paradox of free will: we don't have any.

yodayid mentioned the /. article on the Economist article that I had intentionally avoided, and now I cannot avoid it anymore.. here's a short summation:
Science is discovering that the more we learn about the brain, the more we notice that people are just pre-programmed machines responding to stimuli.
Now I will summarise yodayid's response to this:
No matter how much we are a function of our programming, we have the ability to override that programming and make choices of our own. So, we can't let people off to easy for the things they choose to do, because no matter how much they want to do it, they still chose to do it. (<-The basic Jewish line) Further, there's no point in thinking along the lines of us all lacking free will, because that leads straight to nihilism.
First, I'd like to say that it's ironic that Snake Eyes, one of my college proffessors back in the day, claimed that unlike all other animals, humans have no instincts. He then defined instincts as things which we are utterly compelled to do. I guess the only irony was that it was a case of science toeing the Jewish line perhaps without knowing it.

Here's my summary of the problem:
I think everyone needs to realize how much more complicated these issues are. The kind of lack of free will that we worry about as citizens is the kind where all of our options intentionally lead us to choices we would not have otherwise made. The legal ropes that bind us into decisions we would never make if we were free to rule our fate. Next is the fear that we might never notice being forced into making decisions at all. That we might be lead without even ever seeing those ropes that bind us. This is really nothing new. We outlawed subliminal messaging because we know that it can and will have a certain amount of control over us. This pseudo-scientific article only reiterates those ideas and that fear.
Here's my calling it all ludicrous:

I think the biggest illusion here is the illusion of free will. If we had complete free will to do anything at all that we might want, would our lives be very different from what they are now? I think you would say, "Hell, yes!" Game, set and match.
We don't have free will.

From the cracking of our eyelids at some morningish hour, till the dazed fall into slumber, most of
our decisions are not our own. At most we have control over the tiny details that we never give a second thought to. It's actually truly ironic that the things we care about most are the things we are powerless to control. Anything we control, we hardly care about at all.

Let me just say that again:
Anything we control, we hardly care about at all.

Let's take time for example. We always wish we could go back in time, or forward. We never
wish we could take a step back or a step forward in space--because we can. But, can we? In reality our movement through space is almost as restricted as our movement through time but we don't notice it and so we don't care about it. Case in point: Wherever in the universe you would like to go, you are limited to a very small speck of dust named 'Earth.' Sure, you can move around wherever you want on earth, provided that it's not more than a mile or two up, or a few hundred meters down. Sure, you could hypothetically go to space, but then you are stuck in this tiny little solar system when billions of stars out there are still off-limits. [Beyond that (if Einstein has anything to say about it) you are (almost (hey, he could be wrong)) definitely not getting out of your light-cone alive.]

That is the paradox of free will. We spend all our time worrying about things that are out of our hands. We don't give a care to realize how little control we actually have, even over those things we take for granted. The way to take back your free will is to actually focus on those things that are within your sphere of influence.
(there's a self-help term we can throw in for fun) Right now, all the good little parts of life we are ignoring, and all the really insurmountable, unchangeable stuff gets all the focus. We have free will. Let's use it instead of throwing it away on choosing to worry all the time. I think Ghandi said something to the effect of "Worrying about things you can't change doesn't help, worrying about things you can change is a waste of time, better change them." Here we have a deeper problem, we are worrying about things we can't change but think that we can.

[There is a Jewish answer to this question and I dealt with it in my writings. I also should add that I've spoken at length to people about it, but can't find it anywhere in my blog, that the Jewish path to free will is this: Whenever you find a juncture at which you actually have options, give that choice to God. Do a mitzvah. Act according to God's commandments. When you make such a choice, you are presented with further choices, further free will to choose again to give that choice to God. At any point you are free to choose something else, but that's about all the free will you get. You get more real free will every time you give that free will up to God. The only people who actually are in control of their lives are the tzaddikim.]


Related posts

Blog Widget by LinkWithin