Why not believing in free will is so wonderful

I've written a lot about free will on this blog. More accurately, my posts on this subject have been about the near certainty that we humans lack free will. At least, as it is normally considered to exist.

Meaning, almost everybody who believes in free will considers that it means we're able to choose one thing instead of another without any causal influence affecting that choice.

Tonight I pondered whether to have leftover spaghetti for dinner, or to make tempe with rice. I decided on the tempe and rice. I had some reasons for that decision. This means that my will wasn't free, since those reasons influenced my choice.

In fact, this is always the case. There's absolutely zero evidence that the human brain is able to act or choose without being affected by prior experiences, brain states, the condition of the world, and such. 

The only way free will could exist is known as compatibilism. And this way negates free will as it is commonly understood.

Those who believe in the philosophical notion of compatibilism say that as long as a person isn't constrained by outside influences, such as someone holding a gun to my head and saying "You must choose to have spaghetti tonight," then that person is acting freely.

But this is a much watered-down version of genuine free will, which is viewed as the ability of a human being to choose between two actions, thoughts, or whatever in a way that is unaffected by the inward and outward state of that person's reality. 

In other words, neither the person's brain nor the external world has any effect on the person's choices. Those choices are made through some sort of unexplained supernatural Free Will Fairy Dust, which is such an absurd idea, I reject it (almost with most neuroscientists).

One big reason why I don't believe in free will is that I much prefer reality to unreality. I'd rather embrace an uncomfortable truth than a comfortable falsehood. That's why I no longer believe in God, soul, life after death, and other fantasies that used to give me comfort in my true believing days.

It's impossible to live a "spiritual" life, leaving aside the thorny question of what that word means, if that life is founded on untruths. Thus science is the cornerstone of any genuine search for meaning.

Imagine if we still had a medieval understanding of how the universe came to be. No knowledge of the big bang. No knowledge of the astounding vastness of the cosmos. Our worldview would be hugely constricted compared to the modern understanding astronomers and cosmologists have gifted us with.

I see a belief in free will as being similarly constricted. It imagines that each of us is, essentially, the "god" of our own thoughts and actions that are created by us independently, freely, out of nothing other than our own unfettered ability to choose between this and that.

Believers in free will typically don't try to justify their belief. They just accept what seems obvious to them: "It feels like I can choose freely, so that must be so." Of course, it also feels like the sun sets each day, rather than the sun standing still and the earth revolving.

The truths of science take quite a while to filter down into widespread understanding. So I look forward to the day that free will is viewed as akin to the earth-centered cosmos: a mistake caused by a superficial knowledge of reality.

Consider all the findings of modern science: physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, and so many other disciplines. These countless findings all have something in common. Regularities rooted in the laws of nature and other forms of causes and effects. 

There is no finding that free will exists, because if it did, this would be the only instance of an effect occurring in the everyday world without any cause. (I said "everyday" because arguably some quantum effects in the subatomic realm occur without a cause, though even here the wave function is a cause based on probabilities.)

Thus the interconnectedness of our universe, the marvelous oneness where causes and effects multiply without end across not only our planet but the vast expanse of time and space beyond earth, all that is not only compatible with the lack of free will, it demands it. 

Free will is a medieval'ish bastion of human separateness, specialness, individuality, and isolation.

Believers in free will imagine that they are islands of unfettered action unto themselves, rather than what we humans actually are: beings who are an integral part of everything in existence, both affected by everything that surrounds us, and affecting everything that surrounds us. 

What I or you or anybody does isn't based on our individual self. Every thought and action, no matter how small, requires an entire cosmos to carry out. My fingers typed this blog post, but the words and ideas didn't spring from my free will. They emanated from elsewhere. 

Understanding that "elsewhere" is what science is all about. Also, in my view, what spirituality is all about. We don't need to imagine supernatural realms beyond the physical to have a grasp of our place in the oneness of the cosmos. 

That oneness is right here, right now. And in large part it is glimpsed by giving up a belief in free will.

 

Comments

[um]

The dictum was:
"It is because you brought it up, otherwise I would have had no knowledge of these things"

It is that people go on to bring things like "free will" up otherwise It would never have arisen in my mind.

To be honest , after all these years of life and years of education, I would not know what "will" is all about and what "free" means in this context.

By now i must have made and drunk yhousands upon thousands cups of coffee, and I can't remember, doing so, words like "free will" did arise in my mind.

Nor do i know why people are so preoccupied in answering this question about the existence of free will.

What ever creatures do has a purpose. Either to get something they want or to avoid the opposite.

So the first question would be about "why do people want to have freewill or oppose that idea".

And ...I never heard my dad or mom, use that word, nor did it ever came up in my dreams .... only people that talk about life as if they have no part in it, book people, use that word often.

[Appreciative Reader]

"By now i must have made and drunk yhousands upon thousands cups of coffee"

Hear hear, um. That there alone assures you a seat in Heaven --- or Sach Khand, or Valhalla, or wherever you favor.

There's no more righteous of a drink than coffee. Manna from heaven? Meh, pales in comparison. If the prophets had known coffee, they'd have said "Blehhh", and turned away from manna; and asked God to send down some hot strong Java instead.

[um]

@ AR

Ar "I was not born and I am not going to die" ... others do ... hahaha

I have the same knowledge or lack thereof of heavens, valhallas and sach khans as of "free will" .. why would I want to go to such an place .... I can't remember having been there, I have no experience of such an realm ... why would I want to go to an imagination??

There is just this life and the experience thereof ... it has no beginning and no end.
Just experience,

Besides coffee ... to see a crow glide without flapping his wings.. is a marvel to withness .... hahaha

[um]

@ AR

Please forgive me that in an unguarded moment opened the door to this inn again.
Now in for a moment I say "fare well" to you leave.

The inn keeper and his guests have better things to do

[Appreciative Reader]

Always a pleasure, um.

Haha, you and your inns. Forget inns, think cafes. Coffee's a pleasure in solitude, absolutely. But it's also a pleasure in company, given the right company. To enjoy the one is not necessarily to have to forego the other!

Either way, cheers.

[um]

@AR

The WHO, years ago issued an paper on what would be the best diet for humanity. The outcome was the Mediterranean diet. In the conclusion they mentioned the different foods. BUT ... at the very end they wrote that .... MAYBE ....there was an other aspect that made that diet healthy .... the company, the atmosphere

The food is as it should be, you can direct your attention on the companions at table.
And if the companions are alright and you need not to be at guard, you can enjoy the food.

And although I love to see crows ... I am a human being.... sensitive to atmosphere

[Appreciative Reader]

Indeed. Good to see you here again, old friend. I respect your wish to stay away for a while, like you've said just now. But any time you want back, we'll clink coffee mugs. (I mean, beer's fine and all, but only an occasional indulgence for me these days. And the harder stuff even more so, even more occasional. Coffee's my staple, like the good God intended it for all righteous men and women.)

[um]

@ AR

Hahaha ..... AR ...I have been fighting with myself to prevent to write you a long answer.
I did at least three times and deleted them all before sending.
The temptation is now over and I am now entitled to another coffee.

He., he ...done ...

[Ron E.]

Most youngsters are terribly inquisitive – I know I was and still am. No doubt that is the way we grow to understand the world and ourselves. For some, such interests go on to broach the question 'Who am I? For me, there were two sources that inquire into this question. One is science and the other the eastern religion Buddhism. It helped, in studying these disciplines, to understand concepts such as the self, mind and free will. What interested me about Buddhism was that they inquired into the source of suffering. Present day mindfulness practices also broaches the issues of mental health from a science perspective.
The illusion of the self is connected to the illusion of free-will or absolute freedom and is part of the pre-requisite to understanding the totality of the problems, pains, joys, behaviours and confusions of being a human being.

Free will is interesting in that for many years it would often arise from within a religious perspective. If someone was accused of a crime, particularly if it was a heinous one, then the usual verdict was that the person was evil. This would also be the case for those who were mentally ill. The religious thinking assumed that such people were possessed, evil or in league with the devil. They believed that basically God had given man free-will to do the right thing and avoid what was wrong or evil.

Thank goodness that today we are more enlightened on these issues – but we still have a tendency to believe that a person has the capacity, the free-will to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Unimpeded, or to travel free and not be diverted by ones own inclinations and conditioning is, as we know impossible.

Today, as we know, human minds are comprised of various influences – culture, religious belief, national beliefs, parents, society, peers – not to mention brain illnesses and diseases, and childhood traumas – all colluding to up-end what society considers to be the right way to act. Every brain (or mind) reflects the culture and environment they were brought up in.

Perhaps someone like Donald Trump instead of locking him up for all his crimes, should instead be treated as the mentally disturbed person he truly is. Such people cannot do the right thing and behave from some nebulous free-will as their childhood influences make them think and behave the way they do. For such a thing as free-will one would need to act from some disembodied entity or vital source that is independent (free from) of our biological natures

[Trez]

We can all have some definition of a Free Will.

Until we make the mistake of mistakes walking into a radical illogical cult like Radha soami and the likes of a Gurinder Singh Dhilion aka nut job baba

Life becomes more of a Will (his) than a free will of ours.

He enslaves all he comes across with impossible ethics to live by, which by the way he can never live by anyway.

It's a my way or the highway for you no enlightenment no salvation

Sit all day n night and repetitively repeat them
5 satanic names I gave you at initiation by the way they're a secret like everything with this Radha soami satsangi cult of Gurinders

How selfish Gurinder but you're no Saint yourself so is it let's just lie to them all and the ones who fall for my bull are caught in my Radha Soami cult forever.

That's what we are all seeing, they have no Will for life, let alone free will.

To escape the delusion they're living, as they have lived it for so long.

Lie after lie you start living a lie

And if Gurinder Singh Dhilion is that lie then he's the only one living his Free Will while all his followers are lost, fulling his for him

Be free have a will and leave the idiot baba
behind