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Chapter 4. What
it All Means
Understanding that our wills and our
reality are causal represents a new
stage of civilization. It’s hard to
think of a comparable shift in our
world. We went from thinking that
our world was flat to understanding
that our planet Earth is an orb. We
went from seeing ourselves as the
center of the solar system to
understanding that we are three
planets out from that center. But
while these understandings might
help with our astronomical model of
reality, and help us travel to the
moon and back, they don’t really
affect our personal day-to-day lives
and our lives as a civilization. As
we understand that free will is an
illusion, and that causality, or
cause and effect, is what determines
everything, we begin to understand
that it’s a paradigm shift in our
consciousness that is happening in
our overcoming this illusion of free
will. What will it mean to our
world? Naturally, we can only
predict, because, not having a free
will, we can’t compel ourselves, or
the universe, to unfold in any
certain way. Truth is generally a
better guide to what we do, and how
we do what we do, than illusion. I
predict that by our world overcoming
this illusion of free will, we’re
going to create a much more
pleasant, intelligent, and
compassionate world. When we
attribute free will to others and to
ourselves, we will tend to blame
others and ourselves for our
misgiving – for what we do wrong.
When we have a causal will
perspective, we understand that
we’re doing these things not because
we choose, but because the causal
past has compelled us to do them.
Correctly perceiving our wills as
causal can lead to greater
compassion and non-judgment.
Let’s now take a look at how this
correct understanding of human will
effects our global civilization.
Geo-political conflict between
nations is, in large part, based on
our illusion of free will. We say to
ourselves “people from other
countries have a free will, and they
are doing something we consider
threatening, so we are going to war
with them.” Our other option is for
us to say to ourselves “alright,
those other countries may be doing
what we consider threatening, and
not in our best interest, but wait a
minute. The actions of those people
from that country – the leaders, the
government, and the citizens – are
completely compelled. They don’t
have a free will.” From this
perspective, punishing an entire
country for what no one in that
country could have done any other
way doesn’t make sense. I have every
hope and expectation that our new
causal reality era will bring out
the best in us.
This book is about the illusion of
free will, and the reality of causal
will, but we should remember that
causality is not limited to human
will. Causality controls everything.
Consider the state of the universe
at this very moment in time. The
state of the universe at the
immediately prior moment in time was
what gave rise to it, and caused it
to be. The state of the universe at
each subsequent moment is completely
determined by its state at the
preceding moment. That is the most
objective, all-encompassing,
universal description of causality
possible. It relates to the entire
universe, state by state and moment
by moment. What we find is that we
don’t have free wills. We have
causal wills because reality isn’t
free; reality is causal. Reality
can’t decide to be one way or
another. It goes by certain laws and
the causal progression of events.
It’s important to realize that
causality extends beyond the human
will to all of reality. Our world is
very much like a movie. I don’t know
what you are doing right now besides
reading this, but whatever it is,
and whatever you did in the past,
and what you will do in the future,
is completely determined. It is not
up to you, and that is amazing.
What does this mean? It means that
the world is so much more
“wonderful” than we have believed it
to be. If we’ve been so completely
deluded about the nature of why we
do what we do, and about causality
as it relates to human will, and we
come to understand that our wills
are causal – that all is governed by
cause and effect – this new
understanding changes everything. It
makes reality far more wonderful
than it is under the free will
perspective. The free will
perspective just confuses everyone,
because it doesn’t make sense. Our
whole lives are based on a premise
that is wrong. Of course, we’re not
to blame for this. We didn’t choose
to be deluded in this way. We didn’t
choose to believe we have a free
will. That perspective was equally
compelled. The universe has
compelled us to believe that a
delusion is reality, and it seems
that the universe is now compelling
us to understand that free will is
not the reality; causal will is. I
came to this understanding several
decades ago, and it’s a fascinating
realization. To contemplate that
everything is a movie, and that
we’re just actors, may have an
element of unpleasantness, but that
unpleasantness just comes from our
ego. We have a part of ourselves
that says “I want to take credit for
what I do. I want it to be up to
me.” So, we give that up. We instead
see that there is no individual I;
there is a one. There is one
universe, and one reality that
proceeds from moment to moment in a
causal manner. That is what compels
us to do everything we do. It’s
amazing that we have for at least
two millennia fallen prey to this
illusion of free will.
One benefit that will likely result
from our overcoming this illusion is
that the world will become more
intelligent, and routinely exercise
greater intelligence. Seeing human
will as free is not intelligent.
There is absolutely no credible
evidence that we have a free will,
and there is conclusive, irrefutable
evidence that our wills are causal.
Our world needs to change. Just
considering global warming and the
2008 global economic meltdown, we
need to make great changes. As we
understand that our wills are causal
rather than free, these changes will
come about much more quickly and
intelligently. Overcoming the
illusion of free will appears to be
a great gift to humanity, and to the
other forms of life with whom we
share this Earth.
Many people who have held the belief
in free will are going to be
challenged. It’s a challenge on the
scale of creationism vs. evolution.
Many of us still believe that there
was and Adam and Eve, and that Eve
was created from the rib of Adam.
Scientifically, we don’t believe
that any more, but many people who
once believed that now understand
the overwhelming evidence against
such a creation story, and in favor
of evolution. Overcoming the
illusion of free will actually
represents a much more profound
challenge because it lies at the
heart of who we are. We have the
choice of seeing ourselves as gods
who are able to think whatever we
want at any time, or from the more
humbling perspective that we are
subjects. We’re like pawns on a
chessboard. We’re doing the will of
God, or the causal past. That’s
huge. We’re going from the guiding
philosophy that we have free will to
the guiding philosophy that
everything is causal; everything is
a movie, and we’re just playing out
our roles. It’s absolutely amazing.
As we go through our exploration,
we’ll get into all of this in
greater detail. We’re going to bring
physics, neuroscience, and
psychology, into this. There are
various ways to understand why free
will is impossible, and why both our
reality and our human will must be
causal, and we’ll go through them.
For now, let’s contemplate what this
means to us as a civilization and as
a humanity. I can’t think of a
question like this that has
confronted humanity in the past.
There was the Scopes Monkey trial
decades ago about creationism vs.
evolution, and that caught the
attention of the international
media. But, years later, that issue
is rarely talked about. This
question of human will is capturing
our attention as one of the
fundamental questions and issues of
our time. I’m not going to say it is
a valid question, because the
evidence against free will is so
solid and compelling that it would
not be truthful to present the
matter as unresolved, at least
objectively. In other words, if our
world was debating between whether
two plus two equals four, or two
plus two equals five, that’s not
much of a debate. But to many
people, the truth about our human
wills will be a revelation. It is
incumbent upon those of us who
understand the causal nature of our
will to help others understand this
better. We should mitigate the fears
people may have, and address
people’s misgivings about giving up
their presumed god-like power to
believe and think, and feel, what
they want, regardless of anything.
Let’s talk about criminal justice.
This is extremely important. Anyone
who has ever been imprisoned, or who
is in jail or prison now, is in an
important sense being punished
wrongly. If somebody forced you to
do something, and I mean absolutely
forced you to the extent that you
had no choice in the matter, is it
morally right and just for you to be
punished for this act that you
absolutely had no choice but to do?
Our jails and prisons are filled
with people who are suffering that
fate. This is, of course, not our
fault, because we don’t have the
free will to have overcome the
illusion of free will, and treated
them more compassionately and
intelligently in the past. But, it’s
something we should recognize. Some
of us will immediately ask, “Are you
suggesting we give up laws and rules
and order?” No, I’m not suggesting
that. I’m asking, “How would you
like to be in jail or prison being
punished for something you were
absolutely compelled to do?” What’s
the answer? Naturally, part of it is
that we, as a people, have to be
protected from each other and
ourselves. If somebody is going
around doing what is hurtful to
themselves or others, certainly we
need to take steps to prevent that
kind of behavior. The greatest good
for the greatest number is a
philosophy we cherish, and that
forms the basis of our democracies.
By understanding that we don’t have
a free will, we can catch those of
us who would eventually turn to
crime in their later years when they
are very young, and condition them
to not go that route.
We now have many people in jail and
prison for what they had no choice
but to do. Transcending the illusion
of free will is about how we are
going to treat them. It seems quite
wrong to punish them in retribution.
There is the issue of punishment as
a deterrent. Punishment will, in
many cases, prevent others from
committing crimes, but my guess is
that as we understand that our wills
are causal and not free, we will
perhaps separate those of us who
need to be separated from society
for whatever reason, for their own
sake as well as for the sake of the
rest of us, but we’ll do it without
that sense of retribution. We’ll do
it without judgment or blame. Two
hundred years ago in the United
States, our criminal justice system
was more about penitence. That’s why
our prisons were called
penitentiaries and reformatories.
Criminal justice back then was more
about showing a person the error of
their ways, but not through
punishment as much as through
relatively benign correction. We’ve
gone from that kind of system to one
that punishes according to the
notion of “just deserts.” They did
something evil, which makes them
evil, so we’re just in making them
suffer.
God willing, once we are able to
reform our criminal justice system,
those of us who would otherwise
resort to crimes that hurt our
society and ourselves would probably
be far less likely to do so.
Criminals often commit their crimes
as a direct result of ascribing free
will to another person. They say
“this person freely hurt me, so I’m
going to hurt them back.” Our
criminal justice system is an area
of civilization and society that
this truth of our causal will
relates to very directly from a
moral perspective, and also from the
perspective of alleviating
unnecessary suffering. Our awakening
to the reality that our world and
our human will is causal is
revolutionary. We will create what
in many ways will amount to a brand
new world. I don’t know how long
this might take, and to be
completely honest, I don’t know if
it will happen. If we don’t have
free wills, we can’t know for sure
whether the causal past will lead us
to understand that it, and not us,
is really responsible for
everything. But, from all of the
evidence – our education, our
development as a species, our
becoming more intelligent and
evolved – it seems this is clearly
the way we are going. We’re moving
into an era where we will all very
likely understand all of this. Some
talk about the dumbing down of
America – how somehow we’ve become
stupid. The nature of human will is
the kind of issue and question that
can reawaken our intellect, and
thereby help us all.
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