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Let’s talk about
overcoming the illusion of free will
as an evolutionary leap in human
consciousness. When we say that we
have a free will, we’re saying that
our decisions are completely up to
us. Nothing that we’ve learned in
the past, and nothing in our genes
can influence our decisions. One
way to understand why free will is
an illusion comes from science. In
biology and psychology, for example,
there was once a debate on whether
human behavior was caused by nature
or nurture – whether our genes
compel our behavior, or whether our
upbringing and our environment the
kinds of experiences we’ve had in
the past determine what we do..
Ultimately we
came to understand that every
decision we make, and everything we
do, is caused by both nature and
nurture. The key thing here,
however, is that the debate, quite
rightly never allowed, or
entertained, the possibility of a
free will. Free will plays no part
in that equation. If nature and
nurture combine to cause our every
decision, they represent a complete
description of our behavior. There
is no room for a third cause,
logically or otherwise.
We humans have
been around for a few million
years. We’ve gone through a lot of
evolution during that time. We’ve
gotten taller, we walk more upright,
we’re more intelligent, our brains
are bigger, we’ve lost a lot of
hair, etc. As our human physiology
has evolved, so has our mind. Our
mind has especially evolved during
this last century.
Over the last
couple of millennia, for example, we
had wildly erroneous notions about
women. The notion that women are
incompetent and unintelligent as
compared with men still survives to
some extent even today. In Judaism
there was once a law forbidding the
teaching of the Torah to women
because male Jewish leaders were
afraid these women would corrupt the
teachings. Our minds have evolved
in terms of how we see each other
and ourselves. As part of this
evolution, we’re gaining a better
understanding of who we are within
this universe.
Hundreds of years
ago, we thought that the Earth was
the center of the solar system, and
the center of the universe. We now
know that we’re living on a tiny
planet within one of billions of
galaxies in this immense reality.
We cannot even logically or
scientifically discern whether our
reality is infinite and eternal, or
not. We’ve come to understand our
place better in this universe, and
we’ve learned to better get along
with each other. We’ve learned to
form societies. We can generally
walk around without carrying
weapons. We trust each other. We
have a civilization.
However, our
world definitely has problems, and a
lot of them stem from the way we see
each other and ourselves -- from how
we perceive our human will. This
notion that we have a free will –
that our decisions are completely up
to us – is the premise for our legal
system of holding people
accountable. It labels criminals as
bad, and therefore deserving of
punishment. Free will also forms
the premise and foundation of our
socio-economic system of rewards and
punishments. If someone does
something that is really good, we
say to ourselves that they did it of
their own free will, and deserve a
greater reward than someone who did
not, or could not, do such a good.
The notion and
illusion of free will also affects
our relationship with the people
closest to us, and our relationship
with ourselves. We were made
imperfect in many ways. This free
will illusion aside, we have faults,
and flaws. We get things wrong.
We’re far from perfect. If we did
have a free will, who among us
wouldn’t choose to be completely
good all of the time? But, we don’t
have a free will, and because of
that we do things against each other
– things that we unfortunately can’t
but do.
The irony here is
that until now, the universe has had
us ascribe accountability to each
other and ourselves. That kind of
attribution often leads to conflict,
aggression, and hostility. It leads
to vengeance and revenge. It leads
to indictments. I’m taping this
episode a couple of days after the
U.S. killed Osama bin Laden. Some
people celebrated in the streets,
partly because of their prediction
that the world would become safer,
but also partly from a free
will-based vengeful attitude.
Our desire for
retribution is pervasive. To the
extent we believe we have a free
will, we will treat others and
ourselves differently than we would
under a causal, or unconscious will
perspective. The idea of
forgiveness is common to all major
religions. We understand that
everyone is imperfect, so we
forgive. Forgiving derives from the
recognition that the person could
not have done any better – that the
person is human, and flawed.
Forgiveness is done from virtue.
You are a good person if you
forgive, but you don’t necessarily
have to do so. When you understand
that free will is an illusion, there
is nothing to forgive because there
is no reason for indictment to begin
with.
The notion of
free will is the foundation of our
civilization, and of our personal
lives. What would our world be like
if we were to overcome this
illusion? Under the free will
illusion, we do something good and
“hey, we’re great! We’re better
than other people!” We become
arrogant. We compare ourselves with
others. We think we’re special.
That self-attribution separates
others from us, and separates us
from others. Such comparison
creates a barrier between people.
When we do
something wrong, we blame
ourselves. We often conclude that
because we did something bad, we
deserve to suffer. We deserve to be
punished. Very often, we’ll punish
ourselves through feeling the
self-inflicted pain of guilt. I’m
not asserting that we should
overcome our conscience, because
certainly our understanding of right
and wrong is good and necessary.
But the idea that because we did
something wrong, we deserve
punishment is our current
understanding, and as we transcend
this illusion of free will, we can
expect to become much kinder to
ourselves. As we overcome the
illusion of free will, we will also
be more humble. We won’t see
ourselves as better than others. We
might have a better skill, or might
be able to do something better, but
it’s not up to us anyway. It’s
completely fated. It’s just how
God, or the universe, is using us.
Let’s also go
through envy. When we see other
people do something really well, we
might envy them. We might say to
ourselves “wow, these people are so
much better than we are.” This
conclusion is derived from the
illusion of free will. We say that
because they freely choose to do
whatever they did; they deserve the
credit, and are better because of
it. The problem with that attitude
is that it often demeans and
devalues us. As we transcend the
illusion of free will, we restore
egalitarianism, and true equality,
to all of us. Some of us may be
luckier in certain ways than others
of us, but such luck is in no way
attributable to their having a free
will.
In relating to
our family and friends, often
conflicts happen because we ascribe
free will to others. If someone
does something we consider
inconsiderate, we blame him or her.
If someone is doing something
disturbing, we’ll sometimes say to
ourselves “this person is evil, or
bad.” When we take that attitude,
naturally, they get defensive, and
the situation is ripe for conflict.
That’s the problem with ascribing
free will to others.
When we recognize
that we don’t have a free will, and
that free will is an illusion, when
someone does things that are wrong,
or inconsiderate, we may have reason
to become upset that the universe
has caused that to happen, but we
won’t necessarily be upset at the
person. We’ll recognize that the
person had no choice but to be the
way they were, and do what they
did. That’s how fate made them
act.
To the extent
that we hold that perspective, we
maintain better relationships with
each other. I think you now
understand why the illusion of free
will is harmful, and how overcoming
it can be very helpful to our
lives. Let’s now explore what
overcoming the illusion of free will
means to our world, and why I
describe this as an evolutionary
leap.
We have the
basic, fundamental fact about human
will completely wrong. We’re
ascribing authorship to ourselves
when we’re really just the actors.
To the extent that we get the nature
of our human will right, our whole
psychology will change. Our whole
consciousness will change. It feels
surreal to realize that this life is
really a movie, and that everything
that is happening is happening
because it is compelled to happen.
We’re just going along for the
ride. We’re experiencing life
rather than freely making the
decisions that make it happen.
Consider our
global criminal justice system.
There are many, many people in jails
and prisons all over the world, and
the sad truth is that they are as
innocent as the most innocent of
us. They were completely compelled
to do what they did. They had
absolutely no free choice in the
matter. Naturally, we will need to
maintain law and order in the
world. We can’t have us simply do
whatever we want to do, but to the
extent that we transcend the
illusion of free will, we will be
seeing others and ourselves, and
others will see themselves and us,
in a completely different way.
When a police
officer, or a judge, or we, as
society, look at someone who has
done something wrong, we’re not
going to say, “that person’s evil,
and deserves to be punished and
suffer.” We’re going to instead
say, “It’s very unfortunate that the
person was fated to do something
wrong,” and we may have to take
certain measures, like separating
that person from society. But when
we’re relating to that person, we’re
not going to be condemning them, and
they will understand that whatever
they did was not their fault.
Remember that much of the pain that
arises from the illusion of free
will comes from self-blame. Our
criminal justice system would be
dramatically changed for the better,
and we would be creating a much more
compassionate world by overcoming
the illusion of free will. Religion
will also change profoundly.
Again, the
concept of free will was coined by
Saint Augustine sometime around 580
A.D. He wrote a book back then
called De Libero Arbitrio,
which is Latin for “on free will.”
He was grappling with the notion of
evil. Since according to the
Judeo-Christian tradition, God is
supposed to be omni-benevolent, or
all good, he was considering the
question “How can there be evil in
the world?” His answer was that if
it’s not God’s fault, it has to be
our fault.
The foundation
for most religions, and especially
the condemning of people to hell or
the rewarding of people with heaven,
depends on the notion of free will.
That’s something that will have to
change. No longer can religion
rightly call a person evil. We
might refer to an act as evil, but
the person will always be recognized
and understood as innocent.
Once that
happens, it’s no longer justifiable
to have the belief that some of us
go to heaven, while others of us go
to hell. That paradigm no longer
makes sense. God willing, we’ll
adapt the belief that we all go to
heaven. In truth, we don’t know
what, if anything, happens after we
die, and the belief that we all go
to heaven seems the kindest, and
most optimistic, belief available to
us.
Our educational
system will also change because, at
present, we don’t teach our kids to
be as happy and as good as
possible. With the notion of free
will comes the correlate that it
doesn’t really matter what we teach
kids about goodness and happiness.
Those of us who buy into the myth of
free will conclude that when kids
grow older, they can completely
ignore our teaching through their
free will. To the extent that we
understand that our human will is
causal, and unconscious, and that
free will is an illusion, we’ll
understand how important it is to
spend the proper resources to
educate our kids in the best way.
What we communicate to them is what
they will express as adults.
The evidence
demonstrating that we don’t have a
free will is accumulating in the
sciences, like neuroscience and
psychology. In philosophy the
logical arguments against free will
– causality and the unconscious --
have been understood since the time
of the Greeks. Overcoming the
illusion of free will will likely
come in stages. A milestone
happened in April, 2011 when the
weekly science magazine New
Scientist published a cover
story on the nature of human will
titled “Free Will; The illusion we
can’t live without.”
One reason this
is a milestone is that in the past
magazines almost never covered free
will, and never before through a
cover story. The piece understands
and asserts the fact that free will
is an illusion. What will likely
happen is that more of those kinds
of articles will be published,
initially in science magazines like
Scientific American and
Psychology Today. We’ll then
begin to think about the matter a
lot more. We’ll begin to understand
how it relates to our personal
lives. As we come to understand
that free will is an illusion, this
new and revolutionary truth will
find its way into the more popular
magazine, into our legal system, and
into our educational system.
In our
educational system today, we teach
our kids that human behavior is the
complete result of nature and
nurture, but we don’t ever go beyond
that. We don’t say that because of
that, we don’t have a free will.
But, as we begin to understand our
causal, unconscious human will, this
new understanding will become the
standard teaching. It will be the
way our kids, and the rest of us,
are taught.
What will be the
outcome? On a personal level, when
two people are having some kind of
disagreement, it’s not going to take
the form of competition. They are
not going to be in conflict – one
against the other. They will both
be on the same side, trying to
figure out why fate is pitting them
against each other – why fate is
having one aggress against the
other. As all of this takes place,
there will be a profound and
substantial change in our human
consciousness.
I start each show
with a quote from philosopher John
Searle, who says that for free will
to be understood as an illusion
would be “a bigger revolution in our
thinking than Einstein, or
Copernicus, or Newton, or Galileo,
or Darwin. It would alter our whole
conception of our relation with the
universe.” It will, in fact, be the
most significant world change ever.
The purpose of
life isn’t to understand that we
don’t have a free will. But
understanding this has its utility
in helping us create a happier
world. Ultimately as we become more
aware of our lack of free will, and
start structuring our societies and
world based on that understanding,
we’ll recognize that happiness is
the main goal of our life. That may
be a second kind of evolutionary
shift in our consciousness and our
world.
The world’s
overcoming the illusion of free will
may happen in ten years or less.
Progress is happening relatively
fast on this. The challenges we
face, like climate change, demand
such massive cooperation between us
as individuals, and as countries,
that if we are to meet them
successfully, we have no realistic
choice but to shift our
understanding of our human will from
the myth of a free will to the
reality of a causal will.
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