now on lets just call it as you, instead of thinking you. Now, from where did this you come from ? who associated you with your body & who made you think that your body’s pains or pleasures are yours ?

The answer unfortunately is evolution. You have been programmed (yes ! genetics !!) to think (read this slowly & try to digest) that your body is you. Its not your parents nor teachers nor society that we all have built. None of them have taught you, what im going mention below. All of us have been programmed to act/behave in some manner through out our life.

It may appear strange, but go through the following statements carefully and consider if its true or false.

You have been programmed to think that your body is you & all of its pleasures and pains are yours…

You have been programmed to instinctly go for two things. Food & Mating(reproduction). Infact, all animals are programmed in the same manner

You have been programmed at each stage of life to act in a manner, that is suitable to that age..like at a macro level, a child gets pleasure in playing (which makes its body stronger), a adolescent has habits or preferences that give them pleasure (mental & physical) and purpose to exist & thrive. In Youth you are at your best health and so the best chances to have healthy offspring..At old age, your physical strength diminishes & so is your ability to reproduce and so on. Why did nature program you in such a manner ?

Who made sex(essentially reproduction) pleasurable ? it comes so natural to all living beings & everyone looks forward to it. Just think about the act of mating from a different perspective. Its basically brining the organs of excretion together. Weird, but nature made is at most pleasurable to all of us & so people wont bother much when they are in heat :-).

In short, at each and every level of your life, Evolution is ensuring that you are at your best health, you can find a suitable mate and have an offspring, which is healthier and you continue to propagate further.

So, who put the ideas of pleasure in your head ? be it eating a mango or flirting with person of opposite sex (which can ultimately leads to you having children). Its simply nature (through evolution) which is defining pleasures and pains for you..all through your life, you have been played by nature, and playing as per the rules and definitions nature has set for you. (of course, there are exceptions to this due to mutations & experimentations in evolution).

So the concept of free will still holds (you can choose to read this article or stop further).. but you have been built to serve a purpose and nature has already defined what is going to be pleasurable for you and hence you will do those things, which makes you happier.

You might ask, why is nature doing this ? simply to ensure you continue the most valuable possession that you have, your genetic information ! yes, we are mere puppets !!

We believe that we have the power & freedom to do anything that we want.. like going to any place, having any suitable food that we like, choosing any desirable partner or having any profession that we love etc etc. These are all macro level objectives, built on the foundational objectives of survival and mainly propagation.

The system is the physical world we are living in, the carrier are the living beings (trees, animals, insects & humans) and that critical information is our genetic material. The code which is used to store the information as well as design the carrier is our DNA/RNA etc.. This has been the broad setup for millions of years.

Now, lets get onto the finer details & aligned with the scientific terminology.. evolution is the process through which living beings constantly improvise their own design which is more efficient in preserving and continuing their genetic material.

You and I and so the whole living world has been designed and evolved with a very specific objective & that is to continue our respective species. You can apparently do what ever you want in life, but the very definitions of pain and pleasure has been defined for you, by someone else..(psst, its nature). Nature at a very fundamental level, has ensured that all living beings perform two major tasks. Preserving the genetic information by preserving themselves(aka survival) and Propagating the genetic information across time (aka reproduction)

Now, you may ask…why cant living beings continue to preserve themselves and the genetic information (i.e survive for ever without the need to reproduce)..this is not possible, because we live in a constantly changing natural environment. If an animal lives forever, then you are blocking the possibility of improving the design of that animal (i.e very little evolutionary improvements over a period of time) and hence in a constantly changing world, you risk having a less flexible/less adaptable carrier/living beings & hence increase the possibility of loosing that very critical information that you are carrying (your genetic code) !!!

Now, does this article address the concept of freewill and the purpose of your life :-) ?? comments and criticisms are welcome