Did I have any other choice but to stop for ice cream on the way home last Monday night?
I sincerely believe – at least this is what I tell my wife – there was a clear sequence of events that made it unavoidable. First, there was the train. On my way home, I saw the train lights in the distance and so I took a detour that would bypass the train tracks entirely. While on that detour, I realized, subconsciously, that I had rhubarb-apple crisp at home that could not be eaten without ice cream. And while we had some ice cream at home, it was not vanilla, and as we all know, vanilla ice cream – and vanilla ice cream alone – must be eaten with rhubarb-apple crisp.
And so my detour of my detour led me to Safeway, where I found a non-brand name vanilla ice cream on sale which was acceptable given the exorbitant price of brand name ice cream. As it turned out, this non-brand name ice cream was on par in texture and taste with the finest of brand name ice creams – at almost half the price!
Now I ask you, how could I have not made this purchase? Did I have free will in any of this? (Yes, this is a philosophical discussion.)
I’m not asking whether I had a choice. Of course I had a choice. Even once at the store, I could have chosen to not buy the ice cream. What if, for instance, there was only brand name ice cream and I refused, out of principle (let’s just pretend), to pay the exorbitantly high price?
Or what if I was suddenly overcome with feelings of self-control, enabling me to exercise willpower that I have yet to experience in my lifetime when it comes to matters of ice cream?
What if there was no train?
These what ifs are fun to entertain in hindsight, but we know none of them can be. The past is what it is, and as many times as you replay the tape, the sequence of events remains the same. I’m buying the non-brand name vanilla ice cream.
You might think I’m trying to excuse my behaviour. But I'd be the first to own my actions and, while I can’t change the past, I understand that I can choose differently in the future. If I thought that ice cream was somehow bad for me, let's just say, then I could make life changes to ensure this never happens again.
Let's be clear: Our actions are not without consequence simply because free will may not exist. But, as Robert Sapolsky argues in his book, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will, our lives are impacted by a chain of events that are largely beyond our control.
It starts at birth. Your gender, race, parents, and socio-economic status are not yours to decide, nor where and when you were born. We prefer to think everyone has equal opportunity in our free society, and in many cases, they do. But it doesn’t take much to understand, that as a child of an alcoholic, particularly during pregnancy, one will be set back for life. Even if you’re lucky enough to not be born with the irreversible condition of fetal alcohol syndrome, being the child of an alcoholic will make you more prone to addiction and reduce your chance of success later in life.
What Sapolsky argues is that a long list of factors beyond our control (genetics included) can set us up for success or failure. And while you might think we can't blame anyone but ourselves growing up in Canada (which I still think is faulty thinking), what if you were instead born in the slums of Bangladesh? Luck-of-the-draw “birth benefits” like nationality, family wealth and intelligence can lead one on an entirely different life trajectory.
They will likely lead to what we deem modern-day success. Yes, hard work is also part of the formula. But what drives people to work hard? Culture, family, and genetics all play a role. For some people, their brains' neurons fire most excitedly when they challenge themselves over and over again to succeed, no matter how many times they fail!
Again, I’m not excusing sloth or greed or gluttony (my love for ice cream included) or any of the seven deadly sins. As humans, we still need to be held accountable for our actions.
But it’s an interesting exercise to think about your life and who you are – how you became who you are – and then think, how could it possibly have been any different?
