September 03, 2008
Why Men Cheat
From Science:
Like meadow voles, some men just don't seem to be built for monogamy, whereas others, like swans, mate for life. New research hints that some of the difference might be due to a single genetic variation. The gene in question, AVPR1a, governs a receptor that regulates the brain's production of vasopressin, a hormone that contributes to attachment behavior with mates and offspring. A few years ago, scientists found that when they added extra copies of the AVPR1a gene to the brains of promiscuous meadow voles, the animals began acting more like monogamous prairie voles, spending more time with partners and grooming offspring. A similar role for the AVPR1a gene has been observed in chimps and bonobos.
Might such a simple switch be found in humans? A team led by Hasse Walum of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, sequenced the AVPR1a gene in about 500 pairs of adult same-sex Swedish twins, all of them married or cohabiting for at least 5 years, and their partners. One variation of the gene was particularly common; about 40% of males had either one or two copies of a version--or allele--of the gene known as "334." Although not simply an analog to the polymorphism found in prairie voles, allele 334 seems to have a similar effect on the stability of human relationships, as measured in interviews and questionnaires. The tests included a Partner Bonding Scale containing items that reflect affection and cooperation, such as "How often do you kiss your mate?" and "How often are you and your partner involved in common interests outside the family?" Scores on the test were significantly lower for the men carrying either one or two copies of allele 334 than for those without it.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 05:58 AM | Permalink
Comments
It's nice to know that vasopresin accounts for 50 years of marriage.
I'd wish that Will and Ariel Durant could learn that too...
Posted by: Felix E F Larocca MD | Sep 3, 2008 7:31:24 AM
No surprise really that evolution would produce such differentiation. There seems to be ample room in the human environment for both behaviors - and both lead to ample offspring.
What would happen if birth control became a human right (and reliable and easy to use), so that most children were only produced in committed relationships? Would the number of males exhibiting promiscuous behavoir slowly decline?
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Sep 3, 2008 8:56:51 AM
If a genetic variation should explain this behavior, then I question whether "cheating" and
"promiscuous" are appropriate notions in the discussion.
Posted by: Couric Payne | Sep 3, 2008 1:20:37 PM
I may never understand why the scientific community puts up with journalism like this, which purports (at least in the headline) to explain categories of complex behaviors like infidelity strictly in terms of a single genetic variation. Revealingly, this is not what the researchers themselves claim in the PNAS article, which emphasizes that AVP receptor polymorphism is "not ... a predictor of human pair-bonding on the individual level." But I guess that's not what sells subscriptions.
The Karolinska researchers found an approximately 20 percent difference in reported marital distress between those with two of the "non-monogamous" alleles, and those with none. This is certainly a significant number, but it hardly points to a unitary explanation of "why men cheat," since it means that the overwhelming majority of both groups reported no problems at all, and a significant minority (15%) of those with the good "bonding" genes reported the same threats and crises as the other group.
More to the point, the behavior studied has nothing to do with fidelity whatsoever! The Bonding Tests and questionnaires sought to measure the happiness and ease of the subjects in their relationships, not whether they were likely to be faithful. There are many ways to have an unfulfilling relationship, and many--perhaps most--of them do not require sexual expeditions outside of marriage. So why the provocative headline?
Not to pick on Science; just about everybody got this one wrong. (My favorite: "Would You Abort George Clooney"?) But this is the one 3QD chose to republish. It is not hard for a layperson to develop a sense of fatalism about his actions when repeatedly exposed to authoritative declarations of the genetic bases of bad or problematic behavior. Of course, none of these explanations are found, in the long run, to hold any water. But the retractions are buried deep inside the magazines and newspapers, and rarely picked up by blogs, which have moved on to the next genetic sensation.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Sep 3, 2008 6:35:18 PM
Chris, all good points on the article. I've rather stopped paying attention to ludicrous headlines exclaiming that science has figured out why humans behave in one way or another. Certainly the headline, first paragraph, and the smattering of leading questions strewn about in the AAAS article exemplify such poor writing.
That all said, I feel it is dangerous to fall into the trap of seeing genetic predisposition as some sort of magic wand that waves away culpability of action. From your post, I get the feeling that when there are strong genetic biases of behavoir, you feel this somehow reduces the agency of the individual, and therefore their (perceived?) responsibility. I can certainly sympathize with this view, as it's one I held for some time, be it in the parallel context of free will/determinism.
But I ended up rejecting it (along with the notion that there is, in any meaningful sense, free will). From both a personal and social organization point of view, it still makes good sense to hold individuals responsible for their damaging behavoir. While the conceptualization of "damaging" might shift somewhat, I see no reason why those who hurt, steal, and cheat should be given a free pass, or leniency, because they are part of a group statistically correlated to a decidedly negative trait.
Extremes help clarify this position, at least for me. Lets say there is a very significant correlation between a group of genetic traits and murder. Two woman, one who exhibits these traits and one who does not, murder a third in a bar fight. Do they deserve different punishments? Is one any less culpable than the other? To me, it makes no sense to apply a statistical correlation over a group to a single individual from that group when considering the question of responsibility.
This is not a blunt argument however, and I don't feel that all social discrimination (be it positive or negative) toward genetically predisposed groups should necessarily be ruled out. Think medicine: if there is a group of individuals who are particularly vulnerable to a new epidemic, and there is limited vaccine, it could make sense to vaccinate them first, in hopes of stopping the spread of the most potent vectors. Similar concepts could hold for directed preventative social policy.
So, indeed, lets not develop a sense of fatalism about genetics. But for someone (me) who has already thrown out any meaningful concept of free will, it doesn't seem to be a large leap to accept that science will, someday, be able to map out an individuals predispositions. Lets not fear this future, but rather plan the social contexts needed to keep society and individuals healthy.
Thanks for the excuse to procrastinate this morning... :-)
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Sep 4, 2008 5:48:41 AM
"Two woman, one who exhibits these traits and one who does not, murder a third in a bar fight. Do they deserve different punishments?"
A related question is whether judges should take into account racial factors in sentencing offenders. A judge on the Ontario Court of Appeals ruled some years ago that while it is appropriated to question potention jurors regarding racial prejudice, it is not appropriate to take racial factors into account in sentencing. In a case involving black women who acted as drug mules, Judge Doherty wrote "a sentencing court is not the place "to right perceived societal wrongs" or "make up" for social injustices". Complete article is here: http://osgoode.yorku.ca/media2.nsf/83303ffe5af03ed585256ae6005379c9/aaeb43ec11fe4e1385256ee700580a30!OpenDocument
Posted by: Jared | Sep 4, 2008 10:50:57 AM
Cyrus, I have come to the same conclusions as you have on free will (thrown out any meaningful concept of free will).
However, this does not send one down the path of determinism. As anyone who has played the mathematician Conway's Game of Life, one can see the process of set rules, and how evolution can take over.
Anthropocentric centralism is a product of the human ego, and when genetic reality presents itself, the solid foundation that the conscious mind is continually manufacturing starts to crumble.
This cause fear in those holding solidly to set rules.
Conway's Game of Life
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Sep 4, 2008 10:52:25 AM
Cyrus,
I would be (sincerely) curious to know on what grounds you reject the notion of free will, and how you on the one hand reconcile that with a rejection of fatalism, and on the other preserve room for a faculty of agency. To me this seems an inherent contradiction.
The rest of your argument seems to me to equate statistical correlation with causation, which is the very mistake made by the legions of science reporters we are discussing.
Looking at the paper in question: the genetic variables being studied are vasopressin receptors. Among its many functions, vasopressin is thought to be an important hormone in pair bonding in mammals. The allele, known as "334," reportedly indicates a reduced ability to bind the hormone in the brain, and, presumably, a diminished or less frequent hormonal or emotional proclivity to bond. (To my knowledge this study used only behavioral evidence, and did not draw upon any brain imaging techniques that might measure vasopressin binding.)
So, we are presented with a (presumed) range of variability in a certain hormone response, correlated with certain self-reported behaviors and experiences (the article is vague on what these might be, except that they are "threats" and "crises.") Here I propose two important observations. First, what this study does not suggest is that the 334 allele is some kind of switch that shuts off this hormonal response altogether. Second, the biological definition of "bonding" is relatively vague. It's difficult to say what it is except behaviorally.
But this is where free will comes in. We don't experience ourselves behaviorally, at least not entirely so. That is, we experience ourselves as participating in our behavior, not merely observing it. We know what it feels like, and we also know that we are rarely, if ever, compelled to act a certain way. Our ability to consciously model a variety of possible outcomes liberates us, at least in part, from biological imperatives. We might feel afraid, but act courageously. We might feel sexual desire but remain abstinent. We do not base our actions on hormones alone, but also on symbolic representation of the future.
On what grounds, then, are we correct to say that behavior is "strongly" based in genetics? On what scale should we measure this strength, and how do we balance it against other influences, both biological and cultural? Is there really a hard limit which cannot be negotiated when it comes to emotional experiences? Aren't you in the slightest bit tempted to spray soda out of your nose when you read that "marital satisfaction" has been found to be "28 percent heritable?"
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Sep 4, 2008 12:30:38 PM
Chris-
Let me first say I agree with much of your criticism of science writing, although I don't think my original post confuses correlation with causation. If you could clarify where the confusion is it would be most helpful. I'm actually quite far to the environment side of the nature v. nurture debate, but I see no reason why genetics wouldn't play into the mix. When I say "strong genetic biases" I don't mean to make it sound like the lives of people are predetermined by their genetics. Rather, just that for some traits can have a strong influence. No one would say that most physical traits are not influenced strongly by genetics. All I'm arguing is that some, maybe a few, maybe many (I think a few) behavioral traits might fall in similar territory.
To be clear, you write "aren't you in the slightest bit tempted to spray soda out of your nose when you read that 'marital satisfaction' has been found to be '28 percent heritable?'" Yes, of course I am - but luckily I drink pop. :-)
On to your questions on free will. What follows is loooong. Sorry, but brevity is not a strong suite of mine. I'm trying to change that (irony intended).
You ask some great questions, to which I don't really have a great answers. There are indeed parts of my life in which I seem to live in contradiction with my stated rejection of free will, and that's not a fact I'm totally comfortable with. Never the less, let me try to answer your questions best I can.
Before I can really tell you why I reject the notion of free will, let me try and give an intuition of my working definition. Unlike Dennett and other compatibilists, who believe free will and determinism are compatible, I read "free will" as indicative of true agency. To put it scientifically, free will is the ability to affect universe from a point of influence where the universe has no affect itself. That is, a true freedom, unencumbered by the laws of nature forcing all of existence to logically follow a set of rules as it moves from one instance to the next.
I'll call this the principle of sans-stimuli. I think the definition rules itself out, unless one creates some supernatural force to satisfy it. God is the typical escape hatch here, but as an atheist, that's rather outside the realm the possibility for me.
Of course, much of the debate about free will is actually a debate about the definition of the thing being debated. This keeps philosophy departments with plenty to do. But I find weak definitions of agency, and the compatibilist views that go with it, to not match the intuition of free will. It can often sound more like a civil rights argument than anything else: free agents have the ability to freely carry out the actions they desire. Or, a slightly stronger version: free agents have the possibility to choose from many courses actions. Note the use of the word 'possibility' instead of 'ability,' as such arguments always end up admitting that the eventual choice is out of the actor's control. For the rest of this post I'll be using the strong definition, the principle of sans-stimuli.
You discuss the power of consciousness. Indeed, consciousness is a powerful force in shaping human perception. But does it shape agency? Or, to put it another way, is our impression of choice indicative of a real ability to choose? There are now multiple fMRI studies that seem to indicate that the answer is no, and that action is put into motion before the conscious mind forms a rationalization for it. But there is also research that seems to indicate that the conscious mind can countermand earlier instructions issued by the motor cortex, and that such skill can improve with practice. So, at least within my rather limited knowledge of the current science, we are left without an answer.
But if we go back to the principle of sans-stimuli, a fairly intuitive answer comes to the fore. The brain can not free itself from laws of nature, can not rise out of the observable universe, to be free from outside interference. As such, each neuronal impulse, each release of neurotransmitters, is preceded by some other stimuli, some from within, many from without, acting on the sensory organs. Consciousness then is revealed as an useful illusion.
Let me try and give an example. Sometimes one is in a noisy situation, yet the need to think and concentrate suddenly dominates. You consciously make the decision to over-ride all the commotion, blocking it out. But wait, why did you make that decision? When did you make it? Can you pin-point the moment of agency? I submit the feeling of a choice made is just an illusion, a rationalisation for a autonomic response to complex input. Beyond our ability to analyze and comprehend, but firmly determined never the less.
So, what is all this free will then? I think it's a meme, possibly the most seductive meme ever stumbled upon by society, perfectly tuned to improve the fitness of the human species. By giving the illusion of choice, the behavior of the organism changes in most productive ways, and the brain seems to gain additional plasticity, and with it an increased ability to change. Or at least that's the story (myth?), and it's a very comforting one. But I fail to see a huge amount evidence for it. Instead, large changes in individual human behavior seem to be hard fought, are often instigated by shocking external phenomenon, and to take long periods of time, on the order of years. But the assurance of free will is a comforting blanket, promising a better tomorrow, and it keeps humans upright and pointed forward, instead of wallowing in the past or self-pity. Or at least that's the myth resurfacing, inescapable.
Lucky for us, the human mind seems to be a largely self-optimizing and self-improving mechanism. Most people, thanks to environment and internal reorganization, really do improve as they get older. But I don't see why it has to be at the behest of a mystical free will.
I guess I should quickly touch on the fatalism question, which I don't really have a handle on. In fact, I live my day to day life as if I, and others around me, do indeed have true agency. I know of no other way to interact with the world. Then again, I'm not sure I would act all that differently if I could rid myself of the context and vocabulary of free will. I would still enjoy enjoyable things, find sad things sad, and seek out situations to improve my perceived position in life. I would still recognize that drinking a bottle of wine a night would probably lead to negative consequences, and that allowing a depressive funk to overtake me would lead to idleness and lack of progress.
Fatalism does haunt me from time to time, but I've largely got it kicked. I'm referring to a negative sort of fatalism here, the kind accompanied by a feeling of useless struggle against an overwhelming universe. In fact, I had such thoughts long before I ever took a look at the free will question. For me, in the end, there hasn't been a large conflict between disbelief in true agency and a rejection of negative fatalism. But if one sees fatalism as no more than a synonym of determinism, then I would submit there is no room for both agency and fatalism. Then again, I don't hold them both to be true, and so avoid the contradiction.
Phew. I hope that answered some of your questions. I could probably write on this topic forever - there are so many little eddies in which the current flows.
Cheers,
Cyrus
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Sep 4, 2008 6:34:51 PM
Dave-
I had a longer response to your comment, but lost it in a browser crash (damn flash! Adobe needs to fix their !^@#%$ crap). I'll just say that I don't fully understand what you're getting at. It seems to me that 1) the game of life is a poor way to imagine evolution, at least in the biological sense, as it has no real concept of fitness, and 2) that evolution in either sense in no way precludes a deterministic world.
Here the game of life is actually instructive. New patterns appear as the automaton moves forward, yet they evolve from a completely static set of rules. Introducing randomness can cause even more fascinating things to happen (but usually all the cells just die out), but it still doesn't introduce any sense of agency to the pattern or it's components.
Cheers,
Cyrus
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Sep 4, 2008 6:55:48 PM
Chris-
For a detailed look at the subject, read Daniel Wegner's (a Psychology professor at Harvard)
"The Illusion Of Conscious Will".
All your objections are considered and examined.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Sep 4, 2008 8:45:40 PM
Cyrus-
Agreed on the evolution part.
However, if determinism and conscious will are equated, The Game of Life will dispel this illusion,.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Sep 4, 2008 8:49:25 PM
Cyrus and Dave,
I would contend that anyone who claims that he or she is not an agent with the capability of making decisions has either a problem of metaphysics, or a problem of candor.
I don't claim that consciousness "shapes" agency. I do claim that we are conscious in some meaningful way, and that we have agency. If consciousness is a "useful illusion," so be it. This is essentially a Buddhist idea, yet Buddhists do not, ultimately, renounce their capacity to act meaningfully in the world.
Cyrus, you define "free will" in the following way:
I'm not sure why that last qualifier is necessary toward a working definition; it seems gratuitous to me. Shouldn't we assume that any "agent" is merely one of many, whether that simply includes other humans, or is extended to include, for example, the laws of nature. Why mustn't agency be considered as contingent on upon the limitations of human form and ability?
But, more importantly, the fact that you don't--cannot--live your life, just as no denier of free will can live their life, as an automaton is, to say the least, metaphysically prickly. To what end do we philosophically deny agency if that denial will not impact our actual lives?
So it seems you have set up two metaphysical classes here: one that is real, but irrelevant, and one that is illusory, but of the highest import.
Again, Cyrus, you cite fMRI studies which show that decisions are sometimes made before one is conscious of the decision. But unconscious motivations are nothing new; they predate Freud, who tried to build a science upon them 100 years ago.
But introducing unconscious motives is a far cry from denying the possibility of conscious, moral action. The next time you are called to upon to make a decision--let's say in the service of helping a friend in need--consider whether it makes any sense to plead that you cannot help, because aid is a form of agency?
Or, in a strictly self-interested sense, you write that even without free will, you would know that drinking a bottle of wine a night might have negative consequences. But, without free will, what would you be able to do about it?
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Sep 4, 2008 11:45:07 PM
This is an interesting story, which begins: Scientists have identified a common genetic variation..
Posted by: San Antonio Lawyer | Sep 5, 2008 3:39:07 AM
Chris-
A quick response here. I agree that evidence of unconscious motives has little influence on this debate in the end. But I also stepped away from that point in my post, as I feel my working definition of free will largely makes it moot. Lets revisit that definition for a second:
You ask why final qualifier is necessary. Well, if one wants to make truly free decisions, free from having to follow the laws of nature, then such decisions must be made outside the boundaries of those laws. The definition without the qualifier has no teeth.
Limiting, as you say "agency [to] be considered as contingent on upon the limitations of human form and ability?" gets us nowhere, although it is quite similar to what many who argue in favor of free will do. See Taylor and Dennett's "Who's afraid of determinism?" for an example of this. The definition of what free will becomes too weak, and complete mismatch with the intuition.
It seems to comes down to finding reasonable assumptions. We find it unreasonable to give plants and animals free will, yet they are no more firmly embedded in the natural world than we. What is the mechanism that gives us the unique power of free will? I have never seen such a proposition for such a mechanism that did not involve the supernatural.
Indeed, there is a paradox here: for a scientifically minded individual to accept free will, there should be some way to test and probe it. Yet it seems free will must be supernatural by definition, and therefore untestable.
So we end up juggling assumptions and looking for explanations that appear in line with what we can test and know. Personally, I choose to drop those that are the most anthropocentric.
A final question: if consciousness is a "useful illusion," as you seem possibly willing to admit, then from where does free will flow? If our only mechanism for self-reflection is nothing more than an intricate trick the brain plays, where does agency come from?
Cheers.
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Sep 5, 2008 4:26:01 AM
In the above comment,
should really read
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Sep 5, 2008 4:29:08 AM
First, apologies for the unclosed italics tag.
Response to Cyrus to follow.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Sep 5, 2008 11:02:51 AM
Cyrus,
Your notion that true free will must be unbounded is a nonstarter. We're making a case for agency here, not omnipotence.
You can't refute my contention that I made the choice today to, say, skip breakfast, merely by observing that I violated no laws of nature in doing so. I admit that it would not have been possible for me to eat poison for breakfast (and survive), or a whole family of elephants, or to eat breakfast backwards in time, so that my bowl filled with oatmeal as the meal went on.
Nevertheless it is meaningful to say I skipped breakfast, and we can distinguish the agency of this situation from one where I had much more restricted agency, such as one in which the earth was destroyed by Vogons before I had my coffee, but not before my friend managed to beam us both aboard the (breakfastless) cargo hold of their ship.
This question of whether it is *meaningful* to talk of agency is much more pertinent than a discussion of whether that agency is "real." What are going to do with the latter, ultimately? How are we served by a primary description of our actions in which we play no role?
Our egos may very well be a social fiction, as the Buddhists teach. But we're more or less stuck with them. Culture, civilization, and indeed, science, cannot persist without the concept of the human being. Perhaps one day all sentient life will in a state of oneness and nirvana, but it's difficult to see how we'd get there from here anytime soon (all Six Billion of us, and growing), or even why we'd want to.
In the meanwhile we need agency, and to talk of its metaphysical unreality only confuses the issue. To the extent that we are real, our selves, lives, deaths, cares and fears, then free will must be real.
But there's nothing supernatural about this. Free will is a manner of speaking, an artifact of our conceptualization that we cannot do without. We won't find it in a lab, nor can we derive it logically from causal laws, but that's true of many things whose existence is more symbolic than physical, including our "selves."
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Sep 5, 2008 11:58:27 AM
Chris-
I have been abusing the concept of agency and have accidentally mislead you. I was basically using it as a synonym of free will, and that's not correct. I certainly didn't intend to be read as defining free will as omnipotence. I've reviewed the definition and I try to use it correctly below.
I totally accept restricted agency, as you discuss in your post. Clearly, a decision reached during an exertion of free will will meet the rules of world when the deciding agent tries to implement it. The principle of sans-stimuli is not about the implementation space (i.e, where agency takes place), but rather the space in which the decision is made: a space free from outcomes dictated by the laws of nature. My argument continues by stating that there is no reason to believe this second space exists, in any form. Therefore decisions must be determined by the laws of natures.
I'm not sure you're actually very far from this point of view yourself. You say:
If I read you correctly, you are arguing that free will is nothing more than a rationalization of our agency, and not the actually ability to make decisions uncontrolled by the laws of nature. I could agree with that.
But it's an awful unsatisfying definition of free will. It doesn't encapsulate much of the intuition of free will, for example, the ability to change oneself, undeterred by outside influences. A free will that is nothing more than mental model of our ability to affect the world has no ability to change which course of action is taken. Everything is still determined by the laws of nature.
All right, hope I made myself clear this time. This has been an enjoyable exercise to try and write my thoughts, and hopefully this time I managed to get them across.
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Sep 5, 2008 1:12:51 PM
Cyrus,
Thank you for your clarification of "sans-stimuli" decision space. I don't necessarily disagree that "decisions must be determined by the laws of nature." But I think we have to be careful about what we mean by determined. This is a word that is often misused to be synonymous with "coerced." A better definition would be "shown the limits of" (literally, Latin: "concerning the boundary.")
The difference is subtle, but very pertinent to discussions of free will. The former usage lends a mystical aspect to the phenomenon: only an agent can "coerce" something or someone, and using "determine" in this way inclines us to turn neurons (or genes) into idols, of whom we are mere puppets.
All we've done here is remove agency from our realm and move it one place backwards. In fact neurons possess no such agency, and neither does anything causal that might have preceded them. There is no master or svengali at any stage of the chain of events that led to this moment. There are just events, which have a certain (though not absolute) order to them, which we can study and describe.
I think you fall prey to this type of mythologizing when you use the word "rationalize." We generally use this word to mean that we have concealed the real (often unpalatable) cause of something and replaced it with something more acceptable. This is a useful idea in psychology, where we are concerned with understanding our motivations more accurately.
But what does it mean, scientifically, to talk of "real" causes? Neither neurons, nor genes, nor chemical laws such as enzymatic reactions, occupy a special place in any causal chain. Each behaves in its (more or less) orderly way. It's all "real," from quantum fields on up to individual organisms and social groups.
We use a different language to describe different areas of study (and life), but there's no reason we have to metaphysically subdivide these languages into real and illusory. From a physical standpoint, our deaths are just rearrangements of matter and energy. Life and death are invisible to physics, which is concerned with a more primary level of organization. But anyone who used this fact as an argument for the "unreality" of death is making a huge category mistake.
The question of whether scientific determinism suggests an inevitability to our behavior appeals to the same category mistake (as when you write: "A free will that is nothing more than mental model of our ability to affect the world has no ability to change which course of action is taken.") Our personal experience of our need to make choices and live with the consequences is not fungible, whether or not it finds no description in brain science. Free will has no meaning for neurons and ganglia, just as joy or sorrow has no relevance to an ice crystal. Just as angular momentum has no relevance to babysitting, and specific gravity has no relevance to foreign policy.
The best way to express this irrelevance in our case is, would you live your life any differently if it could be proved one way or the other that all our actions are, on a physical, chemical, and biological level, predictable? Would you want different things, or act in a different manner to achieve them? I'm willing to bet that you live your life right now as though your choices were meaningful. Am I wrong?
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Sep 5, 2008 2:59:50 PM
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