Best Posts in Thread: Is life really a Lottery?

That reaction would vary depending on our experiences - it is not fixed at birth. Our genes will mostly have expressed themselves by older age but, in some circumstances they may not - I think that certain genes may express themselves only according to the experiences we confront (and perhaps how we deal with them) and this can be at any point in a lifetime. So our reaction would not be the same if we had previous experiences XYZ instead of WXY, for example, or even ZYX (the same experiences as XYZ but in a different order). Perhaps at the moment we are experiencing something that is in itself feeding back into a network (including, crucially, the subconscious as @danbandanna stated) that changes the reaction, or outcome. Free Will depends on experiences and so cannot be free unless we can choose every experience - and even then it depends on making the right decisions and experiencing them in the right order (and no one does that). But I don't agree that early life experiences fix everything for us - some people climb from poverty to wealth and some descend from wealth to poverty. Often there are so many factors involved in those processes that it is like unravelling a millions pieces of string to find the real reasons - a wealthy person could lose everything by gambling and so raise the question 'why did he gamble?' and a poor person could launch a business that makes a billion. Which life experiences led to it? Which ones carried more weight? And many other questions.

 

Many scientists think that free-will is an illusion. That is, intentions, choices, and decisions are made by subconscious mind, which only lets the conscious mind know what was willed after the fact. This argument was promoted long ago by scholars like Darwin, Huxley, and Einstein

 

So sad but true!
“The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

 

My personal interpretation is the central nervous system is the controller and if any nerves get zapped you lose control.

 

Interesting subject for sure.

I know a fair few people that have done really well without much of a education. I wouldn't say mega rich but well off. One brought a 7m boat last year, I guess that's well off.