A brief, general definition of freewill

(An improved and updated version of this essay has appeared in my book Brief Peeks Beyond. The version below is kept for legacy purposes.)

Some areas of the human brain implicated in mental disorders
that might be related to freewill. Source: wikipedia.

In my previous article, I explored the subject of freewill in the context of my own metaphysics: a formulation of idealism. In this brief essay, I'd like to generalize some of the principles I based my earlier discussion on, for the benefit of those interested in the topic of freewill but not necessarily interested in particular metaphysical formulations.

What is freewill? We all have an intuitive understanding of it, but when we translate that understanding into words, we often misrepresent the essence of our own intuition. Having pondered about it for a while, here is how I would define it:

Freewill is the capacity of an agent to make an intentional choice unconstrained by any factor outside that which the agent identifies itself with.

The word 'intentional' is important to differentiate a true choice from a merely random choice. A true choice entails a preference, purpose or bias of some sort, not the mere throw of dice.

Let's exemplify this definition by taking the agent to be a person. Personal freewill is then the capacity of a person to make an intentional choice unconstrained by any influence, limit, requirement or power that the person does not identify herself with. Note the emphasis on what a person identifies herself with, as opposed to what a particular paradigm implies the person to be. Materialism, for instance, entails that a person is merely her physical body. This way, if a person's choices are merely the outcome of deterministic physical processes in her brain, that would still comply with the definition of freewill above. After all, the processes in a person's brain are part of what the person supposedly is. Yet, most of us would intuitively and immediately reject deterministic brain processes to be an expression of true freewill. Why? Because, for whatever reason, we do not identify ourselves with processes in our brains. We say that we have a brain, as opposed to saying that we are a brain.

The definition above also circumvents a problem with libertarian freewill, which entails that a truly free choice must be completely non-determined. The problem here is that, from a logical perspective, a choice is either the deterministic outcome of some (perhaps unfathomably rich, incomprehensible, transcendent, meaningful and complex) process, or random. It is very hard, if at all possible, to find semantic or logical space for libertarian freewill if we insist on differentiating it form the latter two cases. According to the definition above, on the other hand, true freewill can be the expression of a deterministic process, so long as the determining factors of that process are internal to that which the choosing agent identifies itself with.

Most people identify themselves with their particular conscious thoughts and emotions, as subjectively experienced. Therefore, when agents are human beings, true freewill is the case if, and only if, all determining factors behind the making of a choice are part of the person's conscious thoughts and emotions: her opinions, beliefs, preferences, tastes, likes and dislikes, goals, etc. The fact that a particular paradigm, like materialism, insists that thoughts and emotions are brain activity is merely a conceptual abstraction that bears no psychological relevance to how a person experiences her own identity. This way, the definition of freewill above is independent of particular ontological paradigms, like materialism.

To say that our choices are the deterministic outcome of processes that we identify ourselves with does not refute the essence of our intuition about freewill. The appearance that it does is merely a linguistic illusion. Let me try to illustrate this with an example. I may say: 'I made choice A but I could have made choice B.' This statement is a clear assertion of my freewill; in fact, it captures the very core of what freewill entails, doesn't it? Yet, the statement implies that the choice was indeed determined: it was determined by me! In other words, it was the perceived essence of what it means to be me that determined the choice. Therefore, I can rephrase the statement in the following way, without changing its meaning or implications: 'I chose A because it is my perceived essential nature to do so, although there were no external factors preventing me from choosing B.' Formulated this way, the statement is clearly consistent with the definition above. Do you see what I mean?

When one says that one's choice cannot be determined by anything in order to be truly free, what one actually means is that one's choice cannot be determined by anything external to that which one identifies oneself with. After all, unless the choice is random, it must be determined by something, even if that something is no more than the perceived essential nature of the agent that makes the choice. True freewill applies in this latter case.

I hope this brief articulation helps sort out some of the linguistic and logical noise that so often clouds discussions about freewill.

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Freewill explained

(An improved and updated version of this essay has appeared in my book Brief Peeks Beyond. The version below is kept for legacy purposes. A follow-up article has also been published.)

The movement of domino's is fully determined by the
laws of physics. Are our choices too? Source: Wikipedia.

In my book Why Materialism Is Baloney I briefly discuss freewill. My intent there wasn't to elaborate extensively on the meaning of freewill, but rather to place our intuitive notion of it in the framework of my metaphysical model. That model, as my readers know, could be seen as an idealist metaphysics. It states that reality is exactly what it seems to be: a subjective phenomenon existing in mind, and in mind alone. One of my readers, however, recently posted a very well-argued critique of my rather brief treatment of freewill in the book. His post in my Discussion Forum has prompted me to write this essay, for I think my reader brought up valid and relevant points.

What do we mean, intuitively, when we say freewill? I think most people mean an ability to make an intentional choice unconstrained by factors outside subjectivity. If a choice is merely the outcome of mechanical laws as they apply to the brain, and if the brain exists in an objective world fundamentally outside mind, then there is no such a thing as freewill. After all, what we think of as a free choice would be, in that case, simply the deterministic outcome of particle interactions in a world outside subjectivity. All phenomena in this objective world – like falling domino's – supposedly unfold according to strict causality and are, as such, strictly predetermined.

Under idealism, however, there is nothing outside subjectivity. As I argue in the book, a world outside mind is an unknowable and unnecessary abstraction. We can explain all reality – even its shared regularities – without it. The implication is that all reality is then fundamentally subjective. The difference between the 'outside' world perceived through our five senses and the 'inside' world of emotions and thoughts is merely one of misidentification, not of fundamental nature. Indeed, we merely misidentify ourselves with a particular subset of our stream of subjective experiences – namely, emotions and thoughts – while deeming the rest of the stream – namely, sensory perceptions – to come from a world outside ourselves. Both parts of the stream, however, are still entirely subjective in nature. Think of it in terms of your nightly dreams: you misidentify yourself with a character within your dream, believing the rest of the dreamworld to be external to you. Once you wake up, however, you immediately realize that your mind was creating the whole dream. In that sense, you were the whole dream, not only a character within it.

There is a sense, thus, in which my formulation of idealism directly implies the existence of freewill, insofar as it denies anything outside subjectivity. Yet, this may sound like a copout, for if our choices – purely subjective as they may be – are still the outcome of strict laws of 'mental cause-and-effect,' the intuitive meaning of the word 'freewill' somehow still seems to be defeated. Indeed, I emphasize in the book that my formulation of idealism does not deny that mind may unfold according to strict patterns and regularities, or 'laws of mind.'

To make sense of this we have to look more deeply and rigorously into the meaning of freewill. If we mean by it that a free choice is an entirely arbitrary choice, then we end up with randomness. Clearly, randomness is not the spirit of freewill: we know that we make our choices based on our prior experiences and preferences; it isn't merely random. On the other hand, if we say that a choice is actually the non-random output of a process that takes a number of factors as inputs, we are basically saying that the choice is determined by those factors. At first sight, this also seems to defeat the spirit of freewill. But does it really?

To answer this question properly, we must first bite an unavoidable bullet: it is incoherent to think of a free choice as a non-determined outcome that also isn't random. And a random choice is not intentional. An intentional choice must thus be determined by something; by some set of determining factors. The essential question here, which I think most people overlook, is: What factors? The core of our intuition about freewill is that the determining factors must be internal to us as subjective agents. Because nothing outside subjectivity can be internal to us in that sense, materialism immediately defeats true freewill. But my formulation of idealism again endorses it: according to the metaphysics in the book, our individual psyches are split-off complexes of the cosmic mind within which the entirety of existence unfolds as parallel streams of experience. Since there is nothing outside this cosmic mind, all determining factors of each stream can only be internal to our true selves. Freewill is thus true.

According to my formulation of idealism, choice is the outcome of mental processes. These mental processes may very well be 'mentally deterministic' insofar as they obey yet-unknown mental patterns and regularities that we may call the 'laws of mind.' But watch out: the 'laws of mind' are not necessarily reducible to the dynamics of subatomic particles. My formulation of idealism grants fundamental reality to things like feelings and emotions, and does not require them to be reducible to known physical laws. Since feelings and emotions are clearly valid determining factors in the making of a choice, the 'mental determinism' I am suggesting here is clearly of a very different order of complexity, richness, meaning and nuance than physical determinism. Moreover, the word 'law' must not be misinterpreted here: the 'laws of mind' are simply a metaphor for the observed patterns and regularities inherent to the natural flow of mind, not external constraints prohibiting mind from doing this or that. They describe what mind happens to be, not what it must obey. They are ways to describe observations – like the observation that most human beings happen to be born with two arms – not an imposition of limitations – like some nonsensical law requiring every human being to be born with two arms. When correctly understood in this manner, 'compliance' with the 'laws of mind' does not contradict the spirit of freewill.

In summary: my formulation of idealism states that reality is the unfolding of experience in a kind of cosmic mind. Since this entails that all choices are purely subjective, my metaphysics endorses our intuitions about freewill. Yet, it is inevitable that the unfolding of experience must obey determining factors: whatever processes unfold in the cosmic mind, they must necessarily be the result of the inherent properties of the cosmic mind. Its behavior and choices can only be a deterministic consequence of what it essentially is; there is nothing else they can be. In this sense, existence is 'mentally deterministic.' Finally, since all factors involved in this unfolding of experience in the cosmic mind are necessarily internal to it (there being nothing external to it), our intuitions about freewill are again endorsed: choice is fully determined by the internal subjective dynamics of our true selves.

POSTSCRIPTUM for readers of Why Materialism Is Baloney: I have intentionally avoided the argument above in my brief discussion of freewill in the book. I didn't want to lose the main thread of my story there by getting too deeply entangled in a difficult and contentious sideshow. That said, some readers may think that my position in this essay contradicts what I do end up saying in the book. After all, while here I acknowledge that free-willed choice is ultimately determined by unknown 'laws of mind,' in the book I take free-willed choice to be non-determined. This contradiction, however, is only an artifact of language: to say that a choice is non-determined in the sense of not being determined by anything other than what the chooser intrinsically is – which is what I implicitly say in the book – is the same as to say that a choice is only determined by what the chooser intrinsically is – which is what I say in this essay. To say: 'I chose A but I could have chosen B' is an assertion of freewill. Yet, it is entirely equivalent to saying that 'I chose A because it is my intrinsic nature to do so, although there were no external factors preventing me from choosing B.' Do you see what I mean? More on this article. Moreover, the hypothesized 'laws of mind' I refer to here cannot be explained, not even in principle, by the metaphors of mind that I use in the book (like the vibrating membrane metaphor). These hypothesized 'laws' far exceed the explanatory power of any intellectual model or metaphor, since the intellect is but a small subset of mind. Therefore, from the perspective and scope of the metaphors in the book, freewill is indeed non-determined.

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The illusion of reality

Reality or illusion? Source: Wikipedia.

Following up on my previous essay summarizing the main points of my book Why Materialism Is Baloney, I'd like to explore here another topic covered much more extensively in the book: the elusive and subtle dichotomy between what we call 'real' and what we call 'illusory.'

We often hear today, particularly in spiritually-oriented circles like non-duality, that 'reality is a kind of illusion.' Strictly speaking, this assertion means exactly nothing: it's like saying that black is a kind of white. After all, reality and illusion are defined as opposites. Therefore, to say that they are the same thing simply renders both terms useless and semantically void. Yet, there may be something important hidden behind such an apparently illogical statement. The people who make the statement aren't interested in being logically-consistent, but in conveying a deep intuition about the nature of what's going on. What are they really trying to say?

Ordinarily, we differentiate reality from illusion by thinking of reality as something autonomous, outside our minds, and thinking of illusion as a creation of our own minds. This way, if the UFO one saw was actually a secret military prototype flying in the sky, then it was real. But if the UFO was merely a vision projected onto the sky by one's active imagination, then it was an illusion. So far so good.

Now, notice that this distinction between reality and illusion assumes the philosophy of realism: the notion that there is a reality fundamentally independent from, and outside, our minds. Otherwise, everything is a kind of illusion insofar as everything exists fundamentally in our minds as subjective experiences. This is what people are trying to say when they state that reality is a kind of illusion. They are basically asserting one or another form of idealism, the philosophy I articulate in Why Materialism Is Baloney.

Does that mean that, under idealism, there is no distinction between empirical fact and fantasy? No, that's not what it means. Idealism does acknowledge a distinction between fact and fantasy. But a less naive way to differentiate between the two is needed. Indeed, what we call empirical facts are actually shared, collective experiences. And what we call fantasies are personal, idiosyncratic experiences. In the book, I elaborate extensively on how a shared, collective experience that we came to call the 'world outside' can originate in the fabric of mind.

The above may sound simply like a semantic re-definition of terms, but it has profound implications if one truly internalizes its significance. Because all reality is a creation of mind, the distinction between our dreams and empirical fact is merely one of degree, not one of fundamental nature. Empirical fact is an experience with a higher degree of sharing but, ultimately, of exactly the same fundamental nature as your nightly dreams. If you close your eyes right now and vividly imagine a scene of your choosing, the fundamental nature of that experience will be exactly the same as the experience you will have when you open your eyes and look around. In that sense, nothing is real; reality truly is a kind of illusion.

The nature of nature, so to speak, is to dream and 'delude' itself. When we seek and project a 'true' reality outside mind, as materialists do, that is simply an expression of nature doing what it does: trying to 'deceive' itself according to timeless archetypal patterns. A sign of true self-honesty and intelligence is the ability and willingness to see through this primordial 'self-deception,' acknowledging the profound kinship between what we came to call 'reality' and 'illusion.'

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If not materialism, then what?

Snapshot of the video introduction to Why Materialism Is Baloney.

Continuing on with my series of brief essays on subjects covered more extensively in my latest book, Why Materialism Is Baloney, I'd like today to summarize my main argument. This article, thus, is a kind of overview of the book.

The source of our bleak contemporary worldview is the materialist metaphysics: the notion that the real world exists outside subjective experience, and that experience itself is generated by particular arrangements of matter. This view entails that your entire experience of life unfolds within your head, for it is generated by your brain. The real world is supposedly a realm of pure abstraction, akin to mathematical equations, devoid of color, sound, flavor, fragrance or texture.

At first sight, materialism seems to make good sense. It seems to explain why we cannot control reality. After all, if matter is fundamentally outside mind, it’s natural that we cannot change things merely by wishing them to be different. Moreover, materialism seems to explain why we all share the same world: unlike a private dream, a reality outside mind can be observed concurrently by multiple witnesses.

Yet, materialism is not the only metaphysics that can make sense of things. In fact, among the alternatives, materialism is particularly cumbersome: since knowledge can only exist within subjective experience, a material realm outside experience is fundamentally unknowable. In the book, I explore a more parsimonious and logical metaphysics according to which reality is a kind of shared dream; according to which matter arises in mind, not mind in matter; a metaphysics that implies that consciousness doesn’t end upon physical death.

As readers of the book will see, materialism is based on two childishly flawed conclusions: it mistakes a world outside the control of our conscious wishes for a world outside consciousness itself; and it mistakes the visible image of a process for the cause of the process. The book argues that the brain is merely the visible image of a localization of the flow of consciousness, like a whirlpool is the visible image of a localization of the flow of water. For exactly the same reason that a whirlpool doesn’t generate water, the brain doesn’t generate consciousness!

Contemporary culture is extraordinarily biased toward the unprovable and clumsy materialist metaphysics. For instance, if I say that reality is a kind of shared dream, most people will take it to mean that reality is inside our heads. In fact, it is materialism that says that everything we experience is inside our heads: people, trees, stars and all! If reality is a shared dream, then it is our heads and bodies – as parts of reality – that are in the dream, not the dream in our heads. Somehow, our culture has come to attribute to materialism the intuitiveness of other worldviews, while attributing to other worldviews the absurdity of materialism.

In the book, I explore these questions in a rational, empirically sound manner. This isn’t a feel-good spiritual book, but a logical and rigorous exploration of reality. It looks past the cultural fog that for so long has obscured our view and negatively influenced our lives. It unveils a reality much more conducive to hope than the bleak materialist view implies. It concludes that life is pregnant with meaning and purpose, and that death is just a change in our state of consciousness. It is time we opened our eyes and dropped the insanity of materialism; 21st-century humanity demands a more mature, adult worldview. So join me in this exciting exploration, one that may just change your entire outlook on life and reality.

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Projection

(An improved and updated version of this essay has appeared in my book Brief Peeks Beyond. The version below is kept for legacy purposes.)

Projection. Source: Wikipedia.

Following up on yesterday's short essay about time, here is another one that looks at a theme tackled in my about-to-be-released book Why Materialism Is Baloney. These short essays are not repetitions of what is discussed in the book, but different ways of looking at the same issues and extracting similar conclusions.

In psychology, projection is the act of attributing to other people qualities of ourselves which we are not aware of. For instance, a spouse who has unconscious thoughts about having an affair may project these thoughts onto his or her partner, beginning to suspect him or her of infidelity. On a more positive note, we may project our own inner wisdom, which we are often unaware of, onto figures of authority like doctors, therapists or teachers. In doing so, we see in another an aspect of ourselves. Many psychologists are convinced that most of us live in personal realities populated by projections: we don't really see people for who they are, but for the aspects of ourselves that we project onto them. This way, the world inadvertently enacts our own inner psychological dynamics on the 'outside.' We have even developed cultural institutions to catalyze projection. For instance, many religious rituals seem to have been unconsciously optimized to attract projections: inner wisdom projected onto priests, inner innocence onto altar boys, the inner mother onto nuns, inner transformative power onto icons, etc. In some mystical traditions, this is done quite consciously and deliberately. For instance, modern Rosicrucian rituals are designed to attract the projections of key unconscious psychological archetypes.

Projection is the amazing psychological mechanism by which we create 'the other' out of ourselves, like Eve from Adam's rib. It enables the magical rise of a second person from the first person, the 'you' from the 'I.' As far as the person placing the projection is concerned, the projected material is really real and objective. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in dreams: during a dream, we are entirely convinced that we interact with 'others.' Those 'others,' however, are projected aspects of our own psyches. The old wise man in your dreams is the projected image of your own inner wisdom. The stupid and inferior person in your dreams is the projected image of your own shadow. Through projection, the 'outside' world becomes a mirror for the most hidden and unacknowledged aspects of ourselves, which then become visible to us as 'the other.'

For those who suddenly realized the projections they were placing onto the world, the power of projection is as undeniable as it is disconcerting. Upon becoming aware of some of our projections, we immediately ask ourselves: What else might I be projecting right now? After all, I was entirely convinced of the objective reality of some of my projections earlier, so what other elements of the world 'out there' may actually be projections of my own right now? Is there anything about reality that I can be absolutely sure to not be my own projected material?

Could all of reality be, at bottom, a psychological, rather than a physical, process? Could the entire world 'out there' be, at bottom, a projection of ourselves? When we look at the world outside, could we actually be witnessing a mirrored image of the hidden aspects of our true selves? Given the empirically undeniable power of projection, who is to say that such is not the case?

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Time... time?

Source: Wikipedia.

Here is an intellectually entertaining thought for this special Sunday in the Christian world. Easter brings to mind rebirth, which is inextricably linked to the notion of time. Maybe for this reason time was on my mind this morning, a question ringing in my head as I still lay in bed: Does time really exist?

We divide time logically into three segments: past, present and future. It is fairly straightforward to conclude that past and future do not really exist but as notions in our minds. After all, the past is but a memory, while the future is but an expectation. Only the present stands a chance of being really 'out there.' This much is pretty clear, isn't it? So only through the present can time be said to be real. But where precisely is the present?

We could say that the present is today, while the past is yesterday and the future is tomorrow. Yesterday is a memory and tomorrow is an expectation, so both exist only in mind. But today is really there, isn't it? Well, if you come to think of it, today is quite a long period of time. Within today there is last hour, this hour, and next hour. Last hour and next hour only exist in mind. Only this hour is really there. Or is it? After all, within this hour there is last minute, this minute and next minute. Well, you know where I am going with this.

You could say that the present is a very short moment squeezed in between a growing past and an approaching future. But even that would be too generous to the present: it isn't merely very short; it is shorter than anything you could state it to be, because any period of time, of any length whatsoever, would still contain past and future. The present is infinitely short, so it isn't really there. If you try to pin down the present moment by saying 'Now!', by the time your mouth begins to move to say it, it's already gone into the past and exists merely as a memory. The conclusion is inescapable: the present doesn't exist but as an idea in our minds.

So we find ourselves arriving at an interesting conclusion: the past is a memory; the present is an idea; the future is an expectation. They all exist merely in mind. None of them is real in the sense of really being 'out there.' And since there is nothing to time but past, present and future, clearly time doesn't exist 'out there,' but is merely a mental construct. Mind invents time.

No, really, time is merely an invention of mind. What else could it be?

Happy Easter!

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Why did I write this book?

(An improved and updated version of this essay has appeared in my book Brief Peeks Beyond. The version below is kept for legacy purposes.)

Author copies of my book Why Materialism Is Baloney.

A thoughtful review of my upcoming book Why Materialism Is Baloney has been written by Tom Bunzel and published recently on Collective Evolution. One statement in his review caught my attention because it addresses a question I struggled with a lot while writing. Bunzel says: 'The “problem” with this marvelous book is that those among us who most need to confront its wisdom won’t have the openness to do so. And those with the openness to do so may not really require these explanations.'

Bunzel hit the nail on the head, in the sense that this is the question I was faced with when the book was just an idea. It is fair to expect that many materialists are so entrenched in their position that my book won't change anything for them. That said, I still hold onto the belief that many other materialists are open to sound argumentation and that the book may have some value for them. This alone, in my mind, justified writing it. Now, the part of Bunzel's statement that I want to explore further is this: he suggests that the book may not add much to people who are already inclined to a non-materialist cosmology. I meditated long about this point and became convinced that it's not true. Here is why.

There are two types of knowing: intellectual and experiential. The first is an indirect form of knowing that entails conceptual models in our heads. The second is a form of direct, intuitive knowing by experiencing the truth of what is known. Only experiential knowing has transformative impact. In spirituality circles, people refer to this form of knowing as 'knowing with the body,' or 'kinesthetic knowing.' Philosophy, on the other hand, is about intellectual knowing. It's based on conceptual models that point to truths, not on a direct experience of these truths. In other words, philosophy can help you convince yourself intellectually that e.g. mind is only one, or that the subject is not separate from the object. Yet, every time you look at a tree you will still see a tree out there, separate from you. Every time you look at another person you will still see a person out there, separate from you. As a work of philosophy, my book is about intellectual – not experiential – knowing. So how can it improve one's life? Why does it count?

It counts because we live in a largely rationalist society where the intellect has gained enormous power. When we make choices in our lives, even trivial ones, people around ask us "why did you do it?" When we hold an opinion about something, people around ask us "why do you think so"? These questions are requests for intellectual justifications for our choices and opinions. They implicitly assume that no choice or opinion is valid without such intellectual underpinnings. Society's pressure in this regard is so dominating and ubiquitous that we often require such justifications from ourselves. Even if our intuition or experience screams that a certain choice or point-of-view is the correct one, we do not find peace until we can attach a reasonable intellectual story to it. Many of us do not give ourselves permission to embrace a point-of-view that resonates with our intuitions and experiences unless and until that point-of-view can be couched and mirrored by an intellectual explanation.

The intuition and inner experience of many people today are taking them away from the madness of materialism. Neo-advaita, Buddhism, Non-Duality, Mysticism in its many forms, meditation, psychedelics, and many other paths to the direct experience of truth are playing an enormously positive role in waking people up from the trance of a materialist society. Yet, many of these people live according to a schizophrenic cosmology. A break arises between their direct spiritual experience and what their intellects can accomodate and justify. On the one hand, they experience a reality of pure consciousness and no separation. On the other hand, they know that a well-placed knock to the head ends consciousness quite effectively. How come? How can reality behave as though materialism were true, while our spiritual experiences inform us otherwise? We become split.

And here is the key point: I believe that a person in such a split condition does not give herself the freedom to truly embrace a direct experience of the truth. Deep inside, we hold ourselves back, because the intellect stays conflicted and in doubt. Unless and until we can find a place in the intellect for the truth that is directly experienced, I believe we do not let ourselves go. Unless and until we can make intellectual sense of the fact that e.g. the brain seems to generate consciousness, we do not allow ourselves to truly embrace, unreservedly, a non-materialist cosmology.

This is the role I believe the book can play. It can aid experiential knowing by couching it in reasonable, skeptical, empirically-substantiated intellectual knowing. In itself it won't be as transformative as a direct experience of truth, but it will help one open up to such a direct experience without the reservations that could otherwise block one's progress. As such, I ultimately disagree with Bunzel's suggestion that the book is unnecessary for those already open to a non-materialist cosmology. I believe it will give these people intellectual permission to truly embrace what their intuitions and experiences are already telling them is true.

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