Yin Yang: An image that perfectly encapsulates the paradoxical “half-truth” nature of reality
I’ve been mulling over the most recent article I wrote – “The Illusion of Free Will” for a couple of weeks now, and the thing is – I don’t really agree with it. At least, not fully.
This is going to be
an article where you don’t get any set, defined answers, so if you
don’t like articles of that kind, skip over this one now.
The question of
whether humans – or any sentient being – has free will was one of
the first big philosophical questions I ran into in my undergraduate
science degree.
At the time, I had
an assumed belief that humans had free will, that we were ultimately
responsible for the decisions we made, and should be held accountable
for our actions. The more I looked into this belief, however, the
less it seemed to make sense.
In order to really
explain my “position” on this, I’m going to have to get quite
deep. Think ultimate nature of reality deep.
I think the best way
to do that is with a diagram. This will obviously be limited too, but
it’s the best way I know how to convey my perspective.
The Three Levels of Reality
At the ultimate
level, there’s the Source of all existence. The ultimate One. The
Infinite reality.
This is beyond the
dualistic mind of humans. Beyond good and evil. Beyond right and
wrong. Beyond this versus that.
As the Heart Sutra
of Mahayana Buddhism states: “Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi
svaha” which translates to “Gone, gone, gone beyond, totally gone
beyond.”
Welcome to reality.
This is the annihilation of the separate self. The ultimate
perspective on reality. The eradication of distinction.
Not everyone wants
this. Even those on the spiritual path, not many of those truly want
ultimate truth – they want to just make their lives a little
better.
That’s fine.
Everyone has their path to walk, walk it freely as long as you
choose!
I think this is the
path I have chosen, however. Do I know that for a fact? No. It’s
quite possible to me that I could stop short of this so long as my
life was enjoyable.
There’s a part of
me that feels I won’t be satisfied until I know the ultimate
perspective however. Time will tell as far as that’s concerned.
Which brings me to
the point of this post, which is kind of a rebuttal against my last
post.
Even though
ultimately everything is one, and ultimately everything comes from
the same source, there is still simultaneously distinction. The
Infinite reality can split itself up as much as it likes and still
remain infinite.
And that’s what
humans are. A splitting off of infinity.
Life is
simultaneously all one and yet has distinctions within it.
Which is where the
question of free will, along with the existence of the self, becomes
a bit blurry.
Ultimately if there
is only one and no separation, then obviously there can’t be any
true free will or true separate self.
But within that reality, there exist the *appearance* of distinction. And those appearances are still relevant. They still have their own unique makeup. Their distinct preferences.
This is where, from
my perspective, life becomes not a simple yes or no answer, but more
like a three-layered answer.
There’s the ultimate perspective. Then there’s the unique individuation. Then there’s the mental construct or ego level of identification.
The third layer, the
ego layer, is the one that I think is entirely illusory and that
humankind would be much better off getting rid of entirely.
But that still
leaves the unique individuation level. The level where life is seen
from the ultimate perspective but acknowledges the distinct
manifestations of that ultimate one.
And that’s where
it could be said that “free will” is not an entirely erroneous
concept.
If a unique
individuation has a desire, and the freedom to act upon that desire,
then for all intents and purposes that could be said to be a free
choice.
The issue is not so
much about answering a question definitively as it is about removing
set belief systems.
The belief in true
free will is problematic, just as the belief in no free will is
problematic. The question instead becomes “from what perspective
are you asking that question?”
Because the answer
differs depending on what perspective you’re asking the question
from.
So, do we have free
will? Yes and no. Does the self exist? Yes and no. Is this answer
going to satisfy you? Yes and no.
In love and light,
Will.
For more stories like this, including mental health, extraterrestrials, and spirituality, please subscribe to my blog, or follow my Facebook page “The Ostrich and the Elephant”, or find me on Twitter @willkenway, Medium @willkenway, or Instagram @will.kenway. Thanks!
Free will may be an illusion, but only because “you” are an illusion too
Update: I don’t fully agree with everything I’ve written here, and I gave a different perspective in my next post: “Enlightenment, The Ultimate Perspective”
During my undergraduate science degree, I became more and more interested in the big questions of life. What is the universe, how does it function, where does it all come from? I thought studying a science degree would be the best way to answer these questions. As I went along, however, I started to see that philosophy had just as crucial things to say in this matter as science did, so I became more interested in these matters as philosophical questions rather than just brute scientific “facts”.
The first big philosophical question I ran into was the one of free will, which we examined in my class, “Evolution and Human Behaviour”. You see, the more you look into the notion of free will, the harder it becomes to defend it. At least the type of free will most people are referring to when they think about free will: that is, there was a choice or action to be made and they could have acted differently than they did. This idea I will term “true free will” – that we make independent decisions based solely on what we want to do free of any constraints. There is another type of free will – a “relative” level of free will which also needs to be discussed, but as you’ll see it doesn’t give you the type of free will most people believe they have.
The first sledgehammer to my belief in free will came when we studied the famous Benjamin Libet experiments from the 1980s. In these experiments, Libet got people to do simple tasks – e.g. press one of two buttons or flex their wrists – and note the time they made the conscious decision to do so. While they were doing this they were hooked up to an EEG machine to record their brain activity. What Libet found was that he could predict, based on prior brain activity, what the person would do before they consciously made the decision to do it. This experiment has been repeated many times with different types of equipment, and the results all point the same way: in some cases what the person is going to do can be predicted a number of seconds prior to their conscious recognition of what they decided to do.
This is a big one. If our brains essentially operate by the laws governing our universe, albeit with a little quantum uncertainty (though it’s very sketchy to try and sneak free will in here), then none of our thoughts, none of our actions, none of anything about us can actually be claimed to be a truly free choice.
There are many ways to debunk the notion of true free will. There’s the laws of the universe argument stated above, there’s the gene-environment interaction which makes up literally everything we are in this moment, then there’s the more philosophical arguments, for example: you can’t choose what you desire, and your greatest desire will always win out (even if you try and trick the universe by doing something that is not your greatest desire to prove your own free will, that has then just become your greatest desire). Think about it: Have you ever done anything that was not your greatest desire unless you were forced to by someone else or by society’s expectations? When did you ever have two options in any moment, no matter how small it is, and went with the less desirable action. (If you think you can come up with one, let me know in the comments and I’ll explain why it was still, as far as you could tell in the moment, your greatest desire).
Let me throw out a bone though. Even though I think the lack of true free will is true, there’s still a “relative” level of free will as I stated, which, while not giving people the true free will they want, at least doesn’t completely negate the relevance of choice and deliberation. Even though there’s no true free will, choices and actions should still be undertaken as though there is such a thing as choice. It’s sort of a yes and no answer to the question of free will. Yes, from an absolute view the notion of true free will is, I maintain, not just unlikely but an impossibility, but down here at the relative level choices and actions still matter and we shouldn’t just become lazy thinking, “there’s no free will so what’s the point of doing anything.” That’s becoming fatalistic and taking the idea that there’s no free will too absolutely. Even if there’s no true free will, it’s still important to deliberate over choices, weigh up the options, act in the best way you know how. But when it’s all said and done, don’t take any pride or any shame in the outcome. You did the best you could given the conditions you found yourself in. In fact, in every single moment you have always done the best you could for where you were at, even if the outcome was horrible.
Now I will get down to the main reason I think true free will is an illusion. As many mystics and sages throughout the centuries have claimed, the self, or ego – the little homunculus pictured above, the little man or woman we think we have inside our heads thinking and making decisions – that itself is an illusion. In short, the self doesn’t exist. In reality, thoughts occur but there is no *thinker* in addition to the thoughts. Actions take place, but there’s no *actor* making them take place. Can you predict what your next thought will be, or do they just arise of their own accord? In order to predict what it would be, that would mean we would have to think the thoughts before we think them. Actions may appear to occur simultaneously with thought, e.g. a desire for coffee arises, then the thought, “I’ll go make some coffee”, and then the action of making coffee. Did you choose for the desire for coffee to arise, or did it just happen? And if there’s no other thoughts which say, “no I’ve had too much today I won’t make another one”, then coffee-making usually follows. All of these things can take place without there being a true thinker in addition to the thoughts or a true “do-er” in addition to the actions taking place.
This is not just a spiritual claim, however. As the neuroscientist Sam Harris points out, there’s no special place in your brain for the “self” to reside. There’s just a whole bunch of sense data being interpreted by your brain which then post-hoc decides on the idea that there is a self here, separate and distinct from everything around it. Here is a video of Sam discussing this illusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fajfkO_X0l0 (7 minutes)
There’s also a great and entertaining video by CollegeBinary on the philosophy of David Hume, who also came to the conclusion that the self is an illusion. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3QZ2Ko-FOg&t=89s (3 minutes)
A lot of people find these ideas depressing – both the illusion of free will and the illusion of self – but it really shouldn’t be, there’s a much greater perspective to be gained when these illusions are seen through. As the nonduality or “enlightenment” teacher Gary Weber said at the beginning of his book “Happiness Beyond Thought”: “The bad news is you don’t exist; the good news is you’re everything.”
This is what happens when you begin to “wake up”. When you begin to become “enlightened”. You begin to see through all the illusions your thoughts have created about the world and about yourself, and you see reality as it really is, rather than how human minds say it is.
This is what spiritual awakening really boils down to: it is simply a case of mistaken identity. We have taken ourselves to be these bodies/minds when in actual fact what we are – what everything is – is consciousness. And there is no true separation. This is why Gary Weber said the good news is you’re everything.
The American spiritual teacher Adyashanti put it another way (paraphrased): A lot of people don’t like this idea, they want to be in the driver’s seat. They think just sitting in the passenger seat watching everything would be boring. But that’s still clinging to the illusion of the self, just as a watcher. When you begin to realise, you are the steering wheel, you are the car, you are the scenery you’re passing by, you indeed are everything, it starts to become a lot more interesting.
The illusion of free will isn’t just a fanciful philosophical idea to consider though, it has very real world implications. When you begin to see that people are not absolutely responsible for their actions, compassion arises. You see everyone as a product of their genes and environment, and realise – if *you* were born with their genes and grew up in their environment, you would be exactly the same as them and have lived their exact life.
It also has profound implications for the notion of blame and punishment. From my perspective blame and punishment are antiquated notions which only still exist today because people believe in true free will and that people are solely responsible for their actions. The illusion of free will says they’re not. They are a product of their genes and their environment and their particular neurochemistry at the time they made any decisions. Which again, if you happened to be born with their genes and grew up in their environment, you would have made exactly the same choices they did. This isn’t to say people should not be put in jail for crimes – we need that in order to protect the public and act as a deterrent for others. But, I argue, we should stop short of blame and punishment. That is a misperception about the nature of reality.
There’s a story I love about how an African tribe has songs for each member of their tribe, and when one of their members does something wrong, they don’t punish them, they gather around and sing their song to them to remind them of who they truly are. If people who commit heinous acts are treated with compassion and understanding and forgiveness, while obviously still needing to protect the public from them, I believe the rate of heinous acts would decrease dramatically. Often those who commit heinous acts are actually those who most need compassion and understanding.
So what am I going to do now? Well, I’m going to have a cigarette. Why? Because I’ve had a very stressful year and I don’t yet have the willpower to quit. My desire for a cigarette outweighs my desire to quit smoking for the time being, as stupid as it is. I’m going to do my best to quit, but I won’t be able to until I’m able to. Until my desire to quit outweighs my desire to have a cigarette. Even though I know whatever happens could not have happened differently, I’m still going to try and exercise my “relative free will” and do my best to quit.
For more stories like this, including mental health, extraterrestrials, and spirituality, please subscribe to my blog, follow my Facebook page “The Ostrich and the Elephant”, or find me on Twitter @willkenway, Medium @willkenway, or Instagram @will.kenway. Thanks!
