Do Humans Have Free Will?
Most of us habitually assume that the decisions we make reflect our free will. Is this view correct? The answer surprises many people: in fact, we hardly have any free will at all. Even a person like me, who regards himself as a liberal, does not have free will.
Every decision I can make was basically already determined at the moment I became a fertilized egg. What sexual orientation I have, what kind of person I will fall passionately in love with, what path in life I will choose and what kind of life I will lead, how I will react to the various accidents of daily life—all of these were basically set at the moment I became a fertilized egg.
The genes I inherited determine the extent to which my brain will develop; my IQ and EQ are largely inherited. Although some early-life experiences can bring about slight epigenetic changes, those early experiences are something no one can freely choose. The ancient Chinese long ago saw through this natural law, which is why we have the saying: “At three you see the child; at seven you see the adult.” After childhood, the various decisions we make throughout our lives, and our various behavioral and thinking habits, are already predestined.
The several major decisions we make in life look like the result of careful deliberation, but in fact they are completed in an instant by intuition or instinct. Some skills are indeed acquired through learning—for example, a writer's skill at writing, or a doctor's skill at healing; these are learned through acquired study. Once a person has undergone extensive training, their professional behaviors also become a kind of instinctive behavior, performed by intuition rather than by deliberation.
We face a multitude of choices throughout life; if every choice required careful deliberation, our lives would in fact be a disaster. Over hundreds of millions of years of evolution on Earth, the various strategies for coping with environmental events have already evolved into stable genes. We inherit these genes and use them to cope with our daily lives. So human free will is only a pleasant illusion; we take for granted that a decision was made according to our own inner will, when in fact the process is merely instinctive behavior.
If one of our instinctive behaviors has a major adverse effect on our life, how should we deal with it? The answer is to train up another instinctive behavior to replace it. For example, if we lie frequently and our credibility suffers, then each time we speak we consciously check whether the statement contains falsehood, reorganize our language to strip out the false part, and express it again. After a period of training, we can rid ourselves of the bad habit of lying.
Another example: if we cannot handle our own anger, we can set aside some time specifically to recognize the source of our anger. Each time we are about to lose our temper, or after we have done so, we consciously convert our angry expression into a calm one. Over time we can rid ourselves of this angry instinct and become a calm person.
Before a person has been reshaped by repetitive training, every decision they make and every action they take is instinctive. But after a great deal of repetitive practice, human instinct can change. Repetitive training is the only way to develop an acquired instinctive skill. A person may have a talent for writing, but without extensive repetitive training they cannot write good articles. A person may have a talent for being a doctor, but without extensive repetitive clinical training they cannot be a good doctor.
Only when a person realizes that one of their instinctive behaviors has caused them great harm, and is willing to change that instinct, will they actively undertake such repetitive training. If a person does not realize that their instinct has a problem, they will not change it on their own. So sometimes people must suffer a great deal and awaken before they actively change. Once they decide to change and have undertaken extensive repetitive training, they can renew themselves and make a major change in some respect.
However, it is impossible—and unnecessary—to completely change one person into another. Each of us has only a few maladaptive behavioral and thinking habits; we need only adjust these few maladaptive habits, not change our entire selves. Moreover, over 99.9% of human genes are identical, with differences of less than 0.1%. What we call maladaptive is merely one or a few behavioral or thinking habits that are out of step with society; in other respects we are broadly the same as everyone else.
Some of our behaviors, although unconventional, cause no harm to ourselves or others and do not affect our lives. These behaviors, which express our individuality, do not count as maladaptive and need no correction.