Why do you do what you do? Such an interesting question. Really gets at the heart and the soul of what it is to be human and engage in that commodity we call free will. Personally the first thing I think of is whether or not we even have the choice.
The argument of nature versus nurture is one that has existed for the bulk of human kind and yet this so trivial debate seems to rob us of any semblance of a free will we claim to have individually. My genes or my environment. Where does that leave Me?
In the typical overly logical and rationality bound way that I look at things, I am inclined to say that in fact there isn’t really a self capable of free will. There are neurons firing in ordered ways interacting in ways far more complicated than our current technology can understand, but ordered nonetheless. This physical reaction is, what science will say, makes you. And they say this not without evidence. Comparative psychology shows that, neurologically, in many ways we are not so different from creatures we look down upon, and modern brain imaging procedures have shown us that the mind works in largely predictable ways.
But then how do you explain the inextricable and innate understanding in all human beings of being a unique entity in the world. Does any other being truly understand that it is a self, that it exists and moreover that it is distinct from its surroundings, both like and dislike. If you ask me that is something special. Now if you want to call it a soul, a Cartesian duality, or a Thetan I don’t much know or care. What I do know is that there exists some driving force in all of us that is aware of its own existence and the potential impact that it can have on the world, and I know that it is this entity this undefined noun that has the choice and drives us through our destiny.
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