If you ask, “Are We In Control?” I would say “Not as much as we think.”
As children we don’t have a worldview. Our parents and teachers, consciously or not, implant their worldviews into our minds. These beliefs become part of us until, around our teenage years we find that a lot of these ideas and beliefs don’t seem to work so we start looking for answers elsewhere.
We go to college, find a guru maybe a new religion or a cult and they all promise to have the answers. Just believe what we tell you and everything will be fine they say. And we buy it, with our time, our money and sometimes our lives. And do you know why? Because it works!
That is, it works for as long as we believe it works. Sooner or later we see the promises are not being fulfilled and we find ourselves back where we started, looking for better answers. Off to the next guru, expert or religious leader, this time it will be different – we promise. It never is. Why?
Because no one is addressing the real problem – beliefs themselves. We only need to separate the person from their beliefs, i.e., their genes from their memes and the answers become obvious.
For example if we were to go back to the question above, “Are We In Control?” the logic would follow that we only do the things we believe in whether true or false, therefore our beliefs are in control. After all we don’t get up every day and set out doing things we don’t believe in.
Another form of the question is “Do We Have Free Will?” It certainly feels like we have free will. I can chose a Coke over Pepsi anytime I want. But how do I really know it wasn’t the latest marketing campaign affecting my choice? All marketing and propaganda is designed to manipulate us to behave in a certain way. Get us to believe and you get us to behave.
So to answer the question “Do We Have Free Will?” I would say we are only as free as our beliefs allow us to be. The irony in this bit of wisdom is that once we understand our beliefs are in control we have some control over them. When we can challenge our current beliefs and better scrutinize new beliefs we will be free to choose the only thing that really matters – the truth.
