Claire Fan - Week 9: I thank whatever gods may be / For my unconquerable soul.
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| Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich, 1818, symbolizing the great unknown (among other things). It's a real place, in fact—the Elbe Sandstone Mountains between Germany and the Czech Republic. |
Does free will exist?
There’s no way to know empirically—not yet, at least, according to quantum mechanics. The only thing left to do, then, is speculate. Numerous philosophers have tried to answer this question: Schopenhauer, Hume, Kant, Sartre…
Religion has its own unique answer. According to Christianity, for example, the omniscient God, from the beginning of the universe (and possibly earlier), knew everything that would occur. Every possible permutation of every possible action and reaction, down to the behavior of the tiniest atom. In other words, Christianity asserts the existence of fate—a predetermined path—rather than destiny—a life that could be independently chosen. Hinduism claims that free will does exist, but in order to achieve nirvana and escape the never-ending reincarnation cycle, that free will must be utilized in a way that accumulates enough karma.
Personally, I enjoy indulging in the idea that free will does exist. I like to think that my actions matter and that they have a measurable impact on the environment around me. If free will exists, then my life must have meaning, and if not, I would have the power to decide my life’s own meaning. Maybe that’s why. Or, maybe it’s a pathetic coping mechanism to distract myself from the niggling sense of gross insignificance permeating every moment of my lived experience.
The fact of the matter is, I have a Monkey Brain and my Monkey Brain is Very Afraid. If you don’t have free will, Monkey Brain tells me, then you must be powerless before the gargantuan, grinding gears of fate. And that means you have no power over the one thing you should: yourself.
It’s probably safe to assume that we’ll never have an answer to the free will question. Until the day I am proved wrong, I assume myself free to believe whatever I want—in this case, that I do have the power of self-determination. In the ever-immortal words of “Invictus” by Ernest Hemingway: “I am the master of my fate, / I am the captain of my soul.”
Hi Claire, so delighted to be in your cohort again! As someone who has pretty much always struggled with the concept of control in my life and needing to have it constantly at basically all times, I relate to this blog completely. I hate to think that the course of my life is something completely predetermined, because then why am I even trying? Why put in all of this work and try so hard to create a life for myself if that life has already been decided for me? It’s pointless.
ReplyDeleteI think that the belief in the fact that we in fact do have free will is definitely a positive thing, because the alternative means that I would just be existing passively without the knowledge and the confidence that I have the power to achieve my dreams or create something meaningful. In other words, I believe that I have options, and as a result, I am able to create those options for myself. The second that I believe that I have a choice, all of a sudden my behavior and my actions change because of that knowledge.
In recent years, I have found much comfort in the mindset that I have most of, if not all of the control in my life. Yes, there have definitely been some factors in my life that I could not have changed if I tried, but I think our free will is more about how we choose to respond to those situations. This concept, called the Internal vs. External Locus of Control, was probably one of the most useful things that I learned in AP Psych, as it has taken me from a more “victim” mindset to one that allows me to be in charge of my own future.
The way you describe fate (and the way that many people used to think of it) is genuinely terrifying! It is not surprising to me, then, that most of those ideas are now antiquated and pushed aside, at least in the west, in favor of free will, individualism, and “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.” Immutable fate might’ve been comforting to people living under the power of the church or royalty, but nowadays anywhere you look in books and shows there is much more emphasis on denying fate, prophecies, and paths set out for your life as a whole. And as much of a comfort as it used to be, it is clear that the idea of ‘fate’ was definitely used by some people in power to justify social hierarchy and the like (as in, a king being fated to be a king and a peasant being fated to be a peasant, etc.), so it is probably a net positive that we are letting go of these ideas. Some religious folks even favor the idea that their god(s), while having put the world in motion, have not interfered since, hence preserving both the creationist idea while also supporting the argument of free will. The changing connotations of fate are interesting, but I digress.
ReplyDeleteYour mention of having a “Monkey Brain” reminded me of the “monkeys on typewriters” idea; come to think of it, maybe that is the culmination of free will. We are all monkeys and we each have a typewriter, and one of us will eventually write Shakespeare.
Oh wait, technically that’s already happened.
Anyway, I commend your use of italics and capitalization for emphasis, great job on your blog!
Hello Claire, the way you described free will reminded me of a concept that was introduced (or sadly one that I had to introduce myself to) was the humanistic approach of psychology. The approach states that humans regardless of their impulses circumstances or past experiences have the ability to choose whatever they desire and that their free will trumps all preceding information. I found your blog builds on a similar concept. The idea that free will either gives our life meaning or does not give our life meaning, and thus it is our responsibility to do so, is novel to say the least and I appreciate your non-linear form of thinking. I'd like to provide an augmentation to your ideas, and I believe that our lives truly at the end of the day have no meaning, to the broader context of society, but intrinsically speaking our lives have great meaning to us, and naturally the one person who has been with us forever is ourselves. My take on your blog aside I found your writing incredibly captivating, the bold statement you opened with made no sense to me and thus drew me in, I hope to one day emulate your style. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Claire! I love the idea of your blog, and how free will honestly depends from place to place, or religion to religion. It's really interesting how you mention that “there’s no way to know empirically” if free will exists because of quantum mechanics. It honestly is a little terrifying to think that it doesn’t, and we are all “robots” in a sense, or being controlled by a “puppet master.”
ReplyDeleteTo ease my consciousness, I think that free will does exist. If it didn’t, why do each of us always make different choices every day? How do we get a choice to follow what we want to do in life? However, there are things we can’t control, which may strengthen the counterargument that free will does, in fact, not exist. We all have a limited life span, and there is no way to get around it. Another example is that in the end, there are rules we have to follow and restrictions set in place.
This is such a compelling concept to think about, and I find it intriguing that there is still no answer to it. With all the advancements our society has made and how we have grown, you would think we would be closer to an answer to this question. In the end, it is similar to whether the question of god truly exists, as this also varies by religion. Maybe free will is an ideology our ancestors have chosen to call it, and it is bigger than we think, just like God.