March 10, 2024
Free Will and the Nature of Self
- the feeling of self / being is also just another feeling
- “I am therefore I think”
- if free will did not exist, would criminals be seen like forces of nature, like a hurricane passing through?
- desire would have to be fully uninterrupted for us to have pure free will
QUESTIONS WITHOUT CLEAR ANSWERS:
- is free will an outdated concept entirely?
- if you believe we have free will, what would it take to convince you that we don’t? And vice versa, if you don’t think we have free will, what would you have to hear to make you think otherwise?
RECOMMENDED READS:
- The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch (book)
- Descartes’ Meditations (book)
- Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang (short story)
- The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are - Alan Watts (book)
- Free Will - Sam Harris (book)
Though humans have wrestled with the idea of free will for centuries, it remains an elusive concept that slips out of our arms just as we think we’ve finally pinned it down. Most of us can agree that it is a spectrum with a vast gray area upon which clouds of certainty occasionally float by.
There is the hard determinist, the person who believes that if we were just able to understand where every particle has been since the beginning of time until now, we could clearly see what would happen in the future and why, and we would understand how nothing is by chance but rather a predetermined path set in motion by those early nebulae of expanding gasses floating throughout an empty canvas of space. It would then follow that our lives would be on a set track of events that, even though it may feel like we are choosing our path, we have no control over.
In a world like this, there comes the question of the function of a justice system. How could we punish criminals for their crimes if they had no choice but to do them? Would we be focused on prevention methods in an attempt to stop their actions? It would seem fitting that instead of blaming the person for their wrongdoings, we would instead be tracking down the why, we would ask what ancient cosmic particles came together to create this event? Prisons might not exist at all. A hard determinist world may seem like a sort of utopian society in theory, where people can understand each other better because they know that there is no way for someone to do something of their own inherent desires, good or bad. We would be wind and rain, like aspects of nature carrying out our motions set forth by forces beyond our control.
On the other side of hard determinism, we have those who assume everyone must take responsibilty for each action of life. Of course there will be varying degrees of outer forces influencing our choices, but for the most part we are who we are and do what we do by our own design and desire. This world is chaotic and unpredictable, we would trust less because even if someone does something good, their intention could be the opposite. People act for their own benefit, blaming others for their mistakes and interacting with the world in a dog-eat-dog type of mindset. While it is doubtful that anyone believes we have pure free will completely unobstructed by external factors, it is easy to lean too far into that idea and feel a multitude of negative emotions stemming from a general feeling of not being “good enough” at the games of life, forgetting that the audience and the refs and the courts also affect performance, however subtly.
So there must be a middle ground between hard determinism and pure free will. The space in between is as wide and uncertain as the depths of the ocean. This is where most people struggle to swim with the current of life and truth. There comes a point where either side becomes irrelevant, where no matter how much free will you believe you have, at the end of the day you are going to continue behaving just as you naturally do. If you are firmly set on your free will, then you will choose your path and feel the rocks beneath your feet with each misstep, but maybe you’d have looked down and seen them beforehand. If you like the thought of having a destiny pre planned for your life, each choice already made by some otherworldly consciousness, then you will continue living as if this were true, and you would still make decisions each day of your life but with the comfort of fate providing reason for the mistakes and rocks of pain.
If free will exists, if it doesn’t, how much would it really change about the way we interact with the world? Either way, you must live your life and think about the future, learn from your mistakes, choose what to eat for dinner. Surely the justice system would change, but the current model needs change regardless of free will.
That brings us to a final point; is free will an outdated concept altogether? Free will might have had its place and use back when religious leaders wanted control and used free will as a weapon of the mind. When they could tell a stranger that free will was what separated us from God, and your choices will determine where you end up when you’re dead. But in modern times, debating free will seems to end in an agreement that wherever you end up on its spectrum, it doesn’t really matter at all what you believe, as long as what you believe feels true to you.