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Chapter 9.
Overcoming Our Reluctance to
Overcome the Illusion of Free Will
Let’s work on overcoming our
reluctance to overcome the illusion
of free will. Often, we’ll
understand the logic and reason of
why we don’t have a free will, but
we enjoy having a free will. It’s
something we’re preconditioned to
like; it is not our choice. We’re
hedonic creatures, and we’re
programmed to believe and cherish
the notion that we have a free will.
Before we get into this, let’s
briefly go over the purpose of this
book, and a definition of free will
and its alternative, the reality of
our predetermined, and unconscious,
will. The reason this book is
important is that the illusion of
free will causes much unnecessary
harm. Consider that a two-year-old
does something wrong. We don’t
ascribe free will to that
two-year-old, and because of that,
we will treat him or her with
understanding. We’ll say to
ourselves, “a two-year-old could not
have helped him or herself.” But
when it comes to older children and
adults, we say, “You did this of
your own free will, and you deserve
to be punished. You’re bad. You’re
evil.” We also do this to ourselves.
When we do something wrong, we say
“I did something wrong, and it’s
right for me to suffer this guilt of
having done something wrong.”
Attributing free will to others and
to ourselves causes a great deal of
unnecessary blame, guilt, and
aggression. Before I go further, I
wouldn’t recommend that we do
without a kind of quasi-personal
morality. In other words, not having
a free will doesn’t give us license
to do whatever we want.
What people mean when they say they
have a free will is that nothing
that they are not in control of is
compelling them to decide what they
decide. Control is the key. They
say, “I’m in complete control of
what I decide and don’t decide. Now
consider that our unconscious, by
definition, is not under our
conscious control (at least in
real-time). We’re not even aware of
it, and it’s always awake. The
unconscious is what makes our heart
beat, and it controls our other
bodily functions. It’s where we
store our memories and our thought
processing. We can’t make any
decision without the unconscious
being involved. Naturally, if our
unconscious is not in our control,
you can see how free will is
impossible. We have a causal will.
We have a will that is subject to
causality. Whatever decision we make
has a cause, and that cause has a
cause, and that cause has a cause,
etc. These causes go back in time,
and this causal regression leads to
before we were born, and before the
Earth and Sun were created. It’s
easy to see how, through this cause
and effect process, events in the
past ultimately led to what can be
described as the movie we’re all
acting out. It is perplexing that
nature, or God, has predetermined
that we have this illusion of free
will. It is so completely opposite
to the way things are, and for this
reason alone, I think it would be in
humanity’s best interest to finally
understand the true causal and
unconscious nature of our human
will.
Let’s overcome our reluctance to
overcome the illusion of free will.
Free will is actually more of a
delusion. Some people understand
logically and rationally that free
will is impossible. They understand
that we have an unconscious that
makes free will impossible. They
understand that causality makes free
will impossible. They understand
that even if decisions were random,
in the strongest sense meaning
uncaused, and they could actually
happen that were not caused, that
would also make free will
impossible. If our decisions aren’t
caused, then they certainly cannot
be caused by our free will. Many
people understand this, but they
still are compelled by fate to
believe in free will. They cannot
let the illusion go. The point here
is that when an illusion gets where
you know that it’s an illusion, but
you still believe it, it’s no longer
an illusion. At that point it has
become a delusion. Our whole
humanity is completely deluded
regarding the very nature of our
human will. I want to explain what I
mean by the word “delusion.”
Consider the well-known visual
illusion depicting a horizontal line
with inward-pointing arrows at each
end above a horizontal line with
outward-pointing arrows at each end.
If you were to ask yourself which
line is longer, it seems like the
one on top is the longer of the two.
That’s the illusion. If you then
measure the two lines with a ruler,
and you determine that the two lines
are, in fact, equal in length, and
you still contend that the top line
is longer than the bottom one,
that’s where your illusion has
become a delusion. Most people have
never thought about any of this.
There is a term free will,
and people just assume it’s true.
Few people have explored human will
enough to understand how and why
free will is impossible.
Why do we continue to believe in
free will? Some of us say to
ourselves, “If I were a robot, or an
actor, life would have no meaning.
We couldn’t take credit for
anything.” Most of us are religious,
and tend believe in God, or a higher
power. Part of us doesn’t want to
see ourselves as robots, or puppets
– completely programmed beings, and
everything being a movie. Another
way to look at this, however, is
that God’s will is manifested
through us. Some of us believe that
God exists outside of space and time
– outside of the universe. But that
doesn’t make sense. One of the
definitions of God is that s/he is
omnipresent, or everywhere. So, a
clearer understanding of God is that
s/he is everything, and we’re a part
of God. In that sense, we are
instruments of God. That’s a good
way of seeing this that many people
can relate to within a religious
context. We’re vehicles for God’s
will. When we see it from that
perspective, it restores our
nobility. We’re not mere robots or
puppets. We are the physical
manifestation of God’s will. God
expresses Her/Himself through us.
That way of seeing ourselves should
be more palatable to many people. It
should make understanding that we
don’t have a free will easier to
accept.
There’s another reason many of us
are afraid to accept that we human
beings do not have a free will. They
believe that if we were all
acknowledge that no one has a free
will, and acted according to that
understanding, there would be no
true personal morality, and we could
not be held accountable for
anything. We could not take credit
for the good we do, and we could not
blame each other or ourselves for
the bad we do. It’s an
understandable fear. Some of us are
afraid that if everyone comes to
understand that we don’t have a free
will, we will all do whatever we
want, and say, “You can’t blame me.
I don’t have a free will.”
Incidentally, there is a philosopher
named Saul Smilansky who wrote a
book titled Free Will and
Illusion, and he understands
that free will is impossible and
that it’s an illusion. But, his
perspective is that we shouldn’t
tell people this because if we were
all to understand the true nature of
our will – that we’re instruments of
God rather than gods ourselves – we
would act with reckless abandon. Not
incidentally, from a religious
context, if we had a free will, that
would also mean that we create our
thoughts – that we are the authors
of our thoughts. However, our
understanding of God is that s/he is
the only entity in the universe with
the power to create. Some of us
believe that if we relinquish our
belief in free will, there will be
anarchy. No, because we’re hard
wired to act in certain ways. For
example, we’re governed by the
hedonic principle. Freud explained
this as the Pleasure Principle, and
there have been other formulations
of this principle in biology and the
other sciences. The idea is that we
human beings are hard-wired and
compelled to seek pleasure and avoid
pain. Sometimes we’ll undergo a
certain amount of pain in order to
satisfy our conscience. But, the
idea here is that because our basic
motivation in life is to seek
pleasure and avoid pain, we’re not
going to let others just get away
with claiming “Well, I don’t have a
free will so I can do whatever I
want.” We’re not going to let
ourselves get away with that either.
When we attribute free will to
ourselves and each other, and we do
wrong, we accuse and blame. “That
person is bad; he’s evil.” We do
this to ourselves, and we do this to
our friends. When we do this
geo-politically, it can result in
wars. As we overcome this free
will-dependent attribution, we can
at least be more understanding. We
can say “alright, this person did
something wrong. We can’t allow him
or her to continue doing it because
it’s hurtful to us all, and we have
to take steps to prevent it.” By not
acting according to the illusion of
free will, the steps we would take,
however, would likely be far more
compassionate and understanding. The
person who does the wrong is not
going to feel like they are an evil
person. When we do wrong, we’re not
going to feel like we’re bad. Our
overcoming the illusion of free will
would likely create a much kinder,
and far more intelligent, world.
When we acknowledge that there is no
personal morality, and things go
wrong, what do we do? In religion,
when things go well, we’re taught to
be grateful because it’s God’s will
that caused them to go well. We
thank God. Unfortunately, when
things go awry, it’s our fault. As a
sideline, it seems an open question
whether or not God has a free will.
Part of me hopes s/he doesn’t,
because if God doesn’t have a free
will, we can’t blame God for
anything. A benefit of not believing
in free will is that we can thereby
hold ourselves as innocent – as
blameless. To be able to hold God as
blameless would also be good.
It may take a few years or decades
for people to understand that our
wills are not free, accept this
truth, and apply it to our personal
lives and societally. Interestingly,
we already incorporate the
understanding that our human will is
not truly free. In today’s criminal
justice system, if a person is
considered to not have known what
they were doing at the time of their
wrongdoing, we apply what we refer
to as the insanity defense.
We understand that you can’t justly
hold someone responsible for what
they did if they did not genuinely,
or sufficiently, know what they were
doing. This can happen with certain
kinds of brain injuries and various
illnesses. With free will exposed as
an illusion, our criminal justice
system would, over time, become much
more compassionate. While we may
have to separate some of us who
would otherwise go around committing
crimes, it would likely be a more
compassionate separation. Consider
that people often commit crimes
against another person because they
blame that person for something.
They conclude that a certain person
did some wrong, and at times desire
to get him back. It’s about revenge
and retribution. If people generally
did not believe that other people
have a free will, much of that
attribution-based crime would be
avoided.
Our overcoming the illusion of free
will would make life so much more
wonderful – and I mean literally
wonderful, as in “full of wonder.”
Think about it; everything is a
movie. What I’m saying right now has
been predetermined from before the
Earth and Sun were created. It’s not
just about our decisions. Everything
that happens, everything that moves,
every bird that flies, every rock
that falls, every planet that
travels, is predetermined. To my
mind, it’s perplexing, and amazing,
and bewildering, but it’s also
wonderful. I start each show with a
quote from American philosopher,
John Searle. He says that if free
will is an illusion, that would be a
bigger revolution in our thinking
than Einstein, Copernicus, Newton,
Darwin, and Galileo. I think he’s
right. Overcoming the illusion of
free will would give us an entirely
new mindset, and perspective. Why do
we need a new mindset? We’ve made a
great deal of progress in our world.
About two hundred years ago, almost
everyone on the planet was poor.
Today, many of have so much more
than we need. We have many
blessings. Our world works very well
in many ways. But in some ways it
doesn’t work at all. For example,
climate change will challenge us for
decades. It’s probably too late to
do all we could have done about it,
because the climate-driven effects
we’re feeling today were caused
twenty or thirty years ago. If we
adopt the understanding that free
will is an illusion, we can approach
its challenges, and all of our other
major challenges, with greater
cooperation.
Under the free will perspective, we
say “they are doing something wrong.
They’re bad. We’re opposed to them,
and they’re opposed to us.” When we
have that kind of relationship with
each other, it’s hard to get things
done. It’s hard to reach agreement,
because if you’re one of the people
doing something wrong, to admit this
is akin to admitting that you are a
criminal, or just bad. We don’t tend
to do that. But, if everyone shared
the understanding that we don’t have
a free will – that if people do
something wrong it is only because
they were compelled to do so, and it
wasn’t truly their choice – we could
still say “listen; you need to stop
polluting the Earth and warming the
climate.” When people don’t, and are
not made to, feel responsible for
those kinds of egregious actions,
then they can more easily assume
a certain kind of responsibility.
Another major challenge we have is
that until about sixty years ago,
our farm animals were treated so
much more compassionately than they
are treated today. Our cows had
pastures to graze on, and our
chickens were free to roam the
yards. Today, you would not believe
the horrible conditions by which
these animals are raised. If you go
to Google Video and search for “Meet
Your Meat,” you can view a 12-minute
video narrated by Alec Baldwin, and
produced by the People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals, (PETA)
that shows very graphically just how
horribly we treat farm animals. If
you watch that video, you will see
how chickens are crowded into cages
so small they cannot even fully
extend their wings for their entire
lives. You will see pigs, who happen
to be more intelligent than dogs,
confined in cages so small they
cannot even turn around for months
at a time. The degree of abuse is
unbelievably horrible. We should
stop eating meat simply because we
would be healthier, and live longer,
if we did. But, we continue to
torture these animals because we
refuse to even look at what we’re
doing. If we were to see our
treatment of animals squarely for
what it is, we would have to
recognize how horribly we’ve been
acting, and how cruel and callous
that makes every one of us who
condone and abet this cruelty by
eating meat. That is the only
conclusion we could honestly reach.
If we were to view all of this from
the understanding that what we’re
doing is completely compelled – and
in no way up to us – then we could
perhaps justifiably blame the
universe, or whatever, for
compelling us to commit such
cruelty. That perspective would
render us innocent, and when we’re
no longer holding ourselves
responsible for such cruelty, we
will then hopefully, through
compassion, squarely face the
cruelty that is being done through
us, and stop torturing those
animals.
Our free will-derived sense of
responsibility likely prevents us
from truly seeing the extent of our
cruelty. The sad irony here is that
the universe has caused us to
torture these animals. God willing,
this same universe will hopefully
soon make us understand that we
don’t have a free will, and compel
us to be much more compassionate
toward all animals on our planet. To
the extent that we overcome the
illusion of free will, we will
create a new world. It would be like
a neo-renaissance, multiplied
tenfold. We’re perpetually at each
other. Our coming to understand, and
behave according to the
understanding, that we don’t have a
free will would lead us to sit down
with each other, and rationally
consider the matters before us. “Why
did the universe compel you to do
wrong?” we might ask our friend.
S/he might respond, “Not so fast;
the universe is apparently
compelling me to conclude that what
I did was not, in fact, wrong.”
Basically, the conversation could
proceed as a cooperative, rather
than blaming, venture, with each of
us trying to figure out if a wrong
was, in fact, done, and what to do
about the matter from a practical
standpoint. Understanding free will
as an illusion would also lead to
our understanding that the way we
treat our children in school,
especially when they are young,
makes all the difference in the
world to their, and our, future. In
computers there is a principle
called GIGO, which is an acronym for
“garbage in, garbage out.” This
principle also applies to how we
instruct our children. To the extent
we understand that what we are
basically doing with child-rearing
and education is programming our
children to behave in certain ways,
and not others, we will take more
time, and devote more effort, to
teaching them how to be happy, and
how to be good.
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