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Today, with spyware, viruses and their friends circulating everywhere you only have two choices: getting an antivirus software or getting infected, and for the majority of us go for the first. However, most companies who produce antivirus today seems to have missed something very important. Yes, you want to have a computer free of malware, but you don’t want the software that makes it stay that way impact on performance. I’ve seen far too many examples of antivirus that has excessive CPU usage when you’re copying files or extracting large archives. Among these are: McAfee, Panda, F-secure, Norton; many of the major antivirus vendors. The only one that I’ve found so far that suits this simple need is NOD32, which I’m quite happy with though it’s GUI lacks some features. Another feature that I miss in some of them is the option to exclude certain files and folders (The only one I can remeber missing this is Panda). I think the antivirus companies should focus more on the purpose of their software (Doing it’s job in the bakground without being noticed) instead of eyecandy which there’s quite a lot of in most antvirus products today.

Me – “I’ve got to much to do, today I have to [long list of things].”
Friend -”No, you don’t have to, there’s always a choice.”

The conversation above is where it all started. After it I’ve thought quite a lot about it and come to some conclusions about it: First: You always have a choice, Second: You never have a choice. As this might be a bit confusing, so let’s bring some clarity to it shall we.

You always have a choice
Usually when you say “I have to…”, it’s most oftenly about something trivial as for example completing and handing in a homework, or buying food, We all know that we don’t really need to do these things, but the consequences of not doing it is bad for us (I.E. You get bad grades, or you have to starve). But as I said, we all know this, so let’s take another example.
Scenario: You are totally paralyzed and you know that in just one minute you will die; nothing can prevent it or change it in any way. Do you still have a choice then? Yes, because you can still decide what to think, and how to feel about dying.
You always have a choice because your mind is always your mind, and within it you have full control (wheater you use it or not).

You never have a choice
This is all based on predestination. If you know the state of everything, absolutely everything at one moment, you would be able to predict how the next one would be from what you know. Applied to your mind this means that every choice you make is made based on a number of facts which are predictable, and therefore your choice is too. But don’t forget to take this knowledge into account when making your presumed choices, as it also affects your actions. So you can’t say “Let’s [Some stupid action, e.g. something criminal]” because you would have done it anyway.
So because everything’s dependency on everything else: You never have a choice.

What it all comes down to
Sadly enough we never have a choice, however, most people never notice this because of the “illusion of choice” that they live in, an illusion even I live in most of the time.
So, Do we have a Choice? Yes and No, yet Neither.