Last night, I came across the debate on determinism and free will, which triggered some thoughts.
Determinism refers to the idea that if at this moment we collected all the information about the state and attributes of all the matter in the world, then the next state of the matter can be deduced, meaning that its state is determined. Based on this, the past and the future can be reconstructed and predicted from the current information. In other words, everything has been determined since the moment of the Big Bang. In the framework of determinism, every thought and action of a person is determined by the external world, and free will does not exist.
Realizing that "free will does not exist" is a crisis of thought. If determinism prevails, then people are destined to submit to a predetermined fate, which will lead to the absence of moral constraints, the extinguishing of personal drive, and a series of chain reactions. Determinism not only makes blame impossible, but also leaves no room for praise.
We have idioms like "man proposes, God disposes"; free will is considered the foundation of the American Dream. Whether such attributions are correct is unknown, but it is undeniable that they coexist with rise and prosperity.
What can be certain is that the idea of "having free will" is crucial, even if it is an illusion, it is still an indispensable illusion. This brings us to the relationship between "ought" and "is". In an extreme assumption, the "is" is: there really exists a Laplace's demon/omniscient and omnipotent god/determinism as the ultimate puppeteer behind everything; the "ought" is: even so, we should believe in the existence of "free will" and maintain this positive illusion. This is somewhat similar to "still loving life after seeing the truth".