EXPLORING THE ILLUSION OF FREE WILL 
 
 

George Ortega,
Producer

Nick Vale

Chandler Klebs

Nomi

Creating a world without blame and guilt

The world's first, and already successful*  initiative, including two TV shows, to popularize the refutation of free will 

*How it happened 

Our World's top four minds, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein each rejected the notion of a human free will.

John Searle, the13th ranked post-1900 philosopher, says that our world overcoming the free will 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." 

The Washington Post, The New York Times, Psychology Today, Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, USA Today, The Telegraph, Time Magazine, Scientific American, NPR Radio, The Economist, and Science Magazine  all affirm that free will is an illusion.


DOWNLOADS:
PDF of EXPLORING THE ILLUSION OF FREE WILL, SECOND EDITION and PDF of FREE WILL - MOVING BEYOND THE ILLUSION: SCREENPLAY FOR A DOCUMENTARY BY George Ortega

 

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will is two TV shows - WHITE PLAINS NY TV and NYC LIVE CALL-IN TV,  several books - Mine and  Enel's,  and Chandler's one meetup - NYC, this website, Internet video and audio -  YOU TUBE  iTUNES AUDIO PODCAST  PUBLIC DOMAIN VIDEOS & MP3s, and a blog - EXOGENOUS AGENCY

 
Quick Links to the YouTube Episodes: 01-10  11-20  21-30  31-40  41-50  51-60  61-70  71-80  81-90 91-100  101-110  111-120  121-130  131-140  141-150  151-160  161-170  171-180  181-190  191-200  201-210  211-216
 

Quick Links to the 2013 Exploring the Illusion of Free Will, 2nd Edition Chapters: ( by titleIntro. to 2011 edition  Intro. to 2013 digital edition 1  (2 omitted)  3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   Epilogue  Books Refuting Free Will...

 

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Free Will Refutations in Major Publications

 

Free Will Refuted in the Blogs

 

Free Will Refuted on YouTube

 

Recent books for the public and academia refuting free will

 

Edited and Revised Transcripts of the First Eighteen Episodes

 

Quotes Disaffirming Free Will and Affirming Determinism by the Famous

 

Absurd Free Will Defenses by Major Institutions and Publications Who Should Know Better

 

Claiming credit for public awareness that free will is an illusion

 
 

More Featured Episodes

10. Why Change as the basic Universal Process Makes Free Will Impossible

13. Overcoming Blame, Guilt, Envy and Arrogance by Overcoming the Illusion of Free Will

16. Overcoming the Illusion of Free Will as an Evolutionary Leap in Human Consciousness

17. Revitalizing Religion through Transcending the Illusion of Free Will

26. Because Essential Elements of Every Decision are Stored in Our Unconscious, Free Will is Impossible.

38. The Messenger and I Have Evolved Human Consciousness

50. Freud Popularized the Unconscious.  Ortega is Popularizing Unconscious Will

60. Ten Ways to Refute Free Will

 
 

Landmark Coverage Refuting Free Will

 

USA Today - "Why you don't really have free will by Jerry Coyne January 1, 2012

"The debate about free will, long the purview of philosophers alone, has been given new life by scientists, especially neuroscientists studying how the brain works. And what they're finding supports the idea that free will is a complete illusion."


Time Magazine - "Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again" by Eben Harrell July 2, 2010

"In an intriguing review in the July 2 edition of the journal Science, published online Thursday, Ruud Custers and Henk Aarts of Utrecht University in the Netherlands lay out the mounting evidence of the power of what they term the 'unconscious will.'...John Bargh of Yale University, who 10 years ago predicted many of the findings discussed by Custers and Aarts in a paper entitled "The Unbearable Automaticity of Being," called the Science paper a "landmark — nothing like this has been in Science before."


The New York Times - "Your Move: The Maze of Free Will" by Galen Strawson July 22, 2010

"Some people think that quantum mechanics shows that determinism is false, and so holds out a hope that we can be ultimately responsible for what we do. But even if quantum mechanics had shown that determinism is false (it hasn’t), the question would remain: how can indeterminism, objective randomness, help in any way whatever to make you responsible for your actions? The answer to this question is easy. It can’t."

The Atlantic - "The Brain on Trial" by David Eagleman July/August 2011

"In modern science, it is difficult to find the gap into which to slip free will—the uncaused causer—because there seems to be no part of the machinery that does not follow in a causal relationship from the other parts."

The Telegraph - "Neuroscience, free will and determinism: 'I'm just a machine'" by Tom Chivers October 12, 2010

"The philosophical definition of free will uses the phrase 'could have done otherwise'... "As a neuroscientist, you've got to be a determinist. There are physical laws, which the electrical and chemical events in the brain obey. Under identical circumstances, you couldn't have done otherwise; there's no 'I' which can say 'I want to do otherwise'."


The Guardian - "Guilty but not responsible?" by Rosiland English May 29, 2012

"The discovery that humans possess a determined will has profound implications for moral responsibility. Indeed, Harris is even critical of the idea that free will is "intuitive": he says careful introspection can cast doubt on free will. In an earlier book on morality, Harris argues 'Thoughts simply arise in the brain. What else could they do? The truth about us is even stranger than we may suppose: The illusion of free will is itself an illusion'"


Psychology Today - "Free Will Is an Illusion, So What?" by

If you think carefully about any decision you have made in the past, you will recognize that all of them were ultimately based on similar—genetic or social—inputs to which you had been exposed. And you will also discover that you had no control over these inputs, which means that you had no free will in taking the decisions you did.

Complete List

 
 


A brief history of determined vs. free will ideas

Cause and Effect – At about the 5th century BC, in his work On the Mind, the Greek Philosopher Leucippus penned the earliest known universal statement describing what we today understand as determinism, or the law of cause and effect

“Nothing happens at random, but everything for a reason and by necessity.”

Human Will – The concepts of will and free will are actually Christian in orgin. It was Saint Paul in his Letter to the Romans, which is dated at about 58 A.D., who first discovered this thing we call human will. He came to it by recognizing that he could not often do as much right as he wanted. Saint Paul wrote in Romans 7:15 that:

“I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can’t.” I do what I don’t want to – what I hate.” (Translation – The Living Bible)

Free Will -- Nothing new was said on the matter for the next few hundred years until St. Augustine grappled with the concepts of evil and justice. Saint Augustine wrote in his book De Libero Arbitrio, 386-395 A.D., (translated as “On Free Will”)

“Evil deeds are punished by the justice of God. They would not be punished justly if they had not been performed voluntarily.”

The problem he saw was that if human beings do not have a free will, it would be unfair for God to arbitrarily reward or punish us. St. Augustine concluded that God could not be unfair, and so he created the concept of a human free will, whereby we earn our reward or punishment by what we freely do.

Scientific concepts relating to the determined will vs. free will question

Classical Mechanics -- In 1687 Sir Isaac Newton publishes his “Laws of Motions” that mathematically describes the physical universe as acting in a mechanistic manner according to the principle of cause and effect.

Classical Mechanics is a completely deterministic theory

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle -- In 1925 Warner Heisenberg describes mathematically that…

We can measure the position of a particle or the momentum of a particle (momentum meaning its direction and velocity), but we cannot simultaneously measure the position and momentum of a particle.

Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics -- Niels Bohr and others make the following assertions;

1) Particles do not have a simultaneous position and momentum.

2) Elementary particles behave indeterministically, and are not subject to the principle of cause and effect.

Believers in free will saw the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics as providing a possibility for free will to exist. They asserted that if elementary particles behave indeterministically, they are not subject to the principle of cause and effect that prohibits free will.

But, as noted above, it eventually became apparent that indeterminism also prohibits free will.

 

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will, 2nd Edition Chapters

Intro. to the 2011 1st. edition 

Intro. to the 2013 2nd. edition (digital version)

1 How I came to see my causal will

2 Proving causal will in real time (omitted)

3 Morality within a causal will perspective

4 What it all means

5 We Do Not "Experience" Free Will

6 How the Hedonic Imperative Makes Free Will Impossible

7 How the Unsolicited Participation of the Unconscious Makes Free Will Impossible

8 Asking When a Child Gains it Illuminates the Incoherence of the Concept "Free Will"

9 Overcoming our Reluctance to Overcome the Illusion of Free Will

10 Why Change as the Basic Universal Process Makes Free Will Impossible

11 The Absurdity of Varying Degrees of Free Will

12 Why the Concept of Free Will is Incoherent

13 Overcoming Blame, Guilt, Envy and Arrogance by Overcoming the Illusion of Free Will

14 Why Both Causality and Randomness Make Free Will Impossible

15 Why Frankfurt's “Second Order Desires” Do Not Allow for a Free Will

16 Overcoming the Illusion of Free Will as an Evolutionary Leap in Human Consciousness

17 Revitalizing Religion through Transcending the Illusion of Free Will

18 Why Humans Cannot Circumvent Natural Law to Gain a Free Wil
l

Epilogue: How Refuting Free Will Went From  Academia to the Public Spotlight – with hyperlinked  articles in major publications – 2004-2012

Books Refuting Free Will and  Fundamental Moral Responsibility
 

 

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Chapters of the 2013 Exploring the Illusion of Free Will, Second Edition

 

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.

Next chapter

 

 List of Chapters

 
Intro. to 2011 edition  Intro. to 2013 digital edition 1  (2 omitted)  3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   Epilogue  Books Refuting Free Will...


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