THOUGHTS ON FREE WILL
- We consider the notion of free will to be indisputably tied to our choices. Why do we assign the concept of freedom with a choice? It seems like common sense to an ordinary human. When you make choices you are free, but is this really so?
- So, let’s consider the perspective of choosing between two things, independent of what they are. Can you freely choose between things A and B? What does it mean to freely choose? Does it mean that you pick one thing because it has better specifications than the other? Then you would need to be aware of the features of this given thing. Which would make you dependent on earlier experience. Yet, it’s called a choice even if you pick randomly, like in playing cards or lottery. But maybe the real question that we should ask is: Is it a meaningful choice without any previous reference point?
- So let’s suppose a featureless thing C and D. You have the free will of choice. But is it even a choice, if you cannot use your judgment for the purpose of accordingly identifying what is more beneficial for you? I would say yes, because the choice is the ability of the human being to pick between those two things. And even if you consider the thing which is more beneficial to you, do you really know what you chose? Or is it all just ques work? Do you really know that the thing that you have chosen will come out as you expect? Or do you merely assume that based on your assumptions, whose very existence is an assumption, that it will be so? How is random choice any different from the choice between two things about which you have arbitrary assumptions, whose integrity cannot be proven true? Like, you assume that the universe will not collapse on itself tomorrow?
- What is a choice? Either you can say: Is an act of choosing between two or more possibilities. Or, choice is a preference that you make, based on that which you judge to be more beneficial for you. Whichever one you pick, you cannot be sure of the outcome. In the latter case you can only assume the outcome. But the latter case provides you with the necessary component for functioning in this world, that being knowledge (assumed one). You are free, in a world which puts boundaries on you. You are not free in a world without boundaries, because freedom (being a boundary) doesn´t exist.
- So what does free will actually try to say about human nature? That the ability to choose makes us free? Free from what? Free to make our own choices, free to lead our lives? Yes we are, but within the confines of the rules of the universe. But, what if you consider the deterministic notion, that each of the previous things depend on each other and build on each other? Doesn´t that interfere with our ability to “lead our lives the way we choose”? No, because we don´t know anything besides our lives, we don’t know any other concepts than those that we do know. And if you imagine what would be without these concepts which create our lives, you would find sleeplike emptiness, without any freedom, or choice. Freedom and choice are just concepts. And to think about some kind of devine otherworldly freedom as something necessary for your self esteem, is just silly. Freedom is important as a value within the system, every human is free to say what he thinks, and has all the fundamental democratic libertarian freedoms. But to think that you can extend the concept of freedom beyond this world, is like assuming that if you yourself went beyond the boundaries of the functionality of the laws of physics and would find yourself still intact and not disintegrating in some unimaginable way. It is the highest power of a person to be able to choose. All we do is make choices. But there is no need to link them to any kind of freedom, or to consider them to be any more valuable than any other thing that we can experience in the world.
- Let’s imagine having a free will: So for you to be able to have a free will, you would need obviously something besides this world? Would you consider yourself somehow absent from this world? Because what other choice do you have than to pick the input from this world or form something else which we have no capability of identifying. Okay, so let’s suppose there is some sort of soul, an entity, which lives beyond this life, why would the ability to pick be of any benefit to it? If it doesn’t really live in a reality in which you need to survive and pick between those resources which will help you to do so? Why would this being have this inherent ability, and if you consider yourself to be this being, why would you assign your ability to pick as the most iconic identity of yourself? All the choices that you ever made were based on your thoughts, and past experiences, the choice is no more you than the thoughts are. Thoughts are as much material, as objects in the “outside world” are. How do you prove their distinciton? What you need to consider also is, that without thoughts there is no outside world, you are an animal without them, and without the outside world there are no thoughts. It is like two worlds converging and living in harmonic symbiosis, and helping each other in their endeavors…
- The sense of self is also derived from this world, it is almost your whole world, you have never felt anything beside it. Your whole world is filtered through it. Isn’t this the only distinction or the only unifying thing between people? Every person can ultimately feel just himself, and he can understand that his choices are derived from the nature of this world, and his understanding of this world is derived from this world. And he assumes which are better and which are worse for him. And he sees their indifference. And he acknowledges it. By his programming. “Free will” isn’t dependent anyhow on the concepts, it is the act of choice which you possess. Even if your world was full of dogs and cats, only full of them, all you could see and feel were dogs and cats, and then you were supposed to choose, you would still make that choice in whatever environment, but only with the same body, and rules of the universe. And if the choice is determined based on the information that you have gained, does it matter? It only means you have been manipulated, but what would be a world without rules? How could you be more free in a world without rules, than in that world where the rules allow your own individuality, and actually seems to suggest that the world is created in your very head. And when you fall asleep, every night, you fall into the freedom of emptiness, and can see how important the world is to you without you in it. Free will has nothing to do with morality, our righteousness of wrong, it is only about the idea that you are free to choose. No matter what. You are the free actor to choose, in a limited frame of reference. As you are making a free choice in the game of chess. Would you not consider it your choice, because you based it on previous assumptions, who says the past exists, or that the thoughts are true or not? You are making the choice, and whatever the choice comes out to be it was your choice. How can you be sure that the person who is one hundred percent convinced and manipulated about a certain idea, will not in a moment’s time change his mind and pick the opposite thing? The computer will always do what he was programmed to do. But will humans also?
- The whole concept of our individuality, and our own identification with what we deem to be us, tricks us, it tricks us to think that something is ours, when individuality is just an idea, just a point of view in this was world full of people, whose individual wills and actions strive towards something, based on that which the people before them strove towards, and what they have passed on to us. If every ant realized his own individuality and preferences in the mound, and would try to act his will, he would have ended up dead. In the same way it was not possible for many humans to be anything else than laborers and slaves, for the majority of human history, and only now we all can express our individuality in the quite limited amount of possible strivings and desires that we can have. Which in turn are determined by that which we have experienced. We are all cogs in the machine of reality, but it doesn’t feel like it. The biggest slave is the one who doesn’t realize he is one. But what if we choose to ignore it? What if we choose to rather realize there is nothing to our condition which resembles slavery. How can we judge our condition by these superficial ideas, which arise out of the same condition? We are no slaves, a slave is someone who is forced to labor or act against his will. We all want to live whether we acknowledge it or not. In what other direction do we have the possibility of venturing? We can only go forward, march forward in time, in advancement of the human kind. If that in itself is the labor of the slave, so be it. But I can see no other way than to try our best, to strive forward. To create our own meaning, to build great machines which sweep with incredible speeds through the stations where thousands shall get in and get out, over the millenia, as we spread throughout the solar system and the galaxy. Wwe are no slaves to our condition, we are just within certain boundaries.There is no master there is no oppression, many of us live good lives, and in great societies peaceful ones. We are playing a game and if we did or did not choose to play it, is a nonsensical statement in itself, and we should not be bothered by such trifles and rather try our best in our lives to do the greatest of things.