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Today I’m going
to show how our wills are causal,
and not free, by looking at the
matter in real time. We’re going to
look at what’s happening right now,
and what happened preceding the
show. We’ll start with the idea
that I’m sitting here alone doing
the show, when the plan was to do
this with a co-host.
We’re going to
prove and demonstrate in real time
that I, and by extension, you, don’t
have a free will. In the last
episode, I went through the idea
that thoughts just come into our
minds. Before I say something, I
have absolutely no idea what it is
that I’m going to say. Think about
that. Throughout our days, we’re
thinking all of the time, and these
thoughts and things we say are just
coming into our head.
Let’s focus on
our real-time analysis. I want to
make it as easy as possible for you
to appreciate the significance of
this topic – this question of
whether human beings have a free
will or not -- and I want you to
understand very clearly why we don’t
have a free will. I want you to
understand this, based on the
science and a real-time analysis of
what is going on. If I had a free
will, I would be choosing words that
would probably explain this far
better. I have relatively good
communications and explanatory
skills. But in my estimation, they
are not nearly as good as they would
be if I had a free will -- if I
could will myself to think and say
whatever I wanted.
You might say to
yourself “Well, you could, if you
wanted to, improve your presentation
skills so you would be much
better.” Yeah, granted. But,
either because I think that my
presentation skills are good enough,
or because there is something else
preventing me from improving these
skills, this hasn’t happened. I’ve
done television for about four
years, so this isn’t something that
is new to me. I understand my
strengths and limitations in this.
Earlier, I
instructed the director to have more
camera changes. I thought it would
be a good thing for this show, and
maybe it will be. But I noticed
also that when the camera changes
and I’m in mid-thought, this might
have a tendency to distract me.
That’s in fact what happened. I
lost my train of thought when the
camera changed. If I had a free
will, I would not have chosen to
lose my train of thought. The
director’s act -- someone else’s
action -- resulted in the thoughts,
or lack of them, that I was having.
Let’s explore
some benefits of understanding that
our wills are causal rather than
free. If I believed in a free will,
I might be tempted to be angry with
the director for having made the
camera change when he did. But,
understanding that he has, and that
I have, and that we all have, a
causal will makes it easy to not
blame or hold the other person, or
myself, responsible. This is a
godsend, and a wonderful perspective
from which to view reality.
Let’s look for
more ways to demonstrate in
real-time why we don’t have a free
will. I’m not exactly sure what I
want to talk about next. This
thought just came to me that I could
talk about not knowing what to say
next, and use that as an example of
why we don’t have a free will.
While I was thinking about what I
was going to say, this thought just
came to me from who knows where.
You could say
that it came from my mind, or from
“me.” But, think about it -- why
couldn’t I think of something to
say? Because I don’t have a free
will. Having a free will means
being able to think and say and do
whatever you want, within certain
logical and scientific parameters.
The notion of free will does not, of
course, mean that we can fly without
an airplane because of other reasons
like physical laws, gravity being
one. But, in terms of our decisions
– what we say, what we think, what
we feel – the reality is that those
things are simply not up to us.
We’ve been
thinking about thoughts. Let’s
think about feelings. How am I
feeling? I’m a little cold. I feel
cold, and the coldness makes me a
little nervous. That is going to
effect my presentation. Here’s
another example. Today is
overcast. It drizzled a little this
morning, and is threatening to
rain. That affects our mood. That
affects how we feel. That’s going
to affect this show. If I’m not in
control of either how high or low a
person sets a thermostat in a video
recording studio or the weather,
then I’m not in control of things
that are impacting what I say, and
how I say them. That’s a good way
of understanding why what we do and
think and feel is really not up to
us. It’s, most generally, really up
to everything, because everything is
inexorably connected.
In Buddhism,
there is the idea that there is no
real individual self. The
individual self is an illusion.
When you think about it, it’s true
because we have physical bodies, and
they are influenced by temperature,
light, the atmosphere, other people,
and many other factors outside of
us. The more accurate reality is
that we are everything. We are
completely connected to everything
else. In other words, there is no
separation between me and this
chair, and this set, and the people
in the director’s booth, and people
outside of the studio. We are all
completely connected to everything
else, and that’s the way the
universe is. It’s all one.
Let’s explore
sleep. Last night I slept well. I
knew I was going to tape four shows
on my own, and I knew it was going
to be tough. I knew that I wanted
to be as lucid and sharp as
possible, and I knew that would
happen best if I had proper sleep.
I made sure I got to sleep early
last night. When I got a late night
call, I got off quickly so I
wouldn’t stress myself. The amount
of sleep I got last night is
effecting my presentation today.
I’m much more energetic than I would
have been if I got hardly any
sleep. What’s happening today is
directly related, and influenced, by
that factor.
I chose, for
better or worse, to not eat
breakfast this morning. My stomach
is a little tight, and I didn’t
think food would benefit my
presentation. I could have been
wrong; I don’t know. But, clearly,
anyone who has breakfast every day,
or who has breakfast some days and
not others, will tell you that
whether you have food or not in your
stomach will make a difference in
what you think, feel, say, and do.
The point that
I’m making is that whether or not we
eat food, and what kind of food we
eat, makes a difference. As does
how much sleep we get, and how we’re
dressed. If I was dressed in a tie
and jacket, and my main audience
wasn’t going to be college students,
I probably would have gotten a
haircut, and be talking
differently. This would be a
different presentation. It’s the
fact that I have college students in
mind as the main audience that
causes me to dress in a certain way,
and have a certain haircut, and that
then causes me to act in a certain
way.
You might think
that my wanting college students as
my primary audience was a freely
willed decision. But was it? The
reason I decided on college students
as the primary audience is that 1)
I’m aware that many colleges and
universities have their own cable TV
station on campus, that they use to
present shows to the students, and
sometimes the local off-campus
community and, 2) I know that
sometimes they are looking for
shows. Sometimes they don’t have
enough programming to fill all of
their time-slots. I know these two
things. I also know that college
students are curious about this
matter of human will, and about free
will being an illusion. They take
philosophy courses, and their minds
are open to new ideas.
So, my knowing
something about college TV stations
and college students made it make
sense to me that college students
should be the primary audience. Is
that a free will decision? No,
because we’re governed by a reason
imperative, and we’re compelled by
nature to do what we think is going
to make the most sense. If I think
college students are going to be the
best audience for disseminating this
information, am I going to tailor
this show to ten-year-olds or
eighty-year-olds? No. We are
compelled by nature to always decide
what makes the most sense to us.
Sometimes we’ll look back in
hindsight, and say to ourselves
“Well, it seemed like the best
option at the time,” but knowing
later what we didn’t apparently know
then, we realize that maybe it
wasn’t.
Our reality is
very much like a movie. What I’m
doing right now is completely
compelled. None of it is up to me.
I’m like an actor whose every word
has been scripted, every gesture has
been scripted, and every feeling has
been scripted. My whole
presentation has been scripted by
the causal past.
How are we to
understand all of this? One way is
that, if you’re religious, chances
are you believe God is all-powerful,
and that what S/He says goes. In
other words, if God very genuinely
wants you to do something, you’re
absolutely going to do it. S/He’s
got the power. Do you think you can
actually do something that God wants
to prevent you from doing? No.
There’s an
objection some people might have
about this. If God is all-powerful,
then certainly S/He can give you a
free will. But, that statement is
internally inconsistent, and here’s
why. Can God create a boulder so
large that even S/He can’t lift it?
When you think about that question,
then you understand that this whole
idea of an all-powerful God doesn’t
truly stand up to reason. What you
end up concluding, which is a
complete mind-blower in another
sense, is that perhaps God’s actions
are completely compelled, and that
S/He doesn’t have a free will
either. Think also about this
following question. Can God, if
S/He so chose, cease existing, along
with the rest of the universe that
S/He created? I don’t know, but the
idea is that if God is all-powerful,
then there is absolutely no way that
we have any power at all. If S/He’s
granting us a free will, then God
cannot be all-powerful. If we’re
doing things that S/He would rather
that we didn’t do, and S/He is
powerless to prevent us, that is not
all-powerful. That is not
omnipotent.
Let’s think of
another real-time explanation of why
free will is an illusion, and why
our will is causal. Right now, I’m
trying to think of another way to
explain it, but either my mind is
tired, or for some other reason,
it’s not coming to me. I’m saying
to myself “Hey, it would be nice if
I could explain this in a different
way,” but it is simply not coming to
me. If I had a free will, I would
know exactly what to say. I know
this subject cold, but my mind tends
to function better when I’m
interacting with another person.
We don’t have a
free will, but what we can take home
that is really fortunate is that
we’re hard-wired to seek pleasure
and avoid pain. Everybody is.
Because of that, as each day, and
month, and year, and generation, and
era goes by, we’re presumably
getting better as individuals and as
a species at moving toward pleasure,
and away from pain. Because of
this, it’s really not terrible at
all that we don’t have a free will.
In fact, it’s better that we don’t,
because if we were not guided by
this hedonic imperative to always
seek pleasure and avoid pain, and by
an accompanying moral imperative to
always try to do good, our decisions
would simply be haphazard. It’s
great to know that the universe has
compelled us to have those basic
motivations.
That’s a good
place to end. This series is going
to be revolutionary. We’re going to
change the world. There are times
for ideas, and the time for humanity
to overcome, and benefit greatly
from overcoming, the illusion of
free will, is here. It’s going to
be exciting and fun.
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