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Let’s work on
overcoming our reluctance to
overcome the illusion of free will.
Often, we’ll understand the logic
and reason of why we don’t have a
free will, but we enjoy having a
free will. It’s something we’re
preconditioned to like; it is not
our choice. We’re hedonic
creatures, and we’re programmed to
believe and cherish the notion that
we have a free will. Before we get
into this, let’s briefly go over the
purpose of this show, and a
definition of free will and it’s
alternative, the reality of our
predetermined, and unconscious,
will. The reason this show is
important is that the illusion of
free will causes a lot of
unnecessary harm.
Consider that a
two-year-old does something wrong.
We don’t ascribe free will to that
two-year-old, and because of that,
we will treat him or her with
understanding. We’ll say to
ourselves, “a two-year-old could not
have helped him or herself.” But
when it comes to older children and
adults, we say, “You did this of
your own free will, and you deserve
to be punished. You’re bad. You’re
evil.” We also do this to
ourselves. When we do something
wrong, we say “oh, I did something
wrong. I am guilty. It’s right for
me to suffer this guilt of having
done something wrong.” Attributing
free will to others and to ourselves
causes a great deal of unnecessary
blame, guilt, and aggression.
Before I go
further, I wouldn’t recommend that
we do without a kind of
pseudo-personal morality. In other
words, not having a free will
doesn’t give us license to do
whatever we want. We could create a
much better world by transcending
this very pervasive illusion of free
will.
What people mean
when they say they have a free will
is that nothing that they are not in
control of is compelling them to
decide what they decide. Control is
the key. They say, “I’m in complete
control of what I decide and don’t
decide. Now consider that our
unconscious, by definition, is not
under our conscious control (at
least in real-time). We’re not even
aware of it, and it’s always awake.
The unconscious is what makes our
heart beat, and it controls our
other bodily functions. It’s where
we store our memories and our
thought processing. Basically, we
can’t make any decision
without the unconscious being
involved. Naturally, if our
unconscious is not in our control,
you can see how free will is
impossible.
We have a causal
will. We have a will that is
subject to causality. Whatever
decision we make has a cause, and
that cause has a cause, and that
cause has a cause, etc. These
causes go back in time, and this
causal regression leads to before we
were born, and before the Earth and
Sun were created. It’s easy to see
how, through this cause and effect
process, events in the past
ultimately led to what can be
described as the movie we’re all
acting out. It is so mind-boggling
that nature, or God, has
predetermined that we have this
illusion of free will. It is so
completely opposite to the way
things are, and for this reason
alone, I think it would be in
humanity’s best interest to finally
understand the true causal and
unconscious nature of our human
will.
Let’s talk about
how we can overcome our reluctance
to overcome our illusion of free
will. Free will is actually more of
a delusion. Some people understand
logically and rationally that free
will is impossible. They understand
that we have an unconscious that
makes free will impossible. They
understand that causality makes free
will impossible. They understand
that even if things were random, in
the strongest sense meaning
uncaused, and things could actually
happen that were not caused, that
would also make free will
impossible. If our decisions aren’t
caused, then they certainly cannot
be caused by our free will. A lot
of people understand this, but they
still are compelled by fate to
believe in free will. They cannot
let the illusion go.
The point here is
that when an illusion gets where you
know that it’s an illusion, but you
still believe it, it’s no longer an
illusion. At that point it has
become a delusion. So, basically,
our whole humanity is completely
deluded regarding the very nature of
our human will. I want to explain
what I mean by the word “delusion.”
Consider the well-known visual
illusion depicting a horizontal line
with inward-pointing arrows at each
end above a horizontal line with
outward-pointing arrows at each end.
If you were to
ask yourself which line is longer,
it seems like the one on top is the
longer of the two. That’s the
illusion. If you then measure the
two lines with a ruler, and you
determine that the two lines are, in
fact, equal in length, and you still
contend that the top line is longer
than the bottom one, that’s where
your illusion has become a
delusion.
Most people have
never thought about any of this.
There is a term free will,
and people just assume it’s true.
Few people have explored human will
enough to understand how and why
free will is impossible. Why do we
continue to believe in free will?
Some of us say to ourselves, “If I
were a robot, or an actor, life
would have no meaning. We couldn’t
take credit for anything.”
We generally tend
to be religious. We tend to believe
in God, or a higher power. Part of
us doesn’t want to see ourselves as
robots, or puppets – completely
programmed beings, and everything
being a movie. Another way to look
at this, however, is that God’s will
is manifested through us. Some of
us believe that God exists outside
of space and time – outside of the
universe. But that doesn’t make
sense. One of the definitions of
God is that he is omnipresent, or
everywhere. So, a clearer
understanding of God is that S/He is
everything, and we’re a part of
God.
In that sense, we
are instruments of God. That’s a
good way of seeing this that many
people can relate to within a
religious context. We’re vehicles
for God’s will. When we see it from
that perspective, it restores our
nobility. We’re not mere robots or
puppets. We are the physical
manifestation of God’s will. God
expresses Her/Himself through us.
That way of seeing ourselves should
be a lot more palatable to many
people. It should make
understanding that we don’t have a
free will easier to accept.
There’s another
reason many of us are afraid to
believe that we human beings do not
have a free will. They believe that
if we understand, acknowledge, and
accept that we don’t have a free
will, and if we act according to
that understanding, and there would
be no true personal morality, we
could not be held accountable for
anything. We could not take credit
for the good we do, and we could not
blame each other or ourselves for
the bad we do. It’s an
understandable fear. Some of us are
afraid that if everyone comes to
understand that we don’t have a free
will, we will all do whatever we
want, and say, “You can’t blame me.
I don’t have a free will.”
Incidentally, there is a philosopher
named Saul Smilansky who wrote a
book titled Free Will and
Illusion, and he understands
that free will is impossible and
that it’s an illusion. But, his
perspective is that we shouldn’t
tell people this
because if we were all to understand
the true nature of our will – that
we’re actually instruments of God
rather than gods ourselves – we
would act with reckless abandon.
Not incidentally, from a religious
context, if we had a free will, that
would also mean that we create our
thoughts – that we are the authors
of our thoughts. However, our
understanding of God is that S/He is
the only entity in the universe with
the power to create.
Some of us
believe that if we relinquish our
belief in free will, there will be
anarchy. No, because we’re hard
wired to act in certain ways. For
example, we’re governed by the
hedonic principle. Freud explained
this as the Pleasure Principle, and
there have been other formulations
of this principle in biology and the
other sciences. The idea is that
we human beings are hard-wired and
compelled to seek pleasure and avoid
pain. Sometimes we’ll undergo a
certain amount of pain in order to
satisfy our conscience. But, the
idea here is that because our basic
motivation in life is to seek
pleasure and avoid pain, we’re not
going to let people just get away
with claiming “Well, I don’t have a
free will so I can do whatever I
want.” We’re not going to let
ourselves get away with that
either.
When we attribute
free will to ourselves and each
other, and we do things wrong, we
accuse and blame. “That person is
bad; he’s evil.” We do this to
ourselves, and we do this to our
friends. When we do this
geo-politically, it can result in
wars. As we overcome this free
will-dependent attribution, we can
at least be more understanding. We
can say “alright, this person did
something wrong. We can’t allow him
or her to continue doing it because
it’s hurtful to us all, and we have
to take steps to prevent it.” By
not acting according to the illusion
of free will, the steps we would
take, however, would likely be far
more compassionate and
understanding. The person who does
the wrong is not going to feel like
they are an evil person. When we do
wrong, we’re not going to feel like
we’re bad. Our overcoming the
illusion of free will would likely
create a much kinder, and far more
intelligent, world.
When we
acknowledge that there is no
personal morality, and things go
wrong, what do we do? In religion,
when things go well, we’re taught to
be grateful because it’s God’s will
that caused them to go well. We
thank God. Unfortunately, when
things go awry, it’s our fault. As
a sideline, it seems an open
question whether or not God has a
free will. Part of me hopes S/He
doesn’t, because if God doesn’t have
a free will, we can’t blame God for
anything. A very cool thing about
not believing in free will is that
we can thereby hold ourselves as
innocent – as blameless. To be able
to hold God as blameless also would
also be good.
It may take a few years or decades
for people to understand that our
wills are not free, accept this
truth, and apply this understanding
to our personal lives and societally.
Interestingly, we already
incorporate the understanding that
our human will is not truly free.
In today’s criminal justice system,
if a person is considered to not
have known what they were doing at
the time of their wrongdoing, we
apply what we refer to as the
insanity defense. We understand
that you can’t justly hold someone
responsible for what they did if
they did not genuinely, or
sufficiently, know what they were
doing. This can happen with certain
kinds of brain injuries and various
illnesses.
With free will
exposed as an illusion, our criminal
justice system would, over time,
become much more compassionate.
While we may have to separate some
of us who would otherwise go around
committing crimes, it would likely
be a more compassionate separation.
Consider that people often commit
crimes against another person
because they blame that person for
something. They conclude that a
certain person did some wrong, and
at times desire to get him back.
It’s about retribution. If people
generally did not believe that other
people have a free will, much of
that attribution-based crime would
be avoided.
Our overcoming
the illusion of free will would make
life so much more wonderful – and I
mean literally wonderful, as in
“full of wonder.” Think about it;
everything is a movie. What I’m
saying right now has been
predetermined from before the Earth
and Sun were created. It’s not just
about our decisions. Everything
that happens, everything that moves,
every bird that flies, every rock
that falls, every planet that moves,
is predetermined. To my mind, it’s
perplexing, and amazing, and
bewildering, but it’s also
wonderful. I start each show with a
quote from American philosopher,
John Searle. He says that if free
will is an illusion, that would be a
bigger revolution in our thinking
than Einstein, Copernicus, Newton,
Darwin, and Galileo. I think he’s
right. Overcoming the illusion of
free will would give us an entirely
new mindset, and perspective.
Why do we need a
new mindset? We’ve made a lot of
progress in our world. About two
hundred years ago, almost everyone
on the planet was poor. Today, many
of have so much more than we need.
We have many blessings. Our world
works very well in many ways. But
in some ways it doesn’t work at
all. For example, climate change
will challenge us for decades. It’s
probably too late to do all we could
have done about it, because the
climate-driven effects we’re feeling
today were caused twenty or thirty
years ago. We face monumental
challenges with climate change. If
we adopt the understanding that free
will is an illusion, we can approach
climate change and all of our other
major challenges with greater
cooperation.
Under the free will perspective, we
say “they are doing something
wrong. They’re bad. We’re opposed
to them, and they’re opposed to us.”
When we have that kind of
relationship with each other, it’s
hard to get things done. It’s hard
to reach agreement, because if
you’re one of the people doing
something wrong, to admit this is
akin to admitting that you are a
criminal, or just bad. We don’t
tend to do that. But, if everyone
shared the understanding that we
don’t have a free will – that if
people do something wrong it is only
because they were compelled to so,
and it wasn’t truly their choice –
we could still say “listen; you need
to stop polluting the Earth and
warming the climate.” When people
don’t, and are not made to, feel
responsible for those kinds of
egregious actions, then they can
more easily assume a certain
kind of responsibility.
Another major
challenge we have is that until
about sixty years ago, our farm
animals were treated so much more
compassionately than they are
treated today. Our cows had
pastures to graze on, and our
chickens were free to roam the
yards. Today, you would not believe
the horrible conditions by which
these animals are raised. If you go
to Google Video and search for “Meet
Your Meat,” you can view a 12-minute
video narrated by Alec Baldwin, and
produced by the People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals, (PETA)
that shows very graphically just how
horribly we treat farm animals. If
you watch that video, you will see
how chickens are stuffed in cages so
small they cannot even fully extend
their wings for their entire lives.
You will see pigs, who happen to be
more
intelligent than
dogs, confined in cages so small
they cannot even turn around for
months at a time. The degree of
abuse is unbelievably horrible.
We should stop
eating meat simply because we would
be healthier, and live longer, if we
did. But, we continue to torture
these animals because we refuse to
even look at what we’re doing. If
we were to see our treatment of
animals squarely for what it is, we
would have to recognize how horribly
we’ve been acting, and how cruel and
callous that makes every one of us
who condone and abet this cruelty by
eating meat. That is the only
conclusion we could honestly reach.
If we were to
view all of this from the
understanding that what we’re doing
is completely compelled -- and in no
way up to us – then we could with
justification blame the universe, or
whatever, for compelling us to
commit such cruelty. That
perspective would render us
innocent, and when we’re no longer
holding ourselves responsible for
such cruelty, then we will
hopefully, through compassion,
squarely face the cruelty that is
being done through us, and stop
torturing those animals.
Our free
will-derived sense of responsibility
likely prevents us from truly seeing
the extent of our cruelty. The sad
irony here is that the universe has
caused us to torture these animals.
God willing, this same universe will
hopefully soon make us understand
that we don’t have a free will, and
compel us to be much more
compassionate toward all animals on
our planet. To the extent that we
overcome the illusion of free will,
we will create a brand new world.
It would be like a new renaissance,
multiplied tenfold.
We’re perpetually
at each other. Our coming to
understand, and behave according to
the understanding, that we don’t
have a free will would lead us to
sit down with each other, and
rationally consider the matters
before us. “Why did the universe
compel you to do wrong?” we might
ask our friend. S/he might respond,
“Not so fast; the universe is
apparently compelling me to conclude
that what I did was not, in fact,
wrong.” Basically, the conversation
could proceed as a cooperative,
rather than blaming, venture, with
each of us trying to figure out if a
wrong was, in fact, done, and what
to do about the matter from a
practical standpoint.
Understanding
free will as an illusion would also
lead to our understanding that the
way we treat our children in school,
especially when they are young,
makes all the difference in the
world to their, and our, future. In
computers there is a principle
called GIGO, which is an acronym for
“garbage in, garbage out.” This
principle also applies to how we
instruct our children. To the
extent we understand that what we
are basically doing with
child-rearing and education is
programming our children to behave
in certain ways, and not others, we
will take more time, and devote more
effort, to teaching them how to be
happy, and how to be good.
There are many
other reasons why overcoming this
illusion of free will would create a
much more wonderful world by
increasing goodness, compassion and
understanding. We’ll explore them.
Even as we rationally understand the
causal and unconscious nature of our
human will, it is hard for us to
accept this truth about ourselves.
So, we will go over all of this a
lot. Over time you should
ultimately understand why overcoming
the illusion of free will would very
likely create a much better world.
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