On Free Will
I've been having conversations with some friends lately on the topic of free will. At a loss to make my understanding of such a complicated issue clear within the context of a few brief spur of the moment conversations, I thought I'd take a moment to organize my thoughts for these people (and of course any others) to read and mull over.
So here it goes.
When we perceive that we have a choice, we do one of the following: We weigh advantages/disadvantages; we draw from past experiences; and/or we just do what "feels right." Am I missing any? I think the latter covers quite a bit.
Let's get the first two out of the way first. It's easy to see how both the disadvantage/advantage weighing, and the process of thinking to past experiences, are methods reinforced by our external environment in which we have no control. Simply put: the past and how we understand right and wrong are both completely out of our control. Therefor these could not contribute to free will.
Now, let's examine what feels right. Theoretically speaking from an evolutionary standpoint, there isn't any part of us or our behavior other than what the process of evolution has deemed fit for survival... or at the very least we wouldn't last long enough to reproduce if we carried "unfit" traits. Point being: If you apply science (matter is neither gained or lost, it only changes form) or mathematics (nothing appears on one side of an equation that isn't represented on the other) to evolution, everything about us is or was at one point 100% necessary for human survival. The only way out of this is to say that there is a part of us (call it a soul, a conscious, or whatever) that influences our decisions from outside the realm of natural law. This is entirely unscientific, and contrary to mathematics. It also raises more questions, and we still haven't really attributed the what and the how of our feelings to anything.
The question that needs to be answered is have our feelings and approaches to certain decisions changed with the drastic changes to the environment, the way our physical adaptations do?
I think the answer is yes. I think our behavior is determined by the evolutionary laws of nature, and not by anything known as free will. This however, does NOT mean that free will is completely nonexistent. We know it does, because we perceive the ability to make a choice. Think of it as an illusion, but a VERY convincing illusion. I don't know of anyone who (with the exception of perhaps a Buddha, and I personally don't know with certainty what those guys have done or what exactly it is they're calling "nirvana") has been able to escape seeing the world through free will's terms on a daily basis. This makes sense, because I see our perception of free will in of itself is an evolutionary adaptation.
[[Note: If you don't understand that, go back and read up to this point all over again. I even did and I wrote it, probably 10 times now. If you still can't get it, ask me to elaborate. I really need to rack my brain more to figure out the most logical and succinct way to put this down in words, and people may need it explained to them in a way that makes sense to them individually.]]
The scary thing about this is, if behavior is evolutionary, then how do we account for all the seemingly nonsensical and evil behaviors of humanity? Did Hitler's "decision" to try and kill all the Jews and invade Europe help humanity adapt? From my point of view, I can't argue that it didn't. And there is a strong argument that the world has become a better place in some ways since then. See my point? It's an alarming thing to consider, but important nonetheless.
Anyway, as it stands for now, there's pretty much nothing we can do about all this. Except understand it. If we do, does understanding this concept allow us to manipulate it? Or does the fact that we can evolve to the mental capacity of understanding how this works simply mean that evolution is simply granting us more knowledge necessary for survival? If the latter is true and the former isn't, what are the implications of a world where our ever changing environment is gradually filling us in more and more to how it works? Are there any? Does the environment even work in the way we're evolving to look at it?
We never could have figured out enough to even ask these questions on an earlier link of our evolutionary chain, so maybe someday we'll find a way to answer them. That's encouraging. These are in no way easy questions, and one of possibly infinite answers is that God (or something, anything really) is planning to grow us into highly intelligent creatures so that we may be of better use to him or her or it. Maybe we'll meet God someday. On the other hand, maybe life and free will is simply just a phenomenon that's impossible to ever fully understand. Nobody really knows.
And that's what it comes down to, nobody really knows for sure anything about this stuff. I admit that this is all belief and theory, so for now this is simply an explanation of free will's (or the lack therof's) implications. Obviously I'm still experiencing life and learning from it, so perhaps what makes sense to me now won't later. For now however it makes sense to me, so my question for you is first and foremost does it make sense to you? If not, what about it do you disagree with? I'm all ears.
So here it goes.
When we perceive that we have a choice, we do one of the following: We weigh advantages/disadvantages; we draw from past experiences; and/or we just do what "feels right." Am I missing any? I think the latter covers quite a bit.
Let's get the first two out of the way first. It's easy to see how both the disadvantage/advantage weighing, and the process of thinking to past experiences, are methods reinforced by our external environment in which we have no control. Simply put: the past and how we understand right and wrong are both completely out of our control. Therefor these could not contribute to free will.
Now, let's examine what feels right. Theoretically speaking from an evolutionary standpoint, there isn't any part of us or our behavior other than what the process of evolution has deemed fit for survival... or at the very least we wouldn't last long enough to reproduce if we carried "unfit" traits. Point being: If you apply science (matter is neither gained or lost, it only changes form) or mathematics (nothing appears on one side of an equation that isn't represented on the other) to evolution, everything about us is or was at one point 100% necessary for human survival. The only way out of this is to say that there is a part of us (call it a soul, a conscious, or whatever) that influences our decisions from outside the realm of natural law. This is entirely unscientific, and contrary to mathematics. It also raises more questions, and we still haven't really attributed the what and the how of our feelings to anything.
The question that needs to be answered is have our feelings and approaches to certain decisions changed with the drastic changes to the environment, the way our physical adaptations do?
I think the answer is yes. I think our behavior is determined by the evolutionary laws of nature, and not by anything known as free will. This however, does NOT mean that free will is completely nonexistent. We know it does, because we perceive the ability to make a choice. Think of it as an illusion, but a VERY convincing illusion. I don't know of anyone who (with the exception of perhaps a Buddha, and I personally don't know with certainty what those guys have done or what exactly it is they're calling "nirvana") has been able to escape seeing the world through free will's terms on a daily basis. This makes sense, because I see our perception of free will in of itself is an evolutionary adaptation.
[[Note: If you don't understand that, go back and read up to this point all over again. I even did and I wrote it, probably 10 times now. If you still can't get it, ask me to elaborate. I really need to rack my brain more to figure out the most logical and succinct way to put this down in words, and people may need it explained to them in a way that makes sense to them individually.]]
The scary thing about this is, if behavior is evolutionary, then how do we account for all the seemingly nonsensical and evil behaviors of humanity? Did Hitler's "decision" to try and kill all the Jews and invade Europe help humanity adapt? From my point of view, I can't argue that it didn't. And there is a strong argument that the world has become a better place in some ways since then. See my point? It's an alarming thing to consider, but important nonetheless.
Anyway, as it stands for now, there's pretty much nothing we can do about all this. Except understand it. If we do, does understanding this concept allow us to manipulate it? Or does the fact that we can evolve to the mental capacity of understanding how this works simply mean that evolution is simply granting us more knowledge necessary for survival? If the latter is true and the former isn't, what are the implications of a world where our ever changing environment is gradually filling us in more and more to how it works? Are there any? Does the environment even work in the way we're evolving to look at it?
We never could have figured out enough to even ask these questions on an earlier link of our evolutionary chain, so maybe someday we'll find a way to answer them. That's encouraging. These are in no way easy questions, and one of possibly infinite answers is that God (or something, anything really) is planning to grow us into highly intelligent creatures so that we may be of better use to him or her or it. Maybe we'll meet God someday. On the other hand, maybe life and free will is simply just a phenomenon that's impossible to ever fully understand. Nobody really knows.
And that's what it comes down to, nobody really knows for sure anything about this stuff. I admit that this is all belief and theory, so for now this is simply an explanation of free will's (or the lack therof's) implications. Obviously I'm still experiencing life and learning from it, so perhaps what makes sense to me now won't later. For now however it makes sense to me, so my question for you is first and foremost does it make sense to you? If not, what about it do you disagree with? I'm all ears.