Free Will or Determinism?

    I will offer some straw man arguments or statements and attempt to add some of my conclusions to some of the platitudes and other rhetoric people espouse on the hopes that it will purge some of the more caustic elements among people’s thought patterns.  Doing so might alienate myself or people who believe these statements to be universally true.  That is not my aim, and you are free to disagree and disregard whatever you find unhelpful or harmful.  I sincerely hope that is not the case as I went forward with the best of intentions in this essay. 

“You cannot control how others act, only how you act in situations.” 

The nascent point of this essay is anchored in the perception that free will is innate and an immutable fact of life.  I will argue, with great pathos, that it is not only dangerous to advocate the quoted statement, but it is immoral to prescribe such a philosophy to those around you.   I feel that it is important to put out the disclaimer that your actions matter and that you are not free of consequence.  What is worth noting, is that while agency is not a myth, it can be used to both bolster the ego in an unhealthy manner, and to condemn those who are genuinely victims of their own determined lives. 

I became vexed by the lack of workers at my place of employment and the disturbingly lax attitude that the essential job we were performing was unimportant.  I never choose to feel that way, or that I choose to care how it affected me that so many workers abandoned their professional duties.  I do not choose to shame them based on what I would call their “choices,” but rather feel like we are all struggling against some form of circumstance.  They may feel that the company that they signed up with is not performing the most important obligations that was promised to them.  And sometimes, in my most wretched fearfulness, fear they wish to avoid working with the dreaded pariah Derek. 

I find that whatever course of action that I take because of this strange workplace phenomenon is still a result of my response to the challenges the universe placed before me, not actions that I perform out of the ability to spontaneously create stimuli to those around me.  We act based on the forces around us: hunger, anger, confusion, exhaustion, euphoria, and so many other feelings that crash upon us like squalls against the side of a rickety old vessel.  If we really had a choice; would we even choose to get hungry at all?  If we did, wouldn’t that still be the result of some other factor, like a desire for normalcy. 

    I constantly find myself at odds with the supposed wisdom of conventional psychological heterodoxy, and this is due in large part, to a deeper philosophical connection with life's more fundamental dilemmas.  The primary assumption of the heterodoxy is that compatibilism is the determined law of the land.  This assumes that there are things both within and without our control.  A philosophical muddy water that tries to marry the concepts of free will versus determinism debate with “some of A and some of B argument.”  There is a great and almost seductive appeal to signing onto such philosophies for the sake of argumentative convenience. 

    I think that most people have unconsciously made a Faustian bargain that led them to believe that they still have some control of “some” things.  They mostly aren’t certain what those things are, but they would like to believe that intuition is somehow the guide of this, and that it is better to not perseverate on such matters because it wastes valuable emotional energy.  Energy that people would rather spend in angst over their social media accounts mind you.  This leads people to become parsimonious with said energy in the way of opening their mind to the possibility that: they don’t really control anything. 

    This is a “glass half empty” type of philosophy to some people, who insist that controlling things is somehow the cat’s pajamas.  They aren’t even conscious of the fact that they have signed themselves over to a Machiavellian thought process without a doubt.  Perhaps considering that you have no control over your life as a good thing or perhaps liberating in the sense that you have no obligatory agenda of domination.  This doesn’t make you uncaring on irresponsible, but rather the opposite: caring and thoughtful.  Try not to let other people believe that they may have agency over all things that come their way.  Because they are still included in that scenario where others are concerned. 

 

“If you have no control over anything that happens, then that would give you a ticket to make any action morally permissible.” 

 

As an early student of determinism, I initially reasoned that morality and ethics were con games designed to trip people up, confuse them, and provide a net of control by social elites.  As time went on, my thought journeys have led to me to a more antithetical conclusion to that of the straw man argument quoted above.  Just because we have no choice in our decisions does not make them any less moral or immoral.  Any more significant or insignificant.  And it does not change the fact that those consequences affect the actions that others around you will take.  Much like doing a huge cannonball into a lake. 

Where I have landed on a theological level, is more like a secular version of Calvinism, where the deity has determined our good and wicked deeds before our very lives were breathed into existence.  The primary differences between myself and John Calvin, is that I think this ends with an infinite void of nothingness rather than a pit of fire / divine paradise.  While I may be wrong, and I cannot even disconfirm the existence of a supreme deity, I can only begin at the most concrete issues.  Maybe this is something I can control, but I can also turn that argument around and say that I never had the choice to reach that conclusion.  It just happened. 

On a more pragmatic and less obtuse level, we can look at the cyclical nature of abuse and dependency and concluded that people can only fall into patterns that they know.  They don’t choose to become corrupted by abuse, and turn into abusers themselves, it is just a process that changes people.  Often, against their will.  Why chain people to those patterns and remind them that “they can change things.”  When can they, and if they can at all, are huge assumptions to take as a given.  Just because you don’t like what someone does or says, does not mean that we can expect superhero like results insofar as making changes.  I understand that our culture values redemption, but people require the tools to make a house.  Give them boards with no nails, and they will keep falling. 

Back to my story... I never feel like it was a choice to get upset that I felt abandoned at my job.  I never felt like it was my choice to become emotionally unhinged at a certain point.  Is this out of a desire to avoid responsibility and adopt a so called “snowflake” persona?  Doesn’t it sound silly if you think that people choose to get upset, they choose to have insomnia or mental illness, or that they choose to resent the current structure of society.  Do they choose to rebel because society is wrong, or do they simply like to rebel because it gives them some kind of thrill?  Does it even matter what choices come before us if consequence and results are what really matter?  Did the intention of the killer matter that he wanted to save people from having little aliens live in people's brains by bashing their brains in with a claw hammer? 

 

“My decisions matter!  I make the choices about what I do and who I am!” 

    To begin, we must assume that matter isn’t a completely subjective reality and that those decisions are truly yours.  You make all your decisions with a head full of public or private schooling (most of us), doesn’t it stand to reason that all those people had an equal if not greater part in making that decision.  Are you an independent agent, or an amalgam of information regurgitating what patterns you have observed in a way that appears unique or tailored to your meaningful decisions.   It isn’t that your decisions don’t matter because they are unimportant, it is that they don’t matter because they aren’t really your own.  It is just as important if you eat oatmeal or cereal.  The question is really “what is the reason I want that oatmeal?” 

    People want to latch more dearly onto their decisions as part of their ego.  Even this author has an ego about the way in which he believes the words written are an assemblage of his brilliant yet tortured mind.  This may seem pretentious; it is a pretense in which we live under more commonly than most would like to admit.  If people separated themselves from their decisions their ego identity would become farther abstract and therefore would lose all meaning in the context of associating people with even their own memories.  There is a positive side to all of this. 

    If people separated their decisions from their egos, they would be far less prone to psychotic snapping and acts of violence, snarky bigotry, hateful coercion, vicious ostracizing, and the other disturbing milieu of destructive human behaviors.  Those actions that are supposedly “yours” cannot harm you, if you understand that they are just actions in the same way that a shoe is a shoe or a lamp is a lamp.  The greatest fear is the more Dickensian elements of society that feed on human guilt and misery to project a sense of deserved punishment.  Usually for the purpose of enslavement.  Once and a while, to succor some sick amusements as well. 

 

 

The purpose of my questions (some were rhetorical, and others were meant for deeper thought) were to propose an alternate viewpoint about how we might proceed into the future in assigning responsibility, blame, and our own codes of ethics when dealing with those around us.  We may do these actions without much thought or consideration under the assumption that our philosophies are intrinsically good.  Never fall into this trap! Always remember to evaluate and revaluate your core philosophies under the threat of becoming a callous and indifferent person. 

Another story sample.

The Bees and the bees.

 

We stood in the water of the shallow end of the pool, our backs slick, and the water rolling off in beaded rivulets.  It was a particularly brutal summer scorcher when we decided to go swimming that day.  My cousin Justin and I were laughing merrily without hardly a care in the world.  But at that exact moment when I felt the water rolling down my neck and heat of the summer air brushing up against my face; I knew.  I knew that something had changed on some imperceptible level.  

There are meters or barometers that exist within us all that give us markers or indicators for things that we are not consciously aware, yet they guide our actions.  During that summer I was reading Carlos Castenada and his lessons about the Nagual were both fusing themselves into my thoughts and into my very spiritual fibers.  Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before my uncle found the book and threw it away, yelling about not tolerating “cultist trash” in his house.  My cousin looked devastated when he found the book in its final resting place in the living room garbage can.  Nothing uncle Samuel threw away ever came back from the trash.  Ever. 

It was because of these strange echoes and vibrations that those meters read that I knew I was going to walk into something terrible before I did.  I came home early from class that day when Justin was being severely beaten.  I rushed into my uncle’s den during that fateful August evening when I heard the sounds going on in the rooms nearby.  He stopped short when he saw me, something that saved a cousin’s life, and an uncle's freedom.  Despite the apparent luck, it forced a great deal of strain on the relationship between the three of us.  Justin felt humiliated, and Sam felt shameful.  We all wanted to blame the alcohol, but something more sinister seemed to be at play. 

The faint sounds of Justin splashing in the pool were almost faint pin drops compared to the angry hornet buzzing from above us.  How many of those insipid creatures were flying above us?  A lot, and they seemed to be circling from a larger distance in a strange oval pattern.  I wanted to tell Justin what was occurring, but a sort of disturbed fascination took precedent.  While I like being the water bearer in those situations, it was more obvious that Justin was slowly getting the message.  He has a terrible phobia of the creatures. No known allergy, just a horrid phobia. 

I was transfixed by the sort of unnatural dance that the creatures were sucked into, but Justin’s newfound awareness was not so innocuous.  I could hear the whimpers that uttered from his mouth louder than the sounds of the pool filter, louder than the sounds of maddening swarm of insectoid invaders, and even louder than my own heart which was pounding relentlessly.  Justin was deep in the throes of a panic attack, and my knowledge of treating such a condition are painfully limited.  My main plan of attack in those situations: Grab the meds and some water.   

I slowly pulled myself out of the pool and walked over the hot cement walkway toward Justin to get a closer look.  The hornets were locked at their current altitude, but the circle was getting larger and expanding in number of insects.  Occasional stragglers were buzzing off sideways for some reason, but their direction was hard to track.  Justin was turning a ghostly white as the color drained from him belying his normally tanned tone.  Mortal terror seemed like an understatement, and I had seen Justin in some terrible emotional states.  “Justin?”  I asked hoping that my voice would coax him into a response or somehow put some kind of sanity to the mania that was running rampant in the natural world. 

Unfortunately, I received no response from my cousin and was forced to try to keep talking to measure if this panic attack was worth a call to emergency services.  “I am going to grab some of your meds.  Okay?  Just hang tight and remember that they are just bugs.”  I really wanted to convince the both of us of that fact at that exact moment.  “Just bugs,” I kept repeating as I walked to the back porch in search of Justin’s medications.  The grass was extremely dry, and it had that sharp quality when it feels like prickers on your feet.  I hated that feeling and wished I had the time or the wherewithal to have grabbed my sandals.  

    “Just bugs," I was now mouthing wordlessly as I pulled open the back screen and entered the living room.  I had to make my way to the upstairs bathroom next to our room.  It was the medicine cabinet above the sink where my goal was hiding.  I think.  To be honest, this isn’t a regular occurrence, and Justin hasn’t had an episode in several months.  The last time was the night before Sam brutalized him for breaking his belt sander.  It was an honest accident, but Sam has a way of prioritizing consequence over intention.  I had to push the thought out of my head as I made my way up the stairs. 

    While rushing up the stairs I took a moment, as I usually do, to glance at the calendar as I ascended the staircase.  It is a calendar of various kinds of mushrooms hanging above the stairs that I gave me a strange pleasure to read.  Something about the artist's rendering of garden variety forest mushrooms seems like there is a rich story behind it.  I like seeing the stories in things.  It keeps things from seeming too simple or mundane.  Right now, this story was proof that another pool day is anything but another pool day.  I made it to the bathroom door and finally pulled at the knob.  The door was locked. 

    “Hey, I am taking a dump in here moron!” I could hear the surly response of Sam as I tried to pull the knob open.  “Sam!  Couldn’t you have just used the bathroom in your room instead of the guest bathroom upstairs instead?”  There was a moment where the only response was the sound of flatulence and an acrid smell of feces.  “I could have used the downstairs bathroom too!  But I picked this one.  So, screw you!”  He seemed extremely content with his reasoning, and I was at a loss as far as how to reach this guy.  I had to level with him.  “Look, Justin is having a bit of an episode outside and we really need his meds right now.”  There was another brief period of silence. 

    The bathroom door cracked open just a hair and the bottle of pills rolled out.  The wafting aroma that Sam coupled it with made this whole thing a labor of love for my cousin.  Sam really is a sick ticket.  I ran down the stairs grateful that there wasn’t more of a struggle with the negotiations with Sam.  I practically sprinted the rest of the way through the house and made it to the back sliding glass door.  I pull it, and the screen open, and running across the hot and sharp uncomfortable back lawn.   

    The sounds of hornet buzzing overhead were still menacing just as badly as ever.  It looked like the swarm had expanded in the sky but was now forming into individual rings.  It looked a bit like a bull's eye shape or concentric circles, and we were sort of in the middle of it.  Middle is a bit vague as the area still looked to be very large.  Maybe a football field or two?  It is an odd unit of measure but what are good units for such things? Besides, it was hard to gauge the size by the distance and by the fact that it was a hard picture to emotionally process.  A large space and a lot of insects seemed to be the proper answer. 

    Justin had not moved but he looked a lot less, well, in a state of complete horror.  I think the panic attack gave way to disturbed curiosity.  I personally feel like a person can run out of fear.  Like he can only watch something so scary before some kind of internal “fuse” blows and he is left fearless.  Justin made that leap and I was proud of him, or at least I wanted to be.  I shook the bottle of pills to get his attention.  He seemed lucid but disinterested in a medicated remedy for the situation.  “Jake. (that is me by the way) Do you ever get the feeling like there is something that needs to be communicated by a world that doesn’t speak our language?”  The question caught me off guard. 

    "Well...I think...” I tried to muster something either witty or profound and was left sounding like a bumbling fool to my younger cousin.  I think the experience was changing him.  “Other people speak other languages, and we know for certain that they are trying to communicate something even with no knowledge of what they are saying.” He paused like some well-respected scholar before continuing.  “If two people you never met before were speaking random gibberish too each other, both people not really knowing what the random words meant; would you know that they weren’t really conveying a message?”  Maybe my cousin is a well-respected scholar. 

    The hornets seemed to like what he said because their buzzing began to match a certain pitch then switch to another in unison.  It was like a high note then a low note.  Did it really constitute a response or agreement with Justin’s question?  The strangest thing that stuck with me was there was a clear answer.  Yes.  It was like the hornets agree, people know when some kind of idea or message is being transferred.  There are some kinds of intellectual stimuli that is moved when this process occurred, like a light switch in your brain.  Naturally, ironically, and to my utter astonishment, Justin began joining in with the chorus of buzzing. 

    This went on for a few moments with what few beads of water on me drying up.  The air started to clear and there was this strange pressure in my head being released, like air from a balloon.  This caused a strange diaspora of the hornets from the strange almost religious like congregation.  They must have communicated the message that they wanted to convey, and somehow my cousin was at the epicenter of the whole thing.  That is what my gut tells me.  Justin just looked at me and smiled.  I dropped his medication bottle in the grass with the oddest feeling that he wouldn’t be taking one, more than likely, ever again.