"As you adequately put it, the problem is choice"

I now present to you another one of my pet ideas: the illusion of choice.

I hear you asking, "Why talk about this now? Don't you know what time it is? Don't you have some ridiculous book written by a lunatic that you need to be reading right now?". Well, it all started with an IM about the election, and how there will be no right or wrong choice, only a reflection of the country's desires (though I guess this supposition assumes that the election won't be rigged).

If that's the case for the election, why would it be any different for a single individual? Are choices actually choices, or just reflections of who we are? And if that is in fact the case, to what degree do we control who we are, as opposed to the degree by which external factors shape our identity? Are we in fact just pre-programmed decision making machines, acting out conditioned behavior and collecting the resulting data to condition future behavior?

Well this may be anticlimactic, but I think the answer is yes.

In my theory, I exclude the possibility of alternate realities. If we allow for alternate realities, well, then I have no idea what my theory would be, but you can be sure that one of those alternate realities would probably involve what could only be described as extradimensional cephalopods.

Ok, so no alternate realities. What does this mean? It means that any given event only occurs one way, and that there aren't other realities in which the given event happens another way. Under this premise, even without considering motivation, any individual considering any given choice would only ever decide one way or the other, and that choice would have an indelible effect on the rest of reality and future history. I suppose you might say I'm describing fate - that all things, from the beginning of time to the end, only ever had the possibility of happening one way.

Let me take a moment to acknowledge the fact that I'm talking about stuff way out of my league, and that a better understanding about the mechanics of reality would really be required to justify the above theories.

As far as casting human beings in the role of decision making machines, I feel a little more comfortable expressing my ideas. Regardless of whether or not the universe is random or predetermined (or if those things are actually the same...think about it), and come to think of it, even if we suppose that there are alternate realities, based on my own experience as a human being, I would agree with the supposition that choices are a reflection of idenitity. If we exclude the consideration of truly arbitrary choices such as calling a coin flip (though it could be argued there's a reason, however unconscious or insignificant, for choosing either heads or tails), I would argue that people reference what they believe to be facts when choosing how to act (I'd argue they don't actually have to be facts...they can be completely incorrect, but the individual believes them to be facts). For instance, I have decided not to post on the discussion board about this idiotic book for reasons I consider to be factual, such as the inanity of talking about something I clearly don't understand, and the benefit of waiting until after class to post in the hope that I'll have some greater understanding at that time. I also considered my greater interest in writing this blog post as a contributing factor to that choice. The possible disadvantages of not posting, after some consideration, were not adequate enough to make me post. My point is, I didn't choose arbitrarily, I simply performed a cost/benefit comparison that indicated the most favorable course of action.

Yet other people will post. Other people have posted. And from what I've read of those posts, they didn't get it either. So why did they choose to post when I didn't?

Either they weighted the costs and benefits differently, or they took other factors into account, such as the threat of a lower grade or the desire to impress their classmates with their verbosity. But I would have to argue that those even more fundamental choices, the choices that form the mechanism of assessing other choices, are a result of identity. Some people are more inclined to complete every assignment than I am, and some people are even less inclined than I am. Some enjoy this class more than I do, others enjoy it less. Whatever the case, those inclinations are a result of previous experiences. If I thought that not posting wasn't a big deal, it's likely that experience has taught me that fact, or that who I am is a person who, throughout his life, has arranged his priorities in a certain way that lessened the importance of posting in his estimation. Had I learned before that not posting would have had a consequence I was not prepared to deal with, obviously I would have posted.

I would challenge someone to find a choice in which they could decide in favor of one direction over all others without any influence from their past. I don't think it's possible, because the way we think is a result of our past and the influences of our upbringing and experiences. Each choice we make (which is based on past experiences) creates new experiences, which then in turn influence future choices. So obviously our identity is altered with each choice we make, but for every choice we are confronted with, even those we aren't even consciously aware of, the outcome is a reflection of the sum total of the formative factors of our identity.

And don't even get me started on the existential implications of all this.

Anyways, I'm sure there are some other parts of this theory I've left out that I may remember later, but I hope whoever reads this weighs in on what I've said.

In the interest of full disclosure, the thing which provided me with a reason to write this blog post, the possession of which resulted in me writing this blog post, is this video. It's probably the funniest thing I've seen all week. Brian, you will enjoy it.