Preference Diversity

Much of our preference diversity is a result of culture, upbringing, and accidental friendships and experiences. But many more differences are the result of individual variations in how each of us are built. In other words, many of our differences are organic in nature. We are just born the way we are. Can we change and grow? Sure. Within limits. We may be able to train ourselves to tidy up a bit more than we are used to. BUT, we may find it impossible to become as artistically competent to attend to and replicate detail in much the same way as, for example, Michelangelo. Or, for that matter, Salvador Dalí.

We may decide to get ourselves in shape, but many of us will not ever be able to run a four minute mile or bench press three times our weight.

Importantly, we may find that we are able to learn to eat different kinds of foods, and appreciate a few different ways of thinking about and doing things, but many of us will not ever be able to understand why anyone would want to go shopping more than 15 minutes at a time, or spend all day scrap booking, or devote more than a minute or two a day to thinking about competitive sports (or politics). Some of us may not ever "get fractions", or "get home decorating and color matching". Many of us may just be heterosexual and naturally can't fathom why anyone would find a homosexual relationship appealing. Or ... the opposite may be the case for others of us!

Some may be able to have a few drinks, take the edge off the day, and call it quits for the night without ever thinking more about another beer or wine (or alternative intoxicant) for a week or more. Others of us may have trouble stopping after just one drink, and understand that we may be better off not even starting.

This page could go on ad infinitum along these lines. The point of it all is that all these are examples of behavioral and physical traits, and we all differ with respect to them.

Does that mean we have no free will? Not at all. We have plenty of free will. For example, once we feel the urge to eat, and that we must eat now, and understand that there is food available, our free will enables us to pick the time (e.g. now, or 10 minutes from now), the place (e.g. this chair or the chair over there), and the food (e.g. chicken, or eggplant.) However, that urge to eat in the first place? That's not free will - that's instinctive, driven by various biological states within the body. We don't get to choose whether we feel we must eat. We get to choose what to do about it, and even then, the free choice around that decision is probably limited as well.

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