Quantum physics .. leads us to accept a new form of determinism: Given the state of a system at some time, the laws of nature determine the probabilities of various futures and pasts rather than determining the future and past with certainty.

expression

expression refers here to any signal that a being generates, external or internal, consciously or not, whether transmitted through a channel that is biophysical, e.g vocally, by luminescence, neurally, etc.; virtual, e.g via text, artefacts, smoke, etc.; or bio-virtual, e.g via telephony, video, etc.

expression here refers then to any response of a being to its perception of an external or internal event, i.e to the meaningful internal representation that a being generates from the chemical, electrical, or electro-chemical expressions of its sensory mechanism to an external or internal stimulus.

artefact refers here to the creations of any being, not only to man-made things, e.g to the sculptured sand bowers of Pufferfish, or the ornately decorated play-house of the Bowerbird.

will and want

I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can certainly do what he wants but he cannot will what he wants', accompany me in all life's situations and reconcile me with people's actions even if they are rather painful to me. This understanding, of the lack of free will, protects me from taking myself and my fellow human beings too seriously as acting and judging individuals, and from losing my good sense of humor.

Ironically, Einstein does not account for time here; while we cannot choose what we want in the instant that we want it, as we have control of our behaviours, within limits, changes in these are achievable that are then coextensive with changes in wants. Each behaviour, each choice that we make, then precipitates a continuing, systemic change, and the feedback that this connects us to then changes our perception and tastes. In time, our wants change; and we can, in time, change our wants.

One year earlier Einstein wrote:

Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralyzing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humor, above all, has its due place.

Speaking not of the absence of free-will but of compulsion and necessity, Einstein then admits stimulus, behaviour, and choice —such as between fight, flight, or inaction for instance— presenting not an absence of free-will, but one that is simply constrained.

As little as a ball on a billiard table can move before receiving an impact, so little can a man get up from his chair before being drawn or driven by a motive. But then his getting up is as necessary and inevitable as the rolling of a ball after the impact. And to expect that anyone will do something to which absolutely no interest impels them is the same as to expect that a piece of wood shall move toward me without being pulled by a string.

Schopenhauer's observation is not atomistic or deterministic, but simply that we are driven, in whatever manner, by self-interest.