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Let’s explore how
the unsolicited participation of our
unconscious makes free will
impossible. But before we begin, I
want to just talk a bit about why
I’m doing this show, and what the
relevance of this topic is to our
lives – both personally and
globally.
Presumably, even
before civilization we’ve had this
idea that what we decide is
completely up to us. This is what
we refer to as free will. Our will,
or volition, would be free of
factors, and events, and
circumstances that would otherwise
compel our behavior. Upon
examination, since as early as Greek
times, it has been understood
rationally that this idea of a will
free of those factors is basically
impossible. We’ve explored into
that in earlier episodes, and now
we’ll get into it more now as it
relates to our unconscious.
The truth is that
we have a causal will. Having a
causal will means that our volition
– what we decide, how we decide, and
our every action, thought, feeling –
is caused by events and
circumstances that reside in the
past. Our volition is caused by our
genes, our personality, our past
learning, our upbringing, our
experiences, and, in this case, the
unconscious.
I just got back
from a break after having taped two
episodes earlier today, and my
choice, which I went into in one of
those shows, was whether to go to
the library to browse through some
books on Egyptian art, or go to the
mall for some coffee. Well, I
actually did both. The funny thing
is that I don’t
generally drink
caffeine. I just don’t for whatever
reason. But I was feeling a bit
tired earlier today, so I decided to
drink a cup of regular coffee rather
than decaf. I notice as I’m talking
that I’m feeling it. I’m feeling
the effect of the caffeine, which is
really another kind of demonstration
of my will not being free. If I
tried to talk in a way that would
not reflect the effect of the
caffeine, it would pretty
impossible.
The reason I’m
doing this show is that hopefully by
transcending the illusion of free
will, we can create a kinder, more
compassionate, understanding, and
intelligent world. Let’s consider a
toddler. The toddler does something
“wrong” like spilling a glass, or
whatever. We usually say to
ourselves that the toddler couldn’t
have known or done any differently.
We done blame the toddler, and hold
her or him innocent because a
toddler would generally not know any
better. We don’t ascribe free will
to a toddler. This, of course,
applies even more to an infant. As
a result, we treat the infant with
much more understanding and
compassion. When we apply that same
understanding about infants to
others and to ourselves,
acknowledging that even as adults we
don’t have any more of a free will
than a child would at six months,
then we can create a world that is
much more pleasant for everyone.
In this episode,
we’re going to explore how our
unconscious, which we all have, is
constantly involved in every
decision we make. We can’t avoid
this influence; its participation is
unsolicited. We don’t ask our
unconscious to work. In fact, the
reason we term the unconscious the
unconscious is that we’re literally
not conscious of it.
We’ve determined
we have an unconscious through
various indirect means, some of
which I’ll go into later in the
program. But this unconscious never
sleeps. It is always active,
retains all of our memories – what
we’ve learned – and it takes part
in every decision we make.
In science and
reason, there is the principle of
causality. Nothing is uncaused. If
something happens, there is always a
reason, or a cause, (or causes) for
it to happen. There is also a
principle in science and philosophy
of sufficient and necessary
cause. For example, if I want to
lift the table in front of me, I
might grab it with my right hand,
and lift it. The cause of the table
rising would, therefore, be my right
hand and arm lifting it. But, let’s
say that while I’m reaching for it
with my right arm, and I’m also
reaching for it with my left arm,
and I lift it with both arms and
hands. In that case, I can no
longer say that my right hand was
the sufficient and necessary cause
of the table rising. The left hand
was also involved in the lifting.
So, it is actually a combination of
these two causes that results in the
table rising.
Let’s now apply
this principle and reasoning to the
unconscious. Let’s say your right
arm and hand represent our conscious
mind. It says, “I’m going to decide
to lift this table.” But your left
arm and hand is our unconscious.
Again, we are not even perceptually
aware of it in real-time, but it is
always active. It takes part in our
every decision. Consider also that
even if our unconscious were not
taking part in every single decision
we make, we could never know with
any degree of certainty whether or
not it was participating in any
given decision.
Actually, the
truer and more precise reality – and
we’re going to get into this in
future episodes -- is that although
our conscious mind believes it is
making the decision to lift the
table, it is actually our
unconscious mind that is making that
decision, and allowing our conscious
mind to be aware of the decision.
If the conscious
mind and the unconscious mind are
involved in the decision to lift the
table, we cannot say that the
decision was consciously and freely
made. We cannot say that the
decision was free of the
participation, in this case, of the
unconscious. If our unconscious
never sleeps, and our conscious mind
simply ceases to be conscious during
sleep, our dreams must all originate
at the level of the unconscious.
Our unconscious occasionally allows
our conscious mind in on the content
of what it has dreamed.
How do we know we
have an unconscious? How do we know
that this unconscious is actually
making the decisions that we ascribe
to our conscious mind? One way is
through hypnosis, and what is known
as post-hypnotic suggestion.
Scientific medical hypnosis has been
around for over 200 years. You can
hypnotize a person, and when they’re
in that hypnotic state, you can give
them the post-hypnotic suggestion
that when they wake up, they will do
something.
For example, you
might tell the hypnotized person
that when the phone rings, they’re
going to get up from their chair,
get on their hands and knees, and
crawl a few paces. This is not just
theory; this is fact. Psychologists
have done the experiment. What
happens is that the subject hears
the phone ring, and crawls on
her/his hands and knees in
fulfillment of the post-hypnotic
suggestion. How does this relate to
the question of whether or not we
have a free will, and whether the
unconscious mind really is an
unsolicited participator in thoughts
we ascribe to a freely willing
conscious mind?
Well, the
psychologists then ask the subject
“What are you doing?” The subject
may respond with something to the
effect that they are just admiring
the pattern on the carpet, which
they say they find beautiful. Or
they might say “I don’t know; I just
felt the need to stretch a bit.”
The idea is that the subject will
make up a reason that they think is
the actual reason they chose to get
up from the chair and crawl on their
hands and knees. That is a perfect
example of how the unconscious
exists, and actually makes decisions
for the person.
Priming is a hot
and intriguing area of research.
John Bargh, a Yale University
professor, has done important work
with this. Priming is similar to
hypnosis, but the subject is
completely awake. In one
experiment, there are two groups –
the target group and a control
group. The target group is asked to
take some words and make sentences
with them. They are given the words
“bingo,” “gray,” “cane,” and other
words that connote being old, or the
concept “elderly.” The control
group is given arbitrary words that
do not have any strong or implicit
connotation.
The subjects from
both groups complete the task, and
they think that the experiment is
over. But, it is not, because
during the last part of the
experiment they are observed walking
from the experimental area to the
elevators to leave the building.
The curious thing is that the target
groups that had been primed with
words connoting elderly walk more
slowly to the elevators than do the
control groups.
Naturally, that
tells you that the target group is
consciously walking to the elevator,
but their unconscious mind is
participating in how they perform
that decision. This is a perfect
example of the collaboration that
takes place between conscious and
unconscious activity, completely
hidden from the subjects of the
experiment. The subjects are not
aware that the priming is the reason
they are walking more slowly.
There’s another
priming experiment that demonstrates
this quite interestingly. It’s the
same kind of word task as in the
“elderly” experiment. The target
group is given words like “rude,”
“abrupt,” “impolite,” and “hasty.”
The second target group is given
words like “polite,” “respectful,”
and “patient.” As, with the other
experiment, the subjects in both
groups think that they have
completed the experiment by doing
the word task. They are told that
when they are done with the task,
they should go to a nearby
colleague, and hand them their
completed task. They do that, but
the colleague is a part of, -- a
cohort in -- this experiment. The
colleague has been instructed to be
engaged in dialogue with a third
cohort for ten minutes.
What happens is
that the subjects in the experiment
generally want to wait until this
conversation is over so as not to
interrupt. What the experimenters
find is that the subjects in the
group that had been primed with
words like rude and abrupt tended to
interrupt the cohorts’ conversation
sooner than did the subjects who had
been primed with words like polite
and patient. The second part of
this experiment demonstrates that
these kinds of decisions that we
attribute to our free will – that we
think we’re making completely on our
own – are actually made at the level
of the unconscious.
The subjects are
then asked why they waited as long,
or as short, as they did before
interrupting. Again, very
curiously, the subjects invent
reasons. “Well, I’ve always been
taught to wait until somebody is
done with the conversation,” or “I
don’t know; I just felt like it.”
They will invent reasons, but none
of the subjects in either group are
aware that what determined, in part,
the time it took them to interrupt
was the priming.
There are many
experiments that demonstrate how the
unconscious is actually making the
decisions that we generally
attribute to our conscious mind.
There is another kind of experiment
that I want to go into in great
detail on another show. It
demonstrates this decision-making at
the unconscious level far more
clearly and strongly. I won’t
describe it fully now, but the idea
is that the experimenters will hook
up their subjects to imaging
machines like electroencephalograms
(EEGs) and functional Magnetic
Resonance Imagers, (fMRIs)that
measure brain activity and EMGs, (electromyograms)
that measure muscle activity.
It turns out that
before the conscious mind is aware
of its decision – in these
experiments a simple motor movement
like flexing a finger – the
unconscious has already made the
decision. Recent experiments, in
fact, have detected decision-related
activity in the unconscious as far
back as ten seconds before the act.
So, we have this unconscious that’s
either taking part in whatever
decisions we make, as in the
table-lifting example, or making the
decision entirely, as with the
imaging case.
Before Freud and
the mesmerists did their experiments
with hypnosis, there wasn’t a way to
empirically demonstrate that we
humans have an unconscious. Now,
the results are irrefutable that we
do. When you think about the
unconscious, think about all that is
happening in your body – your heart
beating, your organs functioning,
your lungs breathing in and out.
All of this is part of the autonomic
nervous system, which basically
doesn’t rely on our conscious
direction. In other words, we don’t
have to think about it; it basically
works on its own. Actually, that is
another way of understanding the
pervasive role that the unconscious
has in not just our decisions, but
also on our basic biological makeup
and functioning. Because we have
this unconscious that is always
awake and active, we can never claim
to any degree nearing even 50
percent certainty that we make
decisions that the unconscious takes
no part in at all. Such claims are
also mistaken because, again, we are
not even aware of our unconscious
mind in real-time.
Another way to
understand how this unconscious
participation works is through mood
and feelings. If it’s overcast or
raining, we will feel differently
than on a bright, sunny, and warm
day, and that difference will lead
to different decisions. There are
many other ways to understand how
and why free will is impossible, but
even if we leave aside causality as
the fundamental process of the
universe that nothing escapes, and
even if we don’t consider the
hedonic, moral and other
imperatives, and even if we don’t
consider the effects of our
upbringing and past experience, and
we simply consider that we all have
an unconscious that is constantly at
work, then we can understand why
free will is impossible.
It’s mind
boggling that our civilization has
been under this delusion of free
will for millennia. If we’re so
fated, and the causal past and our
unconscious determine that we’re
going to wake up from, and
transcend, this illusion of free
will, that means that we will have
evolved a distinctly new
consciousness, and an entirely new
way of perceiving our reality and
ourselves. That is a huge step in
evolution.
My prediction is
that as we make that transition from
our illusion of free will to the
understanding that everything is
causal, we will create a much more
pleasant, compassionate,
understanding, and wonderful world.
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