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Let’s talk about
what it means that our wills and our
reality are causal. This is huge.
It represents a new stage of
civilization. It’s hard to think of
a comparable shift in our world. We
went from thinking that our world
was flat to understanding that our
planet Earth is an orb. We went
from seeing ourselves as the center
of the solar system to understanding
that we are three planets out from
that center.
But while these
understandings might help with our
astronomical model of reality, and
help us get to the moon and back,
they don’t really affect our
personal day-to-day lives, and our
lives as a civilization. As we
understand that free will is an
illusion, and that causality, or
cause and effect, is what determines
everything, we begin to understand
that it’s a paradigm shift in our
consciousness that is happening in
our overcoming this illusion of free
will.
What will it mean
to our world? Naturally, we can
only predict, because, not having a
free will, we can’t compel
ourselves, or the universe, to
unfold in any certain way. Truth is
generally a better guide to what we
do, and how we do what we do, than
illusion. I predict that by our
world overcoming this illusion of
free will, we’re going to create a
much more intelligent,
compassionate, and happy world.
When we attribute
free will to others and to
ourselves, we will tend to blame
others and ourselves for our
misgiving – for what we do wrong.
When we have a causal will
perspective, we understand that
we’re doing these things not because
we choose, but because the causal
past has compelled us to do them.
Correctly perceiving our wills as
causal can lead to greater
compassion and non-judgment.
For this episode,
let’s take a look at how this
correct understanding of human will
effects our global civilization.
Let’s look at geo-political conflict
between nations. In large part,
it’s based on our illusion of free
will. We say to ourselves “people
from other countries have a free
will, and they are doing something
we consider threatening, so we are
going to war with them.” Our other
option is for us to say to ourselves
“alright, those other countries may
be doing things that we consider
threatening, and not in our best
interest, but wait a minute. The
actions of those people from that
country – the leaders, the
government, the citizens – are
completely compelled. They don’t
have a free will.” From this
perspective, punishing an entire
country for things that nobody in
that country could have done any
other way doesn’t make sense. I
have every hope and expectation that
our new causal reality era will
bring out the best in us.
This show is about the illusion of
free will, the reality of causal
will, but we should remember that
causality is not limited to human
will. Causality controls
everything. Now is a good time for
a “state-of-the-universe”
explanation of how this is so.
Consider the state of the universe
at this very moment in time. The
state of the universe at the
immediately prior moment in time was
what gave rise to it, and caused it
to be. The state of the universe at
each subsequent moment is completely
determined by its state at the
preceding moment.
That is the most
objective, all-encompassing,
universal description of causality
possible. It relates to the entire
universe, state by state and moment
by moment. What we find is that we
don’t have free wills. We have
causal wills because reality isn’t
free; reality is causal. Reality
can’t decide to be one way or
another. It goes by certain laws
and the causal progression of
events. It’s important to realize
that causality extends beyond the
human will to all of reality.
Our world is very
much like a movie. I don’t know
what you are doing right now besides
reading this, but whatever it is,
and whatever you did in the past,
and what you will do in the future,
is completely determined. It is not
up to you, and that is amazing.
Yes, reality is a movie.
What does this
mean? It means that the world is so
much more “wonderful” than we have
believed it to be. If we’ve been so
completely deluded about the nature
of why we do everything we do, and
about causality as it relates to
human will, and we come to
understand that our wills are causal
– that everything is governed by
cause and effect – that new
understanding changes everything.
It makes reality far more wonderful
than it is under the free will
perspective. The free will
perspective just confuses everyone,
because it doesn’t make sense.
Our whole lives
are based on a premise that is
wrong. Of course, we’re not to
blame for this. We didn’t choose to
be deluded in this way. We didn’t
choose to believe we have a free
will. That perspective was equally
compelled. The universe has
compelled us to believe that a
delusion is reality, and it seems
that the universe is now compelling
us to understand that free will is
not the reality; causal will is.
I came to this understanding at
least several decades ago, and it’s
a fascinating realization. To
contemplate that everything
is a movie, and
that we’re just actors, may have an
element of unpleasantness, but that
unpleasantness just comes from our
ego. We have a part of ourselves
that says “I want to take credit for
what I do. I want it to be up to
me.” So, we give that up. We
instead see that there is no
individual I; there is a one. There
is one universe, and one reality,
that proceeds from moment to moment
in a causal fashion. That is what
compels us to do everything we do.
It’s amazing that we have for at
least two millennia fallen prey to
this illusion of free will.
One thing that
will likely result from our
overcoming this illusion is that the
world will become more intelligent,
and routinely exercise greater
intelligence. Seeing human will as
free is not intelligent. There is
absolutely no credible evidence that
we have a free will, and there is
conclusive, irrefutable evidence
that our wills are causal. Our
world needs to change. Just
considering global warming and the
recent global economic meltdown, we
need to make great changes. As we
understand that our wills are causal
rather than free, these changes will
come about much more quickly and
intelligently. Overcoming the
illusion of free will appears to be
a great gift to humanity, and to the
other forms of life with whom we
share this Earth.
Many people who
have held the belief in free will
are going to be challenged. It’s a
challenge on the scale of
creationism vs. evolution. Many of
us still believe that there was and
Adam and Eve, and that Eve was
created from the rib of Adam.
Scientifically, we don’t believe
that any more, but many people who
once believed that now understand
the overwhelming evidence against
such a creation story, and in favor
of evolution. Overcoming the
illusion of free will actually
represents a much more profound
challenge because it lies at the
heart of who we are.
We have the
choice of seeing ourselves as gods
who are able to think whatever we
want at any time, or from the more
humbling perspective that we are
subjects. We’re like pawns on a
chessboard. We’re doing the will of
God, or the causal past. That’s
huge. We’re going from the guiding
philosophy that we have free will to
the guiding philosophy that
everything is causal; everything is
a movie, and we’re just playing out
our roles. It’s absolutely
amazing.
As we go through
our exploration, we’ll get into all
of this in a lot of detail. We’re
going to bring physics,
neuroscience, and psychology, into
this. There are various ways to
understand why free will is
impossible, and why both our reality
and our human will must be causal,
and we’ll go through them. For now,
let’s contemplate what this means to
us as a civilization and as a
humanity.
I can’t think of
a question like this that has
confronted humanity in the past.
There was the Scopes Monkey trial
decades ago about creationism vs.
evolution, and that caught the
attention of the international
media. But, years later, that issue
is rarely talked about. This
question of human will is capturing
our attention as one of the
fundamental questions and issues of
our time. I’m not going to say it
is a valid question, because the
evidence against free will is so
solid and compelling that it would
not be truthful to present the
matter as unresolved, at least
objectively.
In other words,
if our world was debating between
whether two plus two equals four, or
two plus two equals five, that’s not
much of a debate. But to many
people, the truth about our human
wills will be a revelation. It is
incumbent upon those of us who
understand the causal nature of our
will to help others understand this
better. We should mitigate the
fears people may have, and address
people’s misgivings about giving up
their presumed god-like power to
believe and think, and feel, what
they want, regardless of anything.
Let’s talk about
criminal justice. This is extremely
important. Anyone who has ever been
imprisoned, or who is in jail or
prison now, is really being punished
wrongly. If somebody forced you to
do something, and I mean absolutely
forced you to the extent that you
had no choice in the matter, is it
morally right and just for you to be
punished for this thing that you
absolutely had no choice but to do?
Our jails and prisons are filled
with people who are suffering that
fate.
This is, of
course, not our fault, because we
don’t have the free will to have
overcome the illusion of free will,
and treated them more
compassionately and intelligently in
the past. But, it’s something we
should recognize. Some of us will
immediately ask, “Are you suggesting
we give up laws and rules and
order?” No, I’m not suggesting
that. I’m asking, “How would you
like to be in jail or prison being
punished for something you were
absolutely compelled to do?”
What’s the answer? Naturally, part
of it is that we, as a people, have
to be protected from each other and
ourselves. If somebody is going
around doing things that are hurtful
to themselves or others, certainly
we need to take steps to prevent
that kind of behavior. The greatest
good for the greatest number is a
philosophy we cherish, and which
forms the basis of our democracies.
By understanding that we don’t have
a free will, we can catch those of
us who would eventually turn to
crime in their later years when they
are very young, and condition them
to not go that route.
We now have so many people in jail
and prison for what they had no
choice but to do. Transcending the
illusion of free will is about how
we are going to treat them. It
seems quite wrong to punish them in
retribution. There is the issue of
punishment as a deterrent.
Punishment will, in many cases,
prevent others from committing
crimes, but my guess is that as we
understand that our wills are causal
and not free, we will perhaps
separate those of us who need to be
separated from society for whatever
reason, for their own sake as well
as for the sake of the rest of us,
but we’ll do it without that sense
of retribution. We’ll do it without
judgment or blame.
Two hundred years
ago in the United States, our
criminal justice system was more
about penitence. That’s why our
prisons were called penitentiaries
and reformatories. Criminal justice
back then was more about showing a
person the error of their ways, but
not through punishment as much as
through relatively benign
correction. We’ve gone from that
kind of system to one that punishes
according to the notion of “just
deserts.” They did something evil,
which makes them evil, so we’re just
in making them suffer.
God willing, once
we are able to reform our criminal
justice system, those of us who
would otherwise resort to crimes
that hurt our society and ourselves
would probably be far less likely to
do so. Criminals often commit their
crimes as a direct result of
ascribing free will to another
person. They say “this person
freely hurt me, so I’m going to hurt
them back.” Our criminal justice
system is an area of civilization
and society that this truth of our
causal will relates to very directly
from a moral perspective, and also
from the perspective of alleviating
unnecessary suffering.
Our awakening to
the reality that our world and our
human will is causal is
revolutionary. We will create what
in many ways will amount to brand
new world. I don’t know how long
this might take, and to be
completely honest, I don’t know if
it will happen. If we don’t have
free wills, we can’t know for sure
whether the causal past will lead us
to understand that it, and not us,
is really responsible for
everything. But, from all of the
evidence – our education, our
development as a species, our
becoming more intelligent and
evolved – it seems this is clearly
the way we are going. We’re moving
into an era where we will all very
likely understand all of this. Some
talk about the dumbing down of
America – how somehow we’ve become
stupid. The nature of human will is
the kind of issue and question that
can reawaken our intellect, and
thereby help us all.
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