 One of the oldest questions in philosophy still endlessly renewed and yet never resolved is the debate of free will versus fate Do we choose What happens to us or is it something that is done to us that is determined ahead of time that something that we cannot change and Something that we just live out Like the script of a story and I not only do I not know the answer to this question. I Don't think it even can be answered Because there's no way to Prove one way or the other There's no there's nothing that could happen that can Tell us whether it's one or the other you could live an entire life full of so many things happening and So many apparent decisions you've made and also things done to you You could say this is the result of my free will and the free will of others and they have created my this life and everything in it and you could live exactly the same life with exactly the same things happening and you could say that this was all faded and There was nothing that could have been done to make it any different so It's one of those things that is just unprovable. It's a meta question. It's meta Beyond it's beyond anything that We can experience to give us the answer It's like the theory that you know we could all be Inside an alien computer simulation. That's a popular one Well, we're all part of a computer simulation. That's being run by an alien Well, I can't prove that that's Not true or that it is true. It nothing would change based on that information. It doesn't actually Change anything in this existence but Just like the case of free will versus fate It could change how I behave This idea of what the universe is like Even though I can't Find evidence of it either way The one I choose to believe could affect how I choose to live my life If I really felt like I was a character in a simulation Would it change how I behave? And I'm not sure but that would be it's an interesting thought experiment to think If you change your theory about the universe does it actually change How to live in this life in this universe. I Think mostly No, I think mostly this universe is what it is and You could say it's inside a simulation or not But I'm still going to live my life the best I can or try but I wonder about For fate and free will for that that idea could it possibly change? It may influence How I Live this life Based on that choice If I believe that I have free will I get this feeling that I can Choose my life I have this active Authority over myself. I have an authority over my own decisions I have the power to control what I do It's a very powerful position to have this free will If I believe in the fate interpretation that Everything that happens is already decided and there's nothing I can do to change it That puts me in a passive position Where I simply let fate happen to me and there's nothing I can do about it So What do I think is the best? Well based on those two descriptions, you maybe can guess that I'm partial to the free will view of the universe because it Let's us actually make choices to have this individual Sovereignty over ourselves the ability to make a choice. I love to have that freedom Having free will is part of freedom the ability to freely make choices If everything I do is kind of automatically decided and I will I'm just fated to make certain decisions Then I don't have that same feeling of freedom and personal authority over myself Instead I'm just a victim of fate a victim just letting the universe happen to me But on the other hand the fate view of the universe Can also be helpful at times because clearly We don't have control over everything We don't have total control over our lives even if We can have self mastery and control our own decision making And feel like we have free will and free decisions We are still influenced by everything else that's happening in the universe and so We are passive as well and ultimately We have to die and we don't want to but we we do so So that you have fate and fatal Fate and fatal and fatalistic it's all from the same idea that of submitting to the universe And Ultimately we have to do that too So it seems to me like the best way to interpret it Is that for everything that I can control I believe in free will And so it's up to me to do the best I can to Maintain and develop what I can control that would be myself my own decision making It's to some degree my own mind although none of us has total control of our minds, but we can have some degree These things that are within my control I believe in free will that I choose what to do and I believe that's very powerful for being able to feel the freedom and Personal authority to choose how I want to live my life But for everything that is outside our my control then It's useful to see the fate view that Okay, I cannot control these things therefore There's no real free will of mind involved Now there may be the free will of other people other creatures. There's the free will of other things that Can influence me But as far as I'm concerned anything that is outside my control is simply Something that I must submit to as the way the universe is So it seems like this division into what I can control And what I cannot is really a basic distinction to make and then I can focus on everything that I can control Make the best decisions I can And for everything that's outside my control Say la vie it's fate