A leisurely life that begins with the possession of a game character

(This chapter does not advance the plot, so you can skip it)

Is a person's fate predetermined? Does he have his own free will to decide his life? If we start from the first choice at birth, what is a person's first choice? Is crying for milk when you are just born the first choice? Is the toy you choose during the first birthday the first choice? Maybe it's the toy you ask for when you can talk?
Maybe some of it is instinct, maybe some of it is subconscious perception when you are ignorant, or maybe it is an expression of your own needs?
But no matter what it is, its shaping of a person is far less than that of external conditions such as family background. There are many such external conditions, and the restrictions they bring to us are undoubtedly huge, but most people never feel that their life is destined.

The most basic feeling of most people is that even if they are affected by them, they can still live their own lives. In this case, it is better to classify this so-called "first choice" as one of them. But this does not actually solve the original problem.

If a person's future is determined by his past behavior, scientists have discovered that quantum has randomness.

If a person has a "quantum coin", it has two states: spin up and spin down. When it is not observed, it is in a superposition state. Whenever it is observed, it will randomly become one of the spin up or spin down.

Unlike a real coin, this quantum coin, after being blessed by quantum theory, has the power to fight against the entire universe. It is in a state that is truly unaffected by any external influence, and its randomness can break determinism.

A man went out with this coin in his hand. Every time he came to a fork in the road, he looked at the coin, turned left, and turned right. He turned several times and felt that he was the freest man in the universe, because he could tell everyone with confidence: My route was not predetermined from the beginning!
But at this time you will find that although this person has transcended the universe, he seems to have lost his freedom because he cannot decide how to go and has to act according to the coin.

Suppose many years later, scientists announce that the brain works at the quantum level. In other words, the human brain also possesses the power of quantum mechanics to break the shackles of determinism.

After hearing this news, it seems that free will has finally won, and now it seems that no one can say anything.

But think about it again, this quantum randomness is beyond a person's perception. In the brain cells, countless quantum coins are tossed up and down, unknowingly shaping a person.

So who controls these coins? Quantum theory says it's not this world.

Quantum mechanics cannot give people free will, because it essentially replaces "everything is predetermined" with "everything is random." In this way, we will find that it doesn't matter what the world is like, because whether it is predetermined or random, it is beyond people's consciousness.

It doesn’t matter whether determinism is true or not, because a person’s consciousness is not under his control anyway.

The only way for a person to believe that he has free will is to prove that he is the one who decides himself. But this means that there must be at least one self before he can be influenced, and he must come from the outside world.

In this case, doesn’t this directly deny free will?
Many people believe that the question of whether free will exists is a struggle between "us" and the "external world" over "our consciousness" and over "control" of it.

If the world wins, we have no free will; if we win, we have free will.

But in fact, our consciousness is not determined by us, so we do not have the phrase "free will". The so-called "us" and "our consciousness" are essentially the same thing, and are both subject to the external world.

For example, “I decide what to eat tonight,” then what this person eats tonight includes his taste, how long he is willing to spend on cooking, whether he prefers to buy cheap or expensive food...all these are included in his consciousness, and it is his consciousness that determines what you will eat tonight.

It is precisely because these two things are the same thing that "we" will accept and understand "our consciousness" and feel the sense of freedom brought by obeying consciousness.

For example, my consciousness decides that I want to eat chicken tonight, so I eat it. The "freedom" of following one's own consciousness is the source of this sense of freedom.

If someone says: Your liking for chicken is not decided by you, and all your own inclinations and ideas are not decided by you, so how can you talk about freedom?
This concept seems to create a "you" that exists before tendencies and ideas, and equates the question of whether a person is free with whether this "you" can determine your consciousness. However, such a "you" does not exist, because "you" is an aggregate of a series of tendencies and ideas, and it is impossible for it to exist before them. To be more precise, the two are one.

The true meaning of freedom lies in the ability of people to influence themselves and the outside world.

So do animals have consciousness? For example, chimpanzees have been shown in experiments to be able to recognize and use some simple abstract symbols. Do they have consciousness?

For example, the fruit fly, such a simple little life, does it have its own consciousness?
Consciousness is based on material existence and is essentially the product of a certain physiological structure. However, since the physiological structure required for the generation of consciousness is too complex, humans are the only ones on this planet who have consciousness.

For highly intelligent animals like chimpanzees, they may not have consciousness, but they also master many skills that other animals simply cannot master. This is also because the chimpanzee's brain has a complexity that most animals cannot match.

So, this is more like a process of quantitative accumulation. Is there a key node in the middle?
The first key point is to realize the existence of "I".

The second key point is to have the ability to change yourself and to recognize that you have this ability.

These two points are the key to free will. Another element of human free will is that we have the ability to change the external world.

Only in this way can we be called free, because only in this way can our consciousness transform itself.

To sum up, whether a person's fate is already determined and whether he has the will to freely choose his own life has never been determined.

The fate of a person is essentially an extension of his living environment, and his thinking is also based on the environment. Even if it is the best choice for a person, it is only the best choice for this environment.

Someone wants to get into Tsinghua University or Peking University, but his talent is limited. No matter how hard he studies, he can only stay in the restricted environment and get an undergraduate degree. (End of this chapter)