My interest in free will goes back many years, probably over twenty years. In 2019 I read Why Free Will Is Real by Christian List and wrote a report and a lengthy summary of the book. I wrote an article, I Have Free Will at that time and my own views have not changed very much since that time.
My interest in this topic was recently stimulated by the articles of a newly discovered thinker, Bobby Azarian. These are excellent articles which I will reference below. And I will select a few particularly meaningful quotes from them.
Finding the Freedom in Free Will
Whether or not we have free will is arguably the most important philosophical and practical question of all time.
Free Will Is Real and We Can Lose It
Our experience of conscious decision-making is not an illusion
We’ve explained how agents act as causes, but that doesn’t seem to be sufficient for “free will,” since automatic behaviors work like reflexes. Another type of top-down causation—what we may call mental causation, or more specifically, conscious causation—is one step above basic agency, and would refer to the ability to override predetermined behaviors, which are all those programmed in genetically, as well as those that have been learned and encoded in the brain as procedural memory. Most of our actions don’t require deliberation, so it is really movement driven by reflective thought that we are talking about when we refer to free will.
We have explained why humans have will that is as free as can be, but the idea of “conscious causation” will remain mysterious until we explain the mystery of consciousness. For that, we must get Gödelian, which means we must explain how the magic of self-reference brings the observer doing the controlling into existence.
However, there is an aspect of free will that I believe is very important but rarely emphasized. Much attention is focused on the question of whether human beings have free will. In my opinion, that question has been answered, but the hard core scientific materialists refuse to accept the answer because it effectively negates their worldview. I believe the time has come to move on to a different question. How much free will do human beings have?
I believe the answer is not very much. I will list a few reasons supporting my answer. And later I will discuss some important implications of this answer.
Human beings are animals and our biology is important. The combination of an egg and a sperm begins our individual lives. And much in our DNA mitigates our free will. Yes, we can override our genetically influenced behavior, but it is not easy to do so. We are animals programmed by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to survive and reproduce. And as a species, of course, we do not, and should not, want to use our free will to overcome these primitive drives.
We are distinctly male or female (except for a small percentage who are non-binary). There are significant differences between men and women when it comes to behaviors influenced by hormones. And there is significant variation within the sexes. Yes, it is possible for free will to override the influence of hormones, but it is not easy to do so.
I would particularly like to highlight the influence of testosterone on male aggression and its violent expression. Thankfully, it is the expectation of society that men use their free will to control themselves. That is easier for some men than others. My point is not to excuse unacceptable behavior. My point is that, generally, some men have less free will and less self-control than commonly assumed and this problem is rarely addressed.
Here is a list of a few of our many hormones - estrogen, adrenaline, melatonin, dopamine, insulin, oxytocin and cortisol. Both in aggregate as a species and as individuals, we have little insight into how these hormones influence our behavior. And we have little insight into how much free will we have to mitigate that influence.
In the communities in which I am active these days, our agency and our sovereignty is much discussed. Game B pioneer Jordan Hall wrote an excellent article, On Sovereignty, in 2018. I mostly agree with Hall, but he does not highlight how very difficult it is to become truly sovereign. My sense is that many people are inspired by the ideal. And my sense is that many people become discouraged by their own shortcomings to achieve that ideal. Perhaps we should all become more aware of how little free will we have. Deciding to be sovereign is the easy part.
Slowly and deliberately become a master of your own sovereignty. And then, find the load that is yours to carry and carry it.
One of the easier ways to use our limited free will is to set our intentions. But to act on our intentions is a different matter. If we better understand how little free will we have, perhaps this reality will be less frustrating.
For much of my life I have struggled with anxiety. Decades ago I set my intention to be a calmer, less anxious person. I have made a little progress but not as much as hoped for. I have gained some knowledge along the way that has been helpful. I frame my anxiety differently now.
I have learned that the normal human state is to be anxious. It was the anxious human beings that survived the evolutionary process. Somewhere along the way I got some good advice that became a guideline to live by, but I do not know who to credit. Do not be anxious about being anxious.
I have learned that I can use my little bit of free will to overcome my natural anxious nature and become calmer. And I have learned that this is not easy. So now I try to be more accepting of myself, and of others with similar struggles, which is probably most people.
I think Bobby Azarian, and many other thinkers, understate the MYSTERY of free will. More of us in recent years have come to an understanding that the brain is a complex system from which a mind somehow emerges and that that mind has a measure of free will. This is a significant step forward, a better view of reality. But the emphasis is on more accurately describing what is. It remains true that we do not know how or why this has happened. I am in awe of this MYSTERY.
Another important area in which it is reasonably easy to exercise our free will is the use of our imagination. It is very easy to imagine The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (credit to Charles Eisenstein). But to use our free will to take concrete steps in that direction is not easy.
Recently I became excited by discovering another new thinker playing with an idea new to me.
On Building Collective Free Will by AJC_trans Jul 7 2022
We can move towards coherent integration, but only if we set the stage for collective free will.
I think this is the very first time that I have seen the phrase collective free will. Intuitively, I think AJC_trans is on to something important. I posted the following comment on Medium.
Collective wisdom is much talked about. But this is the first time I have encountered the idea of collective free will. Intuitively, it seems important. It seems to me that we do not know very much about individual free will, although much is written. I hope you write more about building collective free will.
AJC_trans replied,
Many thanks for your interest in the idea of Collective Free Will. Collective wisdom is, by my estimation, a subset psychotechnology which facilitates collective free will, although my critique of societal systems today also points towards the importance of redistributing access to technology (at large, I’m not simply referring to information tech) as another piece of the puzzle necessary for Collective Free Will. I do have some more pieces in the works focusing on this concept, and hope to share these through the next few weeks.
I would like to encourage everyone to deeply explore themselves and determine how much free will they have.
A couple of days after publishing the above essay on my website, two more articles about free will came to my attention.
IS FREE WILL OR DETERMINISM CORRECT?
by The School of Life
Sometimes in the early morning while drinking my coffee, I open The School of Life app on my smartphone. Most of the content is behind a paywall and I do not have access. Some of the content is free and I was able to read a version of this article.
All of us will have different needs in this area depending on our contrasting levels of two psychological qualities: Defeatism on the one hand, Aspiration on the other… The oldest debate in philosophy isn’t beyond answering. We just have to answer it more personally, with more of a sense of what we need to believe in to be calmer and more fulfilled.
I lean strongly in the direction of aspiration.
Reason allows us to calculate when our wishes are in irrevocable conflict with reality, and then bids us to submit ourselves willingly, rather than angrily or bitterly, to necessities. We may be powerless to alter certain events, but we remain free to choose our attitude towards them, and it is in an unprotesting acceptance of what is truly necessary that we can find a distinctive serenity and freedom.
The next article was brought to my attention by a new good friend at Emergent Commons, a woman with a life-long, deep interest in Buddhism.
An Examination of Free Will and Buddhism
And applied to Buddhism, "free will" has an additional hurdle -- if there's no self, who is it that wills?
This is a good question.
Author and Buddhist practitioner B. Alan Wallace said that the Buddha rejected both the indeterministic and deterministic theories of his day.
But the Buddha also rejected the idea that there is an independent, autonomous self…
I think current thinking about the self has evolved beyond the ideas of the Buddha, although I view him as a giant upon whose shoulders others can stand.
The Buddha taught that most of us are not free at all but are being perpetually jerked around -- by attractions and aversions; by our conditioned, conceptual thinking; and most of all by karma.
For a year I practiced meditation. I became very aware of how difficult it is to control the stream of thought flowing through my mind. We have enough free will to set our attention to controlling our natural monkey mind. But we soon discover that this is not easy to achieve.
In short, Buddhism doesn't align with western philosophy for a neat, side-by-side comparison. As long as we are lost in a fog of illusion, our "will" isn't as free as we think it is, and our lives will be caught in karmic effects and our own unskillful acts. But, the Buddha said, we are capable of living with greater clarity and happiness through our own efforts.
In short, I agree with much of what the Buddha taught. But I also think his views are incomplete. And I think a metamodern stance on the self and the question of free will is emerging.