However, once we accept that there is no soul and that humans have no inner essence called ‘the self’, it no longer makes sense to ask, ‘How does the self choose its desires?’ It’s like asking a bachelor, ‘How does your wife choose her clothes?’ In reality, there is only a stream of consciousness, and desires arise and pass away within this stream, but there is no permanent self that owns the desires, hence it is meaningless to ask whether I choose my desires deterministically, randomly or freely. It may sound extremely complicated, but it is surprisingly easy to test this idea. Next time a
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