Heh, I have a friend who would say the same thing - "Everything happens for a reason." My response was always, "Everything happens because it happens." We all

Heh, I have a friend who would say the same thing - "Everything happens for a reason." My response was always, "Everything happens because it happens." We all have to choose at what level of abstraction we spend most of our time. Logically I understand that free will is an illusion, because it requires the impossible - deciding to decide before making a decision. Nihilism can be very therapeutic in small doses, unfortunately I don't think the DoD will consider it for treatment to PTSD :) While I won't spend a lot of time considering the absence of free will, analysis paralysis, propositional logic is pretty comfortable - once subtle violations of axioms are skylined. As I consider self ownership to be universally preferable, any system requiring its forfeiture is simply wrong. Even in a democracy one does not enjoy self ownership, as every voter owns some small part of everybody else vulnerable to the results of a vote. This way of thinking can at best be a cold comfort, but it is nice no longer feeling that sense of crisis when new information hits your brain and violates the prior model of the world.