Waze Knows All
It happens every time. I open Waze, pick a destination, and Waze puts, on the screen for God, me and the world to see, the minute I will arrive at that destination.
I then spend the next 15 minutes, half hour, hour, three hours - whatever the length of the trip – watching the road’s horizon to anticipate issues, switching lanes, passing slow drivers on the right, driving exactly 6 mph faster than the speed limit (for 45+ mph roads – I’m not a maniac), sneaking through yellow lights… thinking every decision I make, every lane choice, every green light I catch because I’m running just over the speed limit… is getting me to my destination much sooner than I would have.
And I arrive… exactly when Waze said I would, give or take maybe a minute. Contrary to what I’ve believed my whole life, all my decisions to improve my position were more or less irrelevant.
IT’S ALMOST LIKE WAZE KNOWS EXACTLY THE DECISIONS I’LL MAKE THAT WILL BRING ME TO MY DESTINATION AT EXACTLY THE PREDICTED TIME. [Insert music from Netflix’s Wednesday, and maybe stop shouting.]
Am I even making my decisions? Or are they already made and I’m just carrying them out? Do I even have free will at all?
On this question, neuroscience has a point of view. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans have revealed the rise of brain activity connected to deciding to take an action (like moving your finger) occurring just before the test subject reports being aware of the decision. In other words, unbeknownst to you, a brain process has chosen what you are going to do before you know what you would choose (while you still think you have the power to decide).
This is one of the arguments against the idea of free will. We spend our entire lives thinking we are consciously in charge, that we are considering the options and then calling the shots. But that super-loud bangy head-scanning machine begs to differ.
My apologies if I’ve triggered an existential crisis. While you melt down, my medications have stabilized me and my thoughts travel on.
What is the Great and Powerful Waze trying to tell me about where I’m going, my decisions and how much credit I can take for getting there? Perhaps it’s that, like it or not, a huge aspect of when we arrive where we want to go is where we started from.
To put a fine point on it: which person is going to arrive first at that mansion on the side of a picturesque green hill in Charlottesville: the guy who starts his journey from tony Short Pump (yes, that’s the name of the place) in the West End of Richmond, or the guy who starts in the Creighton Court public housing projects in the city of Richmond?
Short Pump guy, whose parents bought him a car, drives on wide, leafy, quiet suburban streets to reach the interstate -- born 20 miles and generations closer to horse country. Creighton Court guy walks needle-littered sidewalks to take the bus or drive a beater through gunfire-ridden, pothole-riddled streets and may never make it to the fast lane of I-64. If, by some miracle, the two guys reach that mansion on the hill at the same time, it won’t be because they worked just as hard as the other, or because they made the same right decisions.
Many of us talk about how we’re self-made, how we made the right decisions, how we didn’t get handouts, how we got to where we are on our merits. And, to a degree, we are right… but Waze might suggest we’re far less right than we want to admit.