DOWNLOADS: PDF of EXPLORING THE ILLUSION OF FREE WILL, SECOND EDITION
and
PDF of
FREE WILL -
MOVING BEYOND THE ILLUSION: SCREENPLAY FOR A DOCUMENTARY
BY
George Ortega
"The debate about free
will, long the purview
of philosophers alone,
has been given new life
by scientists,
especially
neuroscientists studying
how the brain works. And
what they're finding
supports the idea that
free will is a complete
illusion."
"In an intriguing review
in the July 2 edition of
the journal Science,
published online
Thursday, Ruud Custers
and Henk Aarts of
Utrecht University in
the Netherlands lay out
the mounting evidence of
the power of what they
term the 'unconscious
will.'...John Bargh of
Yale University, who 10
years ago predicted many
of the findings
discussed by Custers and
Aarts in a paper
entitled "The Unbearable
Automaticity of Being,"
called the Science
paper a "landmark —
nothing like this has
been in Science
before."
"Some
people think that
quantum mechanics shows
that determinism is
false, and so holds out
a hope that we can be
ultimately responsible
for what we do. But even
if quantum mechanics had
shown that determinism
is false (it hasn’t),
the question would
remain: how can
indeterminism, objective
randomness, help in any
way whatever to make you
responsible for your
actions? The answer to
this question is easy.
It can’t."
"In modern science, it is
difficult to find the
gap into which to slip
free will—the uncaused
causer—because there
seems to be no part of
the machinery that does
not follow in a causal
relationship from the
other parts."
"The philosophical
definition of free will
uses the phrase 'could
have done otherwise'... "As a neuroscientist,
you've got to be a
determinist. There are
physical laws, which the
electrical and chemical
events in the brain
obey. Under identical
circumstances, you
couldn't have done
otherwise; there's no
'I' which can say 'I
want to do otherwise'."
"The
discovery that humans
possess a determined
will has profound
implications for moral
responsibility. Indeed,
Harris is even critical
of the idea that free
will is "intuitive": he
says careful
introspection can cast
doubt on free will. In
an earlier book on
morality, Harris argues
'Thoughts simply arise
in the brain. What else
could they do? The truth
about us is even
stranger than we may
suppose: The illusion of
free will is itself an
illusion'"
If you think carefully
about any decision you
have made in the past,
you will recognize that
all of them were
ultimately based on
similar—genetic or
social—inputs to which
you had been exposed.
And you will also
discover that you had no
control over these
inputs, which means that
you had no free will in
taking the decisions you
did.
Cause and Effect
– At about the 5th century BC,
in his work On the Mind,
the Greek Philosopher Leucippus
penned the earliest known
universal statement describing
what we today understand as
determinism, or the law of cause
and effect
“Nothing happens at random,
but everything for a reason and
by necessity.”
Human Will –
The concepts of will and free
will are actually Christian in
orgin. It was Saint Paul in his
Letter to the Romans, which is
dated at about 58 A.D., who
first discovered this thing we
call human will. He came to it
by recognizing that he could not
often do as much right as he
wanted. Saint Paul wrote in
Romans 7:15 that:
“I don’t understand myself at
all, for I really want to do
what is right, but I can’t.” I
do what I don’t want to – what I
hate.” (Translation – The Living
Bible)
Free Will --
Nothing new was said on the
matter for the next few hundred
years until St. Augustine
grappled with the concepts of
evil and justice. Saint
Augustine wrote in his book
De Libero Arbitrio, 386-395
A.D., (translated as “On Free
Will”)
“Evil deeds are punished by
the justice of God. They would
not be punished justly if they
had not been performed
voluntarily.”
The problem he saw was that
if human beings do not have a
free will, it would be unfair
for God to arbitrarily reward or
punish us. St. Augustine
concluded that God could not be
unfair, and so he created the
concept of a human free will,
whereby we earn our reward or
punishment by what we freely do.
Scientific concepts
relating to the determined will
vs. free will question
Classical Mechanics
-- In 1687 Sir Isaac Newton
publishes his “Laws of Motions”
that mathematically describes
the physical universe as acting
in a mechanistic manner
according to the principle of
cause and effect.
Classical Mechanics is a
completely deterministic theory
Heisenberg
Uncertainty Principle
-- In 1925 Warner Heisenberg
describes mathematically that…
We can measure the position
of a particle or the momentum of
a particle (momentum meaning its
direction and velocity), but we
cannot simultaneously measure
the position and momentum of a
particle.
Copenhagen
Interpretation of Quantum
Mechanics -- Niels Bohr
and others make the following
assertions;
1) Particles do not have a
simultaneous position and
momentum.
2) Elementary particles
behave indeterministically, and
are not subject to the principle
of cause and effect.
Believers in free will saw
the Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle and Copenhagen
Interpretation of Quantum
Mechanics as providing a
possibility for free will to
exist. They asserted that if
elementary particles behave
indeterministically, they are
not subject to the principle of
cause and effect that prohibits
free will.
But, as noted above, it
eventually became apparent that
indeterminism also prohibits
free will.
Exploring the Illusion of Free Will,
2nd Edition Chapters
31. whether God has a free will,
and God defined as The Causal
Past
In this episode of Exploring
the Illusion of Free Will, taped
August 23, 2011, I consider the
freedom of God's will, and
explain why God and the causal
past are synonymous.
32. How Cause and Effect Refute
Free Will - earthquake episode
In this episode of Exploring
the Illusion of Free Will, taped
on August 23, 2011, I revisit
the central theme of causality,
and how it refutes any, and all,
arguments for a free will.
33. How Overcoming the Free Will
Illusion Frees Us from Judgment
and Anger
In this episode of Exploring
the Illusion of Free Will, taped
on August 23, 2011, I explain
how adopting a
causal-unconscious-universal
will perspective facilitates the
avoidance of judgment, and the
anger that all too often
follows.
34. Causal Reality Off the Cuff,
#3 - Standing
In this episode of Exploring
the Illusion of Free Will, taped
on September 06,2011, I talk
extemporaneously about why our
human will is causal and
unconscious rather than free.
This is an interesting episode,
because my Asperger's tendencies
are readily apparent.
35. If We Had a Free Will, We
Could...
In this episode of Exploring
the Illusion of Free Will, taped
on September 6,2011, I describe
all of the things we could do if
we really had a free will.
36. A Completely Unconscious
Will is Not a Free Will
In this episode of Exploring
the Illusion of Free Will, taped
on September 6, 2011, producer
and host George Ortega explains
that because the data upon which
we make decisions is stored in a
part of our brain that we are
not conscious of, and the
decisions must therefore be made
by that same unconscious part of
the brain, free will is
impossible.
37. Causal Will Therapy --
Curing the Insanity of Free Will
Belief
In this episode of the
television show Exploring the
Illusion of Free Will, taped
November 4, 2011, producer and
host George Ortega explains why
the belief in free will, which,
can be classified medically as a
delusion, can be overcome
through standard
re-conditioning.
38. The Messenger and I Have
Evolved Human Consciousness
In this episode of Exploring
the Illusion of Free Will, taped
on November 4, 2011, producer
and host George Ortega explains
how the producer of Manhattan
Neighborhood Network's Myth of
Free Will, "The Messenger," and
I have succeeded in taking the
truth of our causal over the
tipping point after which human
beings will evolve a new causal
consciousness that will
thereafter lead to a blame-free
world.
39. Human Will and the Occupy
Global Revolution
In this episode of Exploring
the Illusion of Free Will,
produced and hosted by George
Ortega, and taped on November 4,
2011, I describe the causal
development of the Occupy Global
Revolution of the 99%, and
explore the implications of our
adopting a causal will
perspective about it's evolution
and outcome.
40. Because Consciousness is
Awareness, Free Will is
Impossible
In this episode of the
television series Exploring the
Illusion of Free Will, producer
and host George Ortega explains
that consciousness is a tool for
awareness, not decisions.
Decisions are all made at the
level of the unconscious, and as
such, free will is clearly
impossible. This episode was
taped on Novemer 7, 2011.