If we take the position that there is no free will, how does this affect our perception of the world, our ideas about ourselves, and our goals?
Obviously, there is no point in getting angry or frustrated with people who make “wrong” or “evil” decisions. They’re just marionettes controlled by the organic computers in their skulls. We should focus on making sure they can do us no harm or infect other people with whatever amoral worldview their brains are using for software.
Should we feel bad about being evil and selfish ourselves? Yes, generally. A moral compass helps us get along better with other humans, which is important to our happiness. For this reason it is built into most of us. We will not be able to help feeling bad about doing what we know is “wrong,” but we also have the benefit of feeling good when we follow the moral code that is partly taught and partly hard-wired into our brains. Struggling against following your moral code just because you perceive that it is “fake” leads to unhappiness. Just ask Dostoevsky.
Similarly, we should “go with the flow” when it comes to what we perceive and think, even though much of it is an illusion. Our minds and senses are not built to give us a picture of objective reality, they are built to process sensations in ways that allow us to react appropriately. We blank out background noise, fix our attentions on important objects, view only those characteristics of things that are important to us, etc. so that our reactions will be quicker and more apt to result in positive outcomes, and ultimately, happiness.
Understanding this might make us less happy. Questioning things endlessly is usually not a route to satisfaction and bliss.* Still, for some of us, once we start questioning assumptions it is hard to stop.
On the other hand, we humans are great at fooling ourselves to make life more livable. No one has an unfiltered view of reality, even on the level of sensations, and definitely not in terms of interpretation. We can only play at piercing the veil to the reality beyond.
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*just ask Socrates. Oh right, you can’t, he drank hemlock and died.
Black Hole Radiation 