The Buddha disagreed with you. He noted that the average person was not in control of his desires, hence was essentially a zombie driven by evolutionary programming, and thence was suffering the frustration of unfulfilled desires. Of course that's a modern interpretation. But he discovered that he could control his own mind & body simply by focusing his attention inwardly (introspection). So his ethic was based on the possibility of Self-Control, taking personal responsibility for your own actions. Even serious meditators cannot claim to be totally free, though. But they are more aware of their innate programming than others. Which makes them like the one-eyed man in the land of the blind. :smile:I have for now settled with the argument that we cannot control our desires which guide our decisions, thus we are not really free. — Leiton Baynes
Even serious meditators cannot claim to be totally free, though — Gnomon
Yes. Robert Wright, in Why Buddhism is True, used the Matrix movie as an analogy to the state of humans enslaved by their evolutionary programming. He assumes that we have enough freewill to make a choice between genetic programming and self-programming. :smile:But we can be aware that everything we do and say is most likely biased and act accordingly with humility and critical thought. — Roy Davies
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