Anyone seen
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead? In which the coin always lands on "heads"
Concerning your graph,
Lidless, I need to point out that that curve will never go to zero - it is asomptotic. As
unlikely as it would be, it is not impossible to get those results.
And each time you flip the coin, it is still 50-50 that
that flip will be heads. The trend applies to the group as a whole, and does not reflect any constraint on the individual.
- Éomer: "What doom do you bring out of the North?"
Aragorn: "The doom of choice."
Men have free-will. We are designed, forced to choose
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
. Sometimes, we behave quite predictably, especially when we are ill. But when we are healthy...we can have surprises up our sleeves. We cannot break, or even bend, the laws that govern the physical world - we are constrained by physics and chemistry and biology. But we do have a
will. I can decide to move my arm. When I do so, surely all that happens is that the signal from my brain travels through my nervous system to my muscles, and, assuming I have an iota of ATP left, they obey
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. But
I decided that...it is not an illusion.
Think of the alternative...that we are all puppets. I reject that not only because I want some control over my own life...but also because it makes my life meaningless. There is no point to the story if the characters are all constrained to act as automatons. And I think my life
is a story, and it does have a point, and so do other peoples....
Also recall that the Mule threw a cog in the wheels of psychohistory....by being an individual, not a social trend.
Basically, it is important to remember that we are not the masters....we have many, many restraints upon us, whether at the social level, the level of the physical world, or the biochemical level. We are not free agents, able to do as we please (again, think Neo in the Matrix, who is able to order time, physics and even death to his will) But amidst all these constraints, we are not tied. We still have the power, the ability, the responsibility to choose.
That is why I say that there are two poles, and they blend. On one side, we have fate/destiny/doom/inexorability...and on the other we have freedom/choice/will/chance/whim. Neither fully describes what it means to be human (in the absense of the other). But both, together, explain how we are caught and free, shaping our own destiny, and yet being shaped by our world (environment and genetics, if you will).
So, I think I agree with you
elsha ![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)