My Car
(This sticker actually came with Wreck and Reference’s phenomenal record Absolute Still Life)
Are you sure you are the one making the decisions regarding the direction of your life? Are you in control of your thoughts, feelings, and actions, and are you in charge of the outcomes from them?
Do you want to be?
The immediate answer of probably everyone, including myself, is “yes!”
Think more on this though, and before we get into it, I’ll be the first to admit I’ve grappled with this topic.
A quick internet dive into the topic will reveal that compelling arguments from the field of science can be made that free-will is an illusion.
I’m not ready to surrender the sense that I have it, just yet. I can concede that it is limited by circumstance, biology, and environment, but admit that it’s all an illusion? Not yet. For practical purposes and common understanding, I think it is still fair to describe most of what we do in the day-to-day as “free-will.” That being said, the challenges to that have had me pondering things.
Free-will PROBABLY does not exist, or if it does, it isn’t in the form you currently accept it in.
I will not profess to be an expert on science or philosophy, but there is credible evidence to at least shatter the prevalent understanding of free-will and at most, dissolve it entirely. I have found the arguments for this to be credible.
I am not certified to contribute to this search for truth, nor the debate, but I can certainly ponder what the findings might mean.
One implication of accepting that our free-will is limited is that something is revived that has long been relegated to our cultural myths.
Destiny and Fate.
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Almost everyone would admit that we are not a completely rational consciousness that is divorced from all internal and external factors that influence our decision-making. We are not able to see all the facets of a situation, and make the “proper” call based on the facts and context. Rather, we are inexorably tethered to the pressures of our community, environment, and natural temperaments and impulses. This influence might be so pervasive that it actually penetrates “deeper” than our cerebral cortex, bypassing the rational part of our brains responsible for thought and decision-making.
We sometime attribute free-will to animals, especially when our pets do not behave the way we desire, but we commonly don’t associate this with other creatures, and we probably shouldn’t.
Perhaps we are no different, we just have a certain interpretation of this same internal process that appears to be one of deliberation and choice.
There is a line in a Ray Bradbury story that always resonated with me. It regards how every creature, except humans, go about their lives, acting in accordance with their nature, and they never stop to ponder why they exist. They seem to be doing just fine with that arrangement. Birds fly, fish swim, cheetahs run, moles dig, you get the idea. Humans do many more things, but we are the only ones actually able to do things beyond just the baseline set of behaviors. Just because we can, it doesn’t mean we always should, and it doesn’t mean it’s just as naturally aligned as what the aforementioned organisms do.
To be clear, I am infinitely glad I am able to have thoughts, discussions, and feelings about these important questions, but also, I have taught myself to act more “within my nature.” It results in better outcomes.
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The irony of the evidence that free-will is false, is in that accepting this “limitation” is actually quite freeing.
Could you handle that? If so, having some limits of free will might enable you to better make decisions.
Jean-Paul Sartre is famous for claiming that “man is condemned to be free.” He’s right. If you truly accept and focus on your complete freedom to do anything you might decide upon, wise or unwise, you will realize that you can become paralyzed, overwhelmed, and anxious by the possibilities. In some sense, we want it laid out for us, but it isn’t. We think that there is some external experience or advice we might find that will guide us, but there isn’t. It’s all inside, and it’s mysterious and frustratingly hard to access.
You might say, “wait Alex, how can all that be pertinent if all that freedom is an illusion?” I’m not sure if it is a complete illusion, but even if it is, that doesn’t absolve the strong implications of that great trick of the mind. All the choices, whether you could actually act on them or not, can be a lot to behold.
The absence of free-will does not make Sartre’s concept wrong or irrelevant, yet understanding human limitations can help solve some of the existential problems he uncovered.
Everyone has their own personality, interests, values, and aptitudes. Trying to act counter to them causes pain, and there is a reason for that. This is true in professions, education, recreational activity, relationships, etc. Yes, you probably COULD do this job or that, regardless of how much of a struggle the subject matter is for you, or the culture. Yet, you shouldn’t.
It isn’t your destiny to do it.
You might be somewhat free to choose how to act, but you aren’t free to choose what you want and don’t want. You aren’t free to will those circumstances.
The universe has undergone all of its events to bring you into existence, and has developed you along the path created by those events. Now, you act in alignment with what that dictates. You might not HAVE to. Or actually you might if free-will is an illusion. In that case, you might just think you don’t have to. Regardless, if you do act in accordance with who you are, I predict you will thrive much more. You can “become what one is,” as Friedrich Nietzsche mentioned. That sounds like destiny to me.
It’s your destiny to do X. It’s my destiny to do Y. It’s their destiny to do Z.
Why? It’s simply in our nature.
-Alex