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If free will is an illusion, and if everything we do is pre-determined, why think? Just act -- everything will turn out fine.
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Well, that's the interesting bit. We're not fully self-aware of ourselves and our relationship with the environment and the circumstances that create and surround us, but we're not purely instinctive animals, either. We
have, as a species, built an attempt at understanding ourselves and our relationship with, or should I say, our "role" in these circumstances. Which means that, even though it hasn't been done, someone
has to do it. Of course, when confronted with such an idea, some people might let themselves go and wait for everything to sort itself out--but I'm sure others wouldn't. It's paradoxical, I know, but in a way I can't really convey right now, it makes sense in my mind.
Or, at the very least, it's an idea that propels me forward and makes me think positively about mankind. If I had to think otherwise, then the knife would be much closer to my wrist.
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If pre-set rules do not exist, by what standard would you judge a potential future perfect?
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That's why I talked about the agnostic and the atheist phases of my own beliefs. Atheisitically (does that word even exist?), I don't know what will happen in the future, and I can only guess based on the scientific constructs of today. Only on my agnostic side I may dare assert that it will be "perfect". Note that my understanding of perfect is "balance": The system does not need to progress further because the system has achieved perfect balance, both with its inner elements and its outer ones.