Moving off on a tangent, this post will be about philosophy.
I have never really worried much about the question of determinism. After first hearing the idea, I dismissed it as rather simplistic. Upon revisiting, I would always merely assume that we, as human beings, had in us that little something that allowed us to make decisions regardless of all other causes.
However, through my meditation practices I started to see how what I thought were my decisions are hardly decisions at all. Quite a few times I have witnessed a situation (inside myself) whereas I would be trying to make a choice between two alternatives, and I would quite literally feel two stimuli competing inside myself. For example, today I was out in the city and was trying to choose between going home and staying to do something else. I could feel the two possibilities inside myself trying to overpower one another. As I brought my attention to different aspects of the situation, I could feel those stimuli change in intensity so one or the other would seem to be winning. External factors also influenced the situation: yet another drop of rain falling on my head made me imagine myself again being sick and miserable, and suddenly I felt that the decision was made.
It is a disturbing thing to observe in oneself, for then I witness how my own choice falls apart into its many constituents: my own earlier thoughts and memories, events happening at the moment, the state of my body, etc. My choice can be entirely explained and, given enough information, predicted without ascribing any freedom to me at all. Of course, I have a line of defense against this possibility: meditation --- and the Alexander Techniques --- gives us the tools for coming to the present moment. As my teacher says, Alexander Technique is ultimately about freedom to do what you want (so that you are not just in control of your habits). True, with those sophisticated tools I seem to be able to make better decisions; but I suspect that this is not much more than a more sophisticated decision-making process, much like using several chess computers to make the next move: you can use the fastest one, or you can use a slightly slower, but much better one.
When, for example, I am creating a new computer program, I am understanding the situation and taking all the consideration inside myself, and then some design decisions to make suddenly become clear. I am not really choosing anything; I am just using myself, so to say, my own experience, my own neural circuits to make the decision, much as I would consult an expert or a computer program. If computer programming is too complicated, think about ordering food. I am looking at each item in the menu, and --- at my current level of awareness --- I can often feel the image of this food item, and some thoughts that accompany it about the item's healthiness, about my plans for the next hour or two that may affect the choice, and so forth. The process seems complex, but there is no room for causality.
This is, actually, rather disturbing, being able to witness (what seems as) my own lack of free will. Even if I come to the presence, inhibit immediate impulses, and do all those wonderful things that I have learned to do, even though my mind clears and (it seems that) I am able to make much better choices, I still cannot hide from the awareness of how those choices originate. As far as I can tell with my current level of awareness, even at those clearer periods of consciousness, I can still see the same kind of impulses in favor of one and the other option floating in my mind and competing with each other in intensity. I can still sense how the time of the time, the temperature in the room, the state of my body (seems to) affect my choices. I still notice how I still do things out of habit, even if this habit is inhibiting other impulses. For example, I may notice a thought to stand up and do something, as I am sitting, and in the next instant I notice another impulse to inhibit the previous thought --- as I have trained myself to do over and over and over again --- and so I end up not going anywhere. Both things happen so quickly that I can hardly talk about any free choice on my part.
That is all I can say at the moment. If you are interested in the subject, you can start by reading Immanuel Kant's reflections on the subject (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwVariousKant.htm) and then proceed to the modern discussion in the neuroscience community (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/is-neuroscience-the-death-of-free-will).
I have never really worried much about the question of determinism. After first hearing the idea, I dismissed it as rather simplistic. Upon revisiting, I would always merely assume that we, as human beings, had in us that little something that allowed us to make decisions regardless of all other causes.
However, through my meditation practices I started to see how what I thought were my decisions are hardly decisions at all. Quite a few times I have witnessed a situation (inside myself) whereas I would be trying to make a choice between two alternatives, and I would quite literally feel two stimuli competing inside myself. For example, today I was out in the city and was trying to choose between going home and staying to do something else. I could feel the two possibilities inside myself trying to overpower one another. As I brought my attention to different aspects of the situation, I could feel those stimuli change in intensity so one or the other would seem to be winning. External factors also influenced the situation: yet another drop of rain falling on my head made me imagine myself again being sick and miserable, and suddenly I felt that the decision was made.
It is a disturbing thing to observe in oneself, for then I witness how my own choice falls apart into its many constituents: my own earlier thoughts and memories, events happening at the moment, the state of my body, etc. My choice can be entirely explained and, given enough information, predicted without ascribing any freedom to me at all. Of course, I have a line of defense against this possibility: meditation --- and the Alexander Techniques --- gives us the tools for coming to the present moment. As my teacher says, Alexander Technique is ultimately about freedom to do what you want (so that you are not just in control of your habits). True, with those sophisticated tools I seem to be able to make better decisions; but I suspect that this is not much more than a more sophisticated decision-making process, much like using several chess computers to make the next move: you can use the fastest one, or you can use a slightly slower, but much better one.
When, for example, I am creating a new computer program, I am understanding the situation and taking all the consideration inside myself, and then some design decisions to make suddenly become clear. I am not really choosing anything; I am just using myself, so to say, my own experience, my own neural circuits to make the decision, much as I would consult an expert or a computer program. If computer programming is too complicated, think about ordering food. I am looking at each item in the menu, and --- at my current level of awareness --- I can often feel the image of this food item, and some thoughts that accompany it about the item's healthiness, about my plans for the next hour or two that may affect the choice, and so forth. The process seems complex, but there is no room for causality.
This is, actually, rather disturbing, being able to witness (what seems as) my own lack of free will. Even if I come to the presence, inhibit immediate impulses, and do all those wonderful things that I have learned to do, even though my mind clears and (it seems that) I am able to make much better choices, I still cannot hide from the awareness of how those choices originate. As far as I can tell with my current level of awareness, even at those clearer periods of consciousness, I can still see the same kind of impulses in favor of one and the other option floating in my mind and competing with each other in intensity. I can still sense how the time of the time, the temperature in the room, the state of my body (seems to) affect my choices. I still notice how I still do things out of habit, even if this habit is inhibiting other impulses. For example, I may notice a thought to stand up and do something, as I am sitting, and in the next instant I notice another impulse to inhibit the previous thought --- as I have trained myself to do over and over and over again --- and so I end up not going anywhere. Both things happen so quickly that I can hardly talk about any free choice on my part.
That is all I can say at the moment. If you are interested in the subject, you can start by reading Immanuel Kant's reflections on the subject (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwVariousKant.htm) and then proceed to the modern discussion in the neuroscience community (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/is-neuroscience-the-death-of-free-will).
I had very similar experience during some of my meditations. I kept asking the teacher about it. And he would answer it in different ways, but none of his answers were satisfactory to me at that point. I must say, this question is fundamental to me. If somebody will convince me that there is no free will, to me this means, that I don't exist, and this lump of suffering cells must die.
ReplyDeleteLater, I built my view on this question. I still have no final answer, but I chose the hypothesis that there is free will. And it is my main point to reveal it.
From vulgar materialistic point of view (shared by some scientists), there is no place for free will. As the NY Times article quotes - "all behavior is caused by our brains", and the brain itself, as a neural network of certain type, built from neurons with electrochemical interactions (e.g. Hodgkin-Huxley model), is a probabilistic (not deterministic, of course) machine.
Christianity states existence of free will in every human being. As I understand, this is The Creator inside us. Hinduism develops a concept of Atman. Buddism, in some forms, is all about revealing that everything that our mind can observe is deterministic (mechanistic), and that is the sansara wheel we have a tiny chance to escape, most likely in some future life, and thus get into nirvana.
Here's how I think about free will. Free means not conditioned, not on anything at all in the world. This was very hard to comprehend - and I really recommend to repeat it many times to yourself, and think about it - something that is not conditioned on anything at all. It could follow the circumstances, or it could go against them. The circumstances may affect the way it manifests, but not the free will itself.
It is essentially irrational. Something purely spontaneous to the observer. Yet, it is not just something random. It is something whole. All the manifestations of these spontaneous acts are very subtle and somehow connected, but not causally. It cannot be fully described using our language, as the language is deterministic and finite. But only through metaphors.
Some of Christian authors attempt to describe it, yet warn, because insanity, hallucinations, schizophrenia may look very similar. But there's qualitative difference.
As I understand, one who was able to observe his free will, doesn't look insane. The change is often beyond detection for external observers, but fundamental to the personality...
Yes, I agree completely. My short, mathematical answer is: without loss of generality, there is free will. That is, if there is no free will, then it doesn't matter, what I do. If there is, then let's believe that there is.
ReplyDeleteMy deeper answer is as follows: it is not correct to ask, if there is or if there is not a free will. The world is not black-and-white. In fact, NOTHING is black-and-white. Black color only absorbs 91% of light or so, and white color does not reflect everything either. Black and white, sharp distinctions are only our categories. Eastern philosophies like paradoxes not because life is paradoxical, but because they help due to the limited nature of our thinking. Our thinking is limited; now I am very convinced in it. There are lots of things that we cannot conceive about, but other people can. For example, some people cannot conceive of their government being honest and having good intentions, others cannot imagine that a man and a woman can have a genuine friendship without sex, yet others cannot imagine themselves not being scared of mathematics. So it is only natural to imagine that some questions are difficult for everyone.
As one of the books I recently read suggested, quantum mechanics can have some of the answers for the problem of free will, but only after we wake up to its implications. In quantum mechanics --- and forgive my limited understanding --- things do not exist objectively, like they did in classical physics, but depend on the observer. Also, the act of observation itself changes the universe. Thus, one solution would be to postulate the existence of consciousness as an independent and irreducible entity, together with space and time.
Also ,there is no single kind of "vulgar materialism", but you are right, there is definitely a problem here. Most people in the West indeed believe in modern science way too much, without understanding the nature of it. Scientific discoveries are not done in this logical-materialistic ways. Often imagery is used; certain parts may involve formalism that makes no sense that works, others are intuitively clear, but cannot yet be formalized. Also, read Paul Feyerabend. Read "Again method". According to him, Galileo used the telescope to support his discoveries, but his computations were wrong, and his equations for the telescope were also wrong --- it was more than a century before the correct laws of optics were discovered --- yet his theory succeeded. It was largely --- according to Feyerabend --- for other reasons: that Galileo was writing in Italian, for example, and not in Latin, and thus was appealing to a younger audience; his discoveries (of the relativity of speed, coordinates, movement) were also implicitly critical of the Church's doctrine, which appealed to a lot of people.
However, most people, who believe in "scientific method", usually reject some of its implications. How about the curvature of space time? Pick three mountains, take lasers, build a triangle and add up the angles. Would you expect them to add up to 180? And why? Just because light "travels along a straight line" (are you sure?) --- but then, what exactly is a straight line? We really have no way of knowing.
All this "vulgar scientific method" is one big illusion of our times; past times had other illusions.
ReplyDeleteContinuing on with your letter,
"Free means not conditioned, not on anything at all in the world." --- you see how our thinking is again limited? Here we already have some of our cultural heritage. In Russia freedom always meant being the tsar, the king, or perhaps flying in the sky, racing on a prairie. Basically, in Russia, "free" typically meant "I do whatever I want, and I couldn't care less about others."
This is not to say that this is true or false. Our thinking mind is just not very good at comprehending certain things. So one great solution is to stop trying to understand, at least with the logical mind. We really have no concept of complete freedom, of life without a purpose. All our concepts come from our experiences, from our environment; it looks like we cannot conceptualize absolute freedom.
So we invent different names: "free will", "God", "the oneness of the Universe". So far that's the best we can do.It is not "essentially irrational". This actually distorts the idea of rationality, if you notice.