A perceptive Martian once roamed this earth and became quite curious about human behavior.  As he studied, he first arrived at the conclusion that behaviors are driven by the question:  Do I have what other people want?  This would wxplain why people follow fashions -  in clothing, mannerisms, lifestyles, and even ideas.  While young boys have sports heroes and dream of being like them, young girls want to be called pretty because everyone acts as if that is a compliment.  Inherent in this question is the corollary:  Can I change what I have, or appear to have, and end up with what people want?  As if believing in a "yes" to this question, people buy flattering clothes, try weight control regimens, and learn important job skills.  In summary, the Martian believed that humans are driven, at some subconscious level, by the question How do I measure up, compared to others?

But the Martian noticed that some people, generally the more mature ones, seem to be asking another question:  Do I have what I want?  It's as if these few people had grown beyond the first question, and had substituted for it this newer one.  The corollary question for these people was also different:  Can I change so I have what I want?  It is not clear to our observer whether these few "self-directed" people were once "other-directed" and merely grew from one to the other, or whether they were always inclined to be other-directed.  By the Martian's objective standards these newer people seemed to fall into foolish behavioral traps less often.  They also tended to be more like each other in different cultures, as if they were drawn toward a universal template, from which specific cultures were aberrant departures.

But lo, our Martian noticed one more sub-category, even smaller in numbers because they were drawn from the previous category of people. These rare souls were asking Why do I want what I want?  An their corollary question was Can I choose what I want?  The Martian was especialy pleased to note that the people who asked these questions always ended up with answers to the first question, but for the second question they were disheartened and uncertain.  Their answer to the first question was that genes are manipulative creators of individuals for the sole purpose of their (i.e., the gene's) proliferation.  They called their viewpoint sociobiology (some called it evolutionary psychology because sociobiology had gotten bad press when was first publicised).  Curiously, when these people answered the second question, they invoked the same arguments about the genes to state that the genes set our values so it is impossible to be free of their influence in eschewing old values for the purpose of setting new ones.

This might have been the last category of people the Martian could discern, but one day he acknowledged that someone defied all the others.  He believed that it was meaningless to state that a person was asking a question, then choosing or changing their behaviors.  People, he believed, were no different from a rock, in the sense that the movements of every particle of both is governed by the same physical laws.  According to this argument a person cannot "choose," and thereby "change" the course of future events, any more than a rock can.  Both ideas are prepoterous; so neither the rock nor the person can have this weird capability.  Free will is an illusion, and all experience of it is merely the experience of a spectator.  There was only one person on the planet who thought this way, and the martian might have discounted him - except for the fact that this person was the Martian!
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This site opened:  October 30, 1998.   Last Update: October 30, 1998