Chapter 16.
Overcoming the Illusion of Free Will
as an Evolutionary Leap in Human
Consciousness
We humans have been around for a few
million years. We’ve gone through
some evolution during that time.
We’ve gotten taller, we walk more
upright, we’re more intelligent, our
brains are bigger, we’ve lost some
hair, etc. As our human physiology
has evolved, so has our mind. Over
the last couple of millennia, for
example, we had wildly erroneous
notions about women. The notion that
women are incompetent and
unintelligent as compared with men
still survives to some extent even
today. In Judaism there was once a
law forbidding the teaching of the
Torah, or Jewish law and wisdom, to
women because male Jewish leaders
were afraid that women would corrupt
the teachings. Our minds have
evolved in terms of how we see each
other and ourselves. As part of this
evolution, we’re gaining a better
understanding of who we are within
this universe. Hundreds of years
ago, we thought that the Earth was
the center of the solar system, and
the center of the universe. We now
know that we’re living on a tiny
planet within one of billions of
galaxies in this immense reality. We
cannot even logically or
scientifically discern whether our
reality is infinite and eternal, or
not. We’ve come to understand our
place better in this universe, and
we’ve learned to better get along
with each other. We’ve learned to
form societies. We can generally
walk around without carrying
weapons. We trust each other, and
have a created a civilization.
However, our world definitely has
problems, and many of them stem from
the way we see each other and
ourselves – from how we perceive our
human will. This notion that we have
a free will – that our decisions are
completely up to us – is the premise
for our legal system of holding
people accountable. It labels
criminals as bad, and therefore
deserving of punishment. Free will
also forms the premise and
foundation of our socio-economic
system of rewards and punishments.
If someone does something that we
consider good, we say to ourselves
that they did it of their own free
will, and deserve a greater reward
than someone who did not, or could
not, do such a deed. The notion and
illusion of free will also affects
our relationship with the people
closest to us, and our relationship
with ourselves. We were made
imperfect in many ways. This free
will illusion aside, we have faults,
and flaws. We get things wrong.
We’re far from perfect. If we did
have a free will, who among us
wouldn’t choose to be completely
good all of the time? But, we don’t
have a free will, and because of
that act against each other, doing
what we unfortunately can’t but do.
The irony here is that until now,
the universe has had us ascribe
accountability to each other and
ourselves. That kind of attribution
often leads to conflict, aggression,
and hostility. It leads to vengeance
and revenge. It leads to
indictments. I’m taping this episode
a couple of days after the U.S.
killed Osama bin Laden. Some people
celebrated in the streets, partly
because of their prediction that the
world would become safer, but also
partly from a free will-based
vengeful attitude. Our desire for
retribution is pervasive. To the
extent we believe we have a free
will, we will treat others and
ourselves differently than we would
under a causal, or unconscious will
perspective. The idea of forgiveness
is common to all major religions. We
understand that everyone is
imperfect, so we forgive. Forgiving
derives from the recognition that
the person could not have done any
better – that the person is human,
and flawed. Forgiveness is done from
virtue. You are a good person if you
forgive, but you don’t necessarily
have to do so. When you understand
that free will is an illusion, there
is nothing to forgive because there
is no reason for indictment to begin
with.
The notion of free will is the
foundation of our civilization, and
of our personal lives. What would
our world be like if we were to
overcome this illusion? Under the
free will illusion, we do something
good and “hey, we’re great! We’re
better than other people!” We become
arrogant. We compare ourselves with
others. We think we’re special. That
self-attribution separates others
from us, and separates us from
others. Such comparison creates a
barrier between people. When we do
something wrong, we blame ourselves.
We often conclude that because we
did something bad, we deserve to
suffer. We deserve to be punished.
Very often, we’ll punish ourselves
through feeling the self-inflicted
pain of guilt. I’m not asserting
that we should overcome our
conscience, because certainly our
understanding of right and wrong is
good and necessary. But the idea
that because we did something wrong,
we deserve punishment is our current
understanding, and as we transcend
this illusion of free will, we can
expect to become much kinder to
ourselves. As we overcome the
illusion of free will, we will also
become more humble. We won’t see
ourselves as better than others. We
might have a better skill, or might
be able to do something better, but
it’s not up to us anyway. It’s
completely fated. It’s just how God,
or the universe, is using us.
Let’s also go through envy. When we
see other people do something really
well, we might envy them. We might
say to ourselves “wow, these people
are so much better than we are.”
This conclusion is derived from the
illusion of free will. We say that
because they freely choose to do
whatever they did, they deserve the
credit, and are better because of
it. The problem with that attitude
is that it often demeans and
devalues us. As we transcend the
illusion of free will, we restore
egalitarianism, and true equality,
to all of us. Some of us may be
luckier in certain ways than
everyone else, but such luck is in
no way attributable to their having
a free will. In relating to our
family and friends, often conflicts
happen because we ascribe free will
to others. If someone does something
we deem inconsiderate, we blame him
or her. If someone is doing
something disturbing, we’ll
sometimes say to ourselves “this
person is evil, or bad.” When we
take that attitude, naturally, they
get defensive, and the situation is
ripe for conflict. That’s the
problem with ascribing free will to
others. When we recognize that we
don’t have a free will, and that
free will is an illusion, when
someone does something wrong, or
inconsiderate, we may have reason to
become upset that the universe has
caused that to happen, but we won’t
be upset at the person. We’ll
recognize that the person had no
choice but to be the way they were,
and do what they did. That’s how
fate made them act. To the extent
that we hold that perspective, we
maintain better relationships with
each other. I think you now
understand why the illusion of free
will is harmful, and how overcoming
it can be very helpful to our lives.
Let’s now explore what overcoming
the illusion of free will means to
our world, and why I describe this
as an evolutionary leap.
We have the basic, fundamental fact
about human will completely wrong.
We’re ascribing authorship to
ourselves when we’re really just the
actors. To the extent that we get
the nature of our human will right,
our whole psychology will change.
Our consciousness will change. It
feels surreal to know that this life
is really a movie, and that
everything that is happening because
it is compelled to happen, and that
we’re just going along for the ride.
We’re experiencing life rather than
freely making the decisions that
make it happen. Consider our global
criminal justice system. There are
many, many people in jails and
prisons all over the world, and the
sad truth is that they are as
innocent as the most innocent of us.
They were completely compelled to do
what they did. They had absolutely
no free choice in the matter.
Naturally, we will need to maintain
law and order in the world. We can’t
have us simply do whatever we want
to do, but to the extent that we
transcend the illusion of free will,
we will be seeing others and
ourselves, and others will see
themselves and us, in a completely
different way. When a police
officer, or a judge, or we, as
society, look at someone who has
done something wrong, we’re not
going to say, “That person’s evil,
and deserves to be punished and
suffer.” We’re going to instead say,
“It’s very unfortunate that the
person was fated to do something
wrong,” and we may have to take
certain measures, like separating
that person from society. But when
we’re relating to that person, we’re
not going to be condemning them, and
they will understand that whatever
they did was not their fault.
Remember that much of the pain that
arises from the illusion of free
will comes from self-blame. Our
criminal justice system would be
dramatically changed for the better,
and we would be creating a much more
compassionate world by overcoming
the illusion of free will. Religion
will also change profoundly.
Again, the concept of free will was
coined by Augustine sometime around
380 A.D. He wrote a book back then
called De Libero Arbitrio,
which is Latin for “on free will.”
He was grappling with the notion of
evil. Since according to the
Judeo-Christian tradition, God is
believed to be omni-benevolent, or
all good, he was considering the
question “How can there be evil in
the world?” His answer was that if
it’s not God’s fault, it has to be
our fault. The foundation for most
religions, and especially the
condemning of people to hell or the
rewarding of people with heaven,
depends on the notion of free will.
That’s something that will have to
change. No longer can religion
rightly call a person evil. We might
refer to an act as evil, but the
person will always be recognized and
understood as innocent. Once that
happens, it’s no longer justifiable
to have the belief that some of us
go to heaven, while everyone else
goes to hell. That paradigm no
longer makes sense. God willing,
we’ll adapt the belief that we all
go to heaven. In truth, we don’t
know what, if anything, happens
after we die, and the belief that we
all go to heaven seems the kindest,
and most optimistic, belief
available to us. Our educational
system will also change because, at
present, we don’t teach our children
to be as happy and as good as
possible. With the notion of free
will comes the correlate that it
doesn’t really matter what we teach
them about goodness and happiness.
Those of us who buy into the myth of
free will conclude that when our
children grow older, they can
completely ignore our teaching
through their free will. To the
extent that we understand that our
human will is causal, and
unconscious, and that free will is
an illusion, we’ll understand how
important it is to spend the proper
resources to educate our children in
the best way. What we communicate to
them is what they will express as
adults.
The evidence demonstrating that we
don’t have a free will is
accumulating in the sciences, like
neuroscience and psychology. In
philosophy the logical arguments
against free will – causality and
the unconscious – have been
understood since the time of the
Greeks. Overcoming the illusion of
free will is likely to come in
stages. A milestone happened in
April, 2011 when the weekly science
magazine New Scientist
published a cover story on the
nature of human will titled “Free
Will; the illusion we can’t live
without.” One reason this is a
milestone is that in the past
magazines almost never covered free
will, and never before through a
cover story. The piece understands
and asserts the fact that free will
is an illusion. What will likely
happen is that more of those kinds
of articles will be published,
initially in science magazines like
Scientific American and
Psychology Today. We’ll then
begin to think about the matter
more. We’ll begin to understand how
it relates to our personal lives. As
we come to understand that free will
is an illusion, this new and
revolutionary truth will find its
way into the more popular magazine,
into our legal system, and into our
educational system.
In our educational system today, we
teach students that human behavior
is the complete result of nature and
nurture, but we don’t ever go beyond
that. We don’t say that because of
that, we don’t have a free will.
But, as we begin to understand our
causal, unconscious human will, this
new perspective will become the
standard teaching. It will be the
way our children, and the rest of
us, are taught. What will be the
outcome? On a personal level, when
two people are having some kind of
disagreement, it’s not going to take
the form of competition. They are
not going to be in conflict – one
against the other. They will both be
on the same side, trying to figure
out why fate is pitting them against
each other – why fate is having one
aggress against the other. As all of
this takes place, there will be a
profound and substantial change in
our human consciousness. I start
each show with a quote from
philosopher John Searle, who says
that for free will to be understood
as an illusion would be “a bigger
revolution in our thinking than
Einstein, or Copernicus, or Newton,
or Galileo, or Darwin. It would
alter our whole conception of our
relation with the universe.” It
will, in fact, be the most
significant world change ever. The
purpose of life isn’t to understand
that we don’t have a free will. But
understanding this has its utility
in helping us create a happier
world. Ultimately as we become more
aware of our lack of free will, and
start structuring our societies and
world based on that understanding,
we’ll recognize that happiness is
the main goal of our life. That may
be a second kind of evolutionary
shift in our consciousness and our
world.
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