One of my mom’s favorite things with which to counter my determinism argument is this: “if we don’t have free will and we can’t choose what we do, then why aren’t we all just lying in bed doing nothing with our lives?”

I can see where she’s coming from, of course. It’s similar to a viewpoint fought against by many of the early Existentialists (Sartre, Camus, etc.) who had to respond to people claiming that an Existential outlook pretty much doomed you to something along the lines of, “oh, well, life is meaningless, so why bother?” Similarly, when you’re someone who believes in free will, the idea that all of our actions and “choices” are predetermined (and that we have absolutely no say in anything we do) is pretty freaking distressing. Why do anything if everything that’s supposed to happen happens regardless of what we “choose” to do? Why bother with anything?

Here’s how I see it: determinism doesn’t make us brainless, opinion-free automatons who stand passively aside as the world and our actions in it are dictated to us. It’s obvious we all have opinions and make conscious choices to do things. Examples: I like the color orange, I decided to go to the rec center today. I think a lot of people who oppose the idea of a deterministic universe think that these things—choices, opinions, even indecisiveness—are incompatible with determinism. Makes sense—how can our universe be deterministic if I can’t decide whether to wear pants or streak through the backyard?

That’s the thing about determinism (the way I see it, at least): it kind of sits in the background, unnoticed as we go about our daily lives. I’m not going to use the puppet master/puppet show analogy ‘cause that doesn’t translate exactly (puppet master = god and I don’t buy that), but that’s generally the idea. In other words, our opinions and choices are all determined, even though they don’t appear as such to us (unless we think about it constantly, then things start getting weird). So what does this mean? Well, if I’m a person who buys into a deterministic universe (and I do), and I were to consciously say to myself “screw this noise, I’m going to go play Fallout 3 until I die of thirst,” I would do it—but only if I were determined to think that thought and act accordingly. But me being me, I know I won’t do that. But it’s not my own choosing that prevents me from a Fallout 3-related death—it’s determinism. I’m determined to choose (or determined to believe I’m choosing, I guess, is more appropriate) to get up and go do stuff tomorrow (apart from Fallout 3), just as I’m determined to like orange, you’re determined to read this blog (because you are if you’re reading this sentence), and my mom is determined to resist the idea of determinism.

In fact, I think that’s why so many people (at least, so many people I talk to) are against the idea of a deterministic universe. They know that they have opinions, they make choices, they grow indecisive about some things. It seems odd to consider that all such things are, ultimately, determined.

At least, that’s how I see it.

Today’s song: I Predict a Riot by Kaiser Chiefs