Do we have free will?
Preface
My daughter asked me this question once and I told her when she was older and understood what will really is to ask me again sometime. I wrote down my answer so one day when she asked me again I could remember it. I came across the entry in my journal. I decided to commit it to the permanency of free data economy. May be it can help someone.
What is free will?
The term free will is about control over one’s action. It addresses more the idea of self-determination. Of course, every question has a context. We are biological organisms and therefore there are a lot that we will never determine: how our cells divide etc. In a philosophical context debates about free will have to do with metaphysical distinctions, which direct ontological positions and so ultimately determine where one stands on ethics and ultimately morality. The true target of the inquiry has to do with the nature of motivation. It is an attempt to answer why people do what they do and by default somehow understand why I do what I do. This is what the question is really about. What can I do and why do I do, what I do. Do I have a choice. Is it nature vs nurture. In other words what does free will mean for me. To get this answer you have to move beyond the philosophical debate and get right down to a rigorous unflinching self analysis. Do I have free will. Do you have free will. This is the target of the inquiry. Strip away the fluff, the should be and could be and get to the what is.
First we must move beyond the mundane cause and effect world view. Some things cannot be simplified for the thinking impaired. There is no cause and effect that is a limited conceptual understanding of the nature of the universe. Will is not the cause of action. Will is not a source of agency but rather agency is the result of several processes. The most important of those are what you believe. Beliefs are the architect of will. If you want to answer free will then you must understand the relationship with beliefs.
Humans have a unique power in the known universe: the power of belief. People believe what they want to believe, whether it is true or not, is irrelevant. Most of the time they are fully cognizant of the fact that what they believe is just not true but they choose to believe it anyway. It is not that they don’t know. It is that they know it just aint so. When you get right down to it. The truth is most people would rather die than change. They would rather suffer than give up what they believe. What you believe is the constraint and therefore the controller of the will. The will is therefore not free to determine anything other than what is congruent to what one believes.
Believing is more than a condition of existence. For many, in fact without a path to enlightenment, believing is a methodology. So much so that believing ends up in the domain of identity. This creates another conundrum. Everyone “hopes” that they are different. It is a poor attempt at solving the problem of distinction but “specialness” is the go to means of feeling different. People are so desperate to “feel” like they are different that they go tothe extreme in their devotion to their beliefs, even though it is not in their self-interest. Conspiracy theories have more converts than most religions. As if anyone were smart enough to concieve of a conspiracy, discipline enough to execute it, well funded and organized. The simple fact is governments are not that smart and they are not that organized. World events clearly prove this beyond a reasonable doubt. However the truth of a conspiracy meme is irrelevant. Much like a religious truth. Both have the same fervor and conviction as if the flavor of the koolaid somehow makes any difference. A believer is a believer and it matters not what they believe. Both believers point at how foolish the other person beliefs are not realizing they are both believers. Being a believer is the defining trait not the target of one’s beliefs. Believers are by very definition all the same. Whether you believe it is or you believe it isn’t, the simple fact is you are both believing. Believing something doesn’t make it true. Not believing doesn’t make it not true. Truth has nothing to do with want you believe. Truth isn’t something you believe. Truth is something you accept in spite of what you believe. True or false beliefs are not the distinctions of free will. Simply by believing or believing not means the will is constrained and therefore not in any way free.
Without a process of enlightenment, you live in a dream world inside your head. You live in a story, a narrative. These fantasies influence interpersonal relationships. They even dictate how relationships are formed and with whom. When we form intimate relationships, we’re often responding to subliminal cues tied directly to the narrative. A narrative that leads to an idiosyncratic distinction between reality and actuality. One that you cannot help but believe to be distinctly you and therefore is real. Using this narrative to guide your actions in life that leads to a repeating loop, a treadmill you run on until all hope is spent. You gravitate to anything that makes the distillation of the delusion approachable. You do the same thing over and over, take the same action over and over. Even though you know the outcome. Even when you know it won’t work. Even when you are sure its the wrong choice. You know right from wrong but you can’t seem to choose to do the right thing, even though you know better. You think something is wrong with you. You feel anything but free. What you feel is something so undefined that you can’t even conceive of it and seek fantastic answers instead of the obviousness of the simple truth. The truth is you know right from wrong but you just don’t care. Not enough to make a different choice. You are clearly not in control of your choices. Your choices are in control of you. Now you don’t want to accept that about yourself. Literally you feel you can’t and so you steel yourself, join the resistance, and dutifully march down the road of perdition. You learn painfully the simplest of things. It’s like you have no free will or worse you are free to will yourself to make the wrong choice. You consistently choose what’s easy over what is right. All because you are craving a feeling. All the while hope that “love will find a way”. No love is not the answer and no love will not find a way. Because love is not lost, you are. You find that you are a slave to the narrative in your own head. There is no expression of will in this. All there is a clinging to a delusion in a drowning clutch
Here is the thing about free will. Free will isn’t free. When you get down to it human beings do not have free will not because they can’t have free will but because they don’t want it. That’s right. I said it. You do not want free will because Free Will isn’t free. Free will has a price. You have to give up what you believe. The cost of free will is discipline. Discipline is absolutely neccessary for human progress. No discipline. No progress. When you get down to the bottom line. You will do anything, absolutely anything, not to pay the price. To exercise free will there is a catch. To have free will you must make a choice. Choice is not about what you get. Choice is about what you give up. Most people are just trying to keep what they have and get a little more. The defining characteristic of choice is to give up what you have. You have to abandon inhibition: a voluntary or involuntary restraint on direct expression.
Will is the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action. Free meaning not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or to do, as one intends. In a word uninhibited as in not inhibited, restricted or restrained. Are human beings capable of free will: yes. But this is the wrong question. The question is better served by asking are human beings able to exercise free will? And the most important question of all: do you even want free will? To have the will to be free requires the one thing most people are not willing to do: give up what they believe.
Do you have free will? Have means to possess. No one can do what they are not able. The first step is to become able. The simple truth is most people don’t want to possess free will. They don’t want the blame or the responsibility. Like I said the kicker is, you are most people. Most people are you. We all are. Like the line in the Natural Spirituality sutra says: All that is left you to do is to choose, what you are to do with what you now know. Free will isn’t free. So the question is are you willing to pay the price to possess it?
