For those who still believe in “free will.”

Do you know why gambling casinos make money?

Because the odds favor them, not by a lot on any individual bet — that would be too obvious to the bettors — but just by a little.

All the casinos need is a tiny margin, and if you make a lot of bets, you eventually will lose.

Imagine you are flipping an evenly balanced coin, and you bet $10 on each flip.

The house takes only one tiny cent per flip.

If you flip 100 times, on average, you’ll lose $1.00. That minuscule $.01 adds when you do something 100 times.

Now, rather than coin flips, let’s talk about decisions.

How many do you make each day? (Stand, sit, step, chew, inhale, what to wear, pee, business decisions, life decisions, etc., etc.)

Perhaps millions? Maybe billions?

And each of those decisions is influenced in your brain by such inputs as: Cortisol, Thyroid Hormones, Estrogen and Testosterone, Insulin. Melatonin, Serotonin, Dopamine. Ghrelin, Leptin, Alcohol, Caffeine, and Nicotine, along with physical exhaustion, thirst, hunger, odors, sound, touch, pain, temperature, disease, age, and all the other physical and psychological inputs.

And any one of those decisions could change your life.

Examples: What you say to your boss, to your child, to your wife, whether to drive or walk, the route you take, what to eat for breakfast, whether to get a haircut, scratch an itch, play a game, wash your hands — the list is almost endless — and every single decision you make is influenced by a whole multitude of influences on your brain.

Given the massive number of decisions you make and how much each can influence your life and future choices (there is a multiplying effect), how much “free will” do you think you really have?

Read these excerpts from a recent Scientific American Magazine article:

Moral Judgments May Shift with the Seasons
Certain values carry more weight in spring and autumn than in summer and winter
BY ANVITA PATWARDHAN

Research suggests a range of psychological phenomena—such as our emotional state, dietand exercise habits, sexual activity and even color preferences—fluctuate throughout the year.

And now a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA demonstrates how moral values can also shift.

If all those decisions are affected by simple seasonal changes, imagine how much your decision-making is affected by thousands or millions of other inputs your brain receives every minute of every day.

For the study, researchers analyzed more than 230,000 online survey responses—a decade’s worth—from people in the U.S., along with smaller groups in Canada and Australia.

That is a huge study.

The questions were based on a standardized framework social scientists use to assess people’s judgments of right and wrong.

This framework, called moral foundations theory, sets up a taxonomy of “five pretty fundamental values that shape human social behavior,” says lead author Ian Hohm, a psychology graduate student at the University of British Columbia.

Keep those words in mind: “Shape human social behavior.”

The framework considers loyalty (devotion to one’s own group), authority (respect for leaders and rules), and purity (cleanliness and piety) to be “binding” values that promote group cohesion and conformity.

It’s doubtful that anyone could question whether these values affect your decision-making.

These principles, often associated with political conservatism, consistently received weaker endorsements in summer and winter.

And in summer, the more extreme the seasonal weather differences, the more pronounced the effect. 

One explanation for seasonal swings could be anxiety.

Using a 90,000-respondent survey dataset, as well as data on Internet search frequencies, the researchers found that anxiety levels also peak in spring and fall.

“There is a close relationship between anxiety and threat,” says University of Nottingham psychologist and study co-author Brian O’Shea.

Other studies have shown that people who feel more vulnerable to seasonal illnesses tend to be more distrustful, more xenophobic and more likely to conform to majority opinion.

Again, these have a strong influence on your decisions and actions, It’s fascinating how even subtle changes in our environment can impact our judgments and behaviors. (No “free will” there.)

“When you’re threatened,” O’Shea explains, “you then want to get protection from your in-group.” These findings suggest seasonal timing could affect jury decisions, vaccination campaigns—and even election outcomes, the study authors say.

People in juries feel they are making “free will” decisions. I “feel” (but I know better) that my many decisions to be vaccinated and my voting were the result of my “free will.”

But, of course, they were not.

They were heavily influenced by massive numbers of inputs to my brain each minute.

Howard University psychologist Ivory A. Toldson, whose work involves practical applications of statistics, notes that the study relies on data from “Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD)” populations and cautions that generalizing from such results runs the risk of “overlooking the unique moral experiences of marginalized groups.”

In other words, he says everyone’s experiences (brain inputs) are different, which affects their decisions differently.

Hohm agrees that such a pattern wouldn’t affect everyone the same way but emphasizes that the study highlights the seasons’ effect on human psychology.

“One thing that this article is showing is that we are very seasonal creatures,” says Georgetown University School of Medicine psychiatrist Norman Rosenthal, a leading expert on seasonal affective disorder who coined the term in the 1980s.

“The internal state definitely affects your behavior.”

It also shows us that “free will” does not exist. It is an illusion—a strong illusion—created by your brain to make sense of the gigantic number of inputs it continuously receives.

Even your decision to believe this, argue with this, or discuss it with someone is affected by every input your brain receives every minute of every day.

Have you ever said, “I didn’t feel like it, ” “I wasn’t in the mood, ” “It’s not worth the effort,” or “It’s too much hassle?”

That may have felt like free will, but it was the accumulation of inputs to your brain.

You do not control your brain; your brain controls you. You just don’t feel it because your brain doesn’t let you.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

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Source: https://mythfighter.com/2024/10/26/for-those-who-still-believe-in-free-will/