Q.
You say that "we have no free will", and "we're not in control". That has been debated forever by philosophers and religions. Everyone knows that they have free will and that they make many choices in everyday life. Why do you say we don't have free will? Is this something that you personally experienced, that you can scientifically "prove", or is it just philosophy?
G.
That is an important question in this work. It deeply impacts how we feel about past choices and actions, as well as how much stress and anxiety arise as we plan for the future.
Looking at what highly respected scientists and mystics say and experienced, gives us some useful insights from very different perspectives. Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein, one of the most important physicists of the 20th century, and creator of the "world's most famous equation", said, perhaps surprisingly:
"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for insects as well as for the stars. Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."
"You can will want you want, but you can't will what you will."
Why would Einstein make such statements? Is there science to confirm them or are they just his opinion?
Well, for some "enlightening" scientific insights, let's look at complexity and chaos theory and how it applies to free will and control. Complex systems theory deals with interactions between parts of a system and how they affect the behavior of the entire system and how it interacts with its environment.
A complex system occurs when interconnected parts have behaviors that affect the whole system in ways that are not obvious from the properties of the individual parts. A system with many parts displays "disorganized complexity".
This approach has been used to understand ant colonies, economies, financial systems, social structures, climate, nervous systems, cells, energy and telecommunication infrastructures, etc. Most systems of interest to us are complex systems.
The fundamental equation of complex systems is:
With my limited mathematical abilities (as my differential equations professors can attest) i don't understand it, but it does yield the famous "Butterfly Effect", which is the metaphor of a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean being caused by a butterfly flapping its wings in France (or wherever).
As tiny and seemly unrelated events can generate huge and unexpected consequences, Hollywood has used this in "time travel" movies and in books. It explains how, if someone traveled back in time and made some seemingly small change, like getting on a different subway or bus, or meeting someone unexpectedly @ Starbucks, human history could change for m(b)illions of folk.
You say that "we have no free will", and "we're not in control". That has been debated forever by philosophers and religions. Everyone knows that they have free will and that they make many choices in everyday life. Why do you say we don't have free will? Is this something that you personally experienced, that you can scientifically "prove", or is it just philosophy?
G.
That is an important question in this work. It deeply impacts how we feel about past choices and actions, as well as how much stress and anxiety arise as we plan for the future.
 |
| Albert Einstein Nobel Prize Winner in Physics |
Looking at what highly respected scientists and mystics say and experienced, gives us some useful insights from very different perspectives. Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein, one of the most important physicists of the 20th century, and creator of the "world's most famous equation", said, perhaps surprisingly:
"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for insects as well as for the stars. Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."
"You can will want you want, but you can't will what you will."
Why would Einstein make such statements? Is there science to confirm them or are they just his opinion?
Well, for some "enlightening" scientific insights, let's look at complexity and chaos theory and how it applies to free will and control. Complex systems theory deals with interactions between parts of a system and how they affect the behavior of the entire system and how it interacts with its environment.
A complex system occurs when interconnected parts have behaviors that affect the whole system in ways that are not obvious from the properties of the individual parts. A system with many parts displays "disorganized complexity".
This approach has been used to understand ant colonies, economies, financial systems, social structures, climate, nervous systems, cells, energy and telecommunication infrastructures, etc. Most systems of interest to us are complex systems.
The fundamental equation of complex systems is:
 |
As tiny and seemly unrelated events can generate huge and unexpected consequences, Hollywood has used this in "time travel" movies and in books. It explains how, if someone traveled back in time and made some seemingly small change, like getting on a different subway or bus, or meeting someone unexpectedly @ Starbucks, human history could change for m(b)illions of folk.
Applied to free will and "control", several useful principles arise from complex systems:
a) All parts of the system affect, and are affected by, many other parts of the system in a complex web of cause and effect and feedback.
b) Completely unpredictable results can emerge even if the original conditions are known in great detail.
c) Complex interacting systems undergoing change (our lives) are unpredictable.
d) With all the interactions and feedback, staggeringly vast amounts of information are required for even a simple decision. A decision a second later would need completely new information as everything had changed.
we have no idea what our actions will produce over time, who they will affect, and in what way. we also have no idea how our current situation came to be as it is, or whose actions will affect us.
Useful science also comes from work in cognitive neuroscience on free will which began w/Benjamin Libet's work, discussed in the blogs "Free will vs neuroscience; belief vs science" and "no sin, no karma, no good deeds, no bad deeds". Libet's experiments showed clearly that the motor cortex initiates an action well before the "I" is even told about it, and in advance of the action being performed. If we aren't even aware when, or what, action is initiated, how can we be "in control" and where is our "free will"?
Libet's work, which received the inaugural "Virtual Nobel Prize in Psychology", not surprisingly caused a firestorm of reactions, and great hostility from many sides, including other scientists. Nonetheless, in the intervening 40 years, w/much more sophisticated technology and measuring equipment and many studies by many folk, his work stands.
A third scientific approach comes from genetics. The Nobel Prize Winner Francis Crick, the molecular biologist and neuroscientist who, with James D. Watson, discovered the structure of DNA, stated that:
"You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and your free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."
Crick and Watson made their huge discovery in 1953; this quote was the conventional wisdom for some time. However, with the emergence of epigenetics, molecular biology, and improved technology, the answer is more complex.
That genetics, depending on how it is defined, is a major element defining "us" is widely-accepted. The question is how much "we" are defined by genetics and epigenetics, or "nature", and how much "we" are defined by family, friends, where and when we were born, what our environment and experiences were, etc. or "nurture". Since none of this is w/in our control, there is still no free will, but the mix of "nature" and "nurture" is complex, interrelated and likely inseparable. A good overview paper is "Genetics and Causation" by Dennis Noble of Oxford in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
my principal teacher, Ramana Maharshi, one of the great sages of the 20th century, who was described by The Dalai Lama as "Ramana Maharshi's spiritual wisdom is guiding millions of people", said of free will:
Q. Are only the important events in a man's life, such as his main occupation or profession, predetermined, or are trifling acts also, such as taking a cup of water, or moving from one room to another?
R. Everything is predetermined.
As mentioned in the blogpost "Why do you teach dualistic approaches to nondual awakening?", i was highly "deterministic", certain that all that happened to "me" was done by "me". When the page turned and self-referential narrative, desires and fears fell away, that changed. There was no one to have free will, or control, nor had there ever been; free will and "control" just fell away. There was no new insight from philosophy or the science described above, which came later. There was just no alternative.
A recent Neuroscience and Free Will BBC video was the "main" video for the Science and NonDuality Conference where i gave a talk "Everything is Predetermined: Albert Einstein and Ramana Maharshi". The talk is in three youTube segments; "Everything is Predetermined", "You Are Not In Control", and "Intelligent Choice is Impossible".
we have no idea what our actions will produce over time, who they will affect, and in what way. we also have no idea how our current situation came to be as it is, or whose actions will affect us.
 |
| Benjamin Libet Virtual Nobel In Psychology |
Useful science also comes from work in cognitive neuroscience on free will which began w/Benjamin Libet's work, discussed in the blogs "Free will vs neuroscience; belief vs science" and "no sin, no karma, no good deeds, no bad deeds". Libet's experiments showed clearly that the motor cortex initiates an action well before the "I" is even told about it, and in advance of the action being performed. If we aren't even aware when, or what, action is initiated, how can we be "in control" and where is our "free will"?
Libet's work, which received the inaugural "Virtual Nobel Prize in Psychology", not surprisingly caused a firestorm of reactions, and great hostility from many sides, including other scientists. Nonetheless, in the intervening 40 years, w/much more sophisticated technology and measuring equipment and many studies by many folk, his work stands.
 |
| Nobel Laureate Francis Crick Discover of DNA Structure |
"You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and your free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."
Crick and Watson made their huge discovery in 1953; this quote was the conventional wisdom for some time. However, with the emergence of epigenetics, molecular biology, and improved technology, the answer is more complex.
That genetics, depending on how it is defined, is a major element defining "us" is widely-accepted. The question is how much "we" are defined by genetics and epigenetics, or "nature", and how much "we" are defined by family, friends, where and when we were born, what our environment and experiences were, etc. or "nurture". Since none of this is w/in our control, there is still no free will, but the mix of "nature" and "nurture" is complex, interrelated and likely inseparable. A good overview paper is "Genetics and Causation" by Dennis Noble of Oxford in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
my principal teacher, Ramana Maharshi, one of the great sages of the 20th century, who was described by The Dalai Lama as "Ramana Maharshi's spiritual wisdom is guiding millions of people", said of free will:
 |
| Ramana Maharshi |
Q. Are only the important events in a man's life, such as his main occupation or profession, predetermined, or are trifling acts also, such as taking a cup of water, or moving from one room to another?
R. Everything is predetermined.
As mentioned in the blogpost "Why do you teach dualistic approaches to nondual awakening?", i was highly "deterministic", certain that all that happened to "me" was done by "me". When the page turned and self-referential narrative, desires and fears fell away, that changed. There was no one to have free will, or control, nor had there ever been; free will and "control" just fell away. There was no new insight from philosophy or the science described above, which came later. There was just no alternative.
A recent Neuroscience and Free Will BBC video was the "main" video for the Science and NonDuality Conference where i gave a talk "Everything is Predetermined: Albert Einstein and Ramana Maharshi". The talk is in three youTube segments; "Everything is Predetermined", "You Are Not In Control", and "Intelligent Choice is Impossible".
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