Freewill – Philosophical Dictionary

Two terms within this term.  Free and Will.  If we are free to do either of two things, it is thought that we may then invoke our will, and our will alone, to decide which path to choose.  Our will being our fancy, our inner control, that is able to make decisions based solely on it’s own desires, and most importantly, able to make the opposite decision in the exact same situation.  Free being the ability for the Will to act, the will’s decisions to be seen through, unhindered.  The questions then are, do we have a will and is it free?

Without much consideration it seems we do not have an omnipotent will, one entirely free or unhindered.  It does not seem I can will myself to hover above the ground, I cannot will myself to break the natural laws, so if the will has freedom, it seems limited.  The question then is, do the natural laws leave any freedom for the will? This of course taking us quickly to the question, are we not just complex machines responding and redefining our responses based upon our inputs?  Obviously the crux of the debate.  Assume for a moment we are, then freewill certainly seems nonsense.  Equivalently you could say my computer has freewill, or more to the point my calculator, and it is exercising said freewill by producing the result 4 when entered 2 + 2, in the same way I get up to get a glass of water when it suits me.  This may be the case, but it leads to no more conversation, no more discovery.  If that is the answer, that we are complex and fully determined machines, than the meaning of truth, of discovery, philosophy all goes out the window, therefore, we can discount this conclusion and continue down other avenues?  Why?  Our investigation is one for truth, for clarity, at least of cohesive concepts.  If we stumble upon a possibility that renders truth irrelevant, than we do no harm by abandoning that possibility.  For if it is true, we harm nothing by sacrificing truth, for truth is irrelevant.  Let’s call these Self-Destructive Truths, or maybe something catchier if I can think of it later.

Isn’t that a nice argument against nihilism?” 

No.  It’s not.  Nihilism renders everything irrelevant and relevant, everything wrong and right, everything worth-full and worthless, simultaneously.  If it simply rendered truth worthless, it would be a (say it with me now) Self-Destructive Truth, but because under nihilism truth is both irrelevant and relevant, it is not simply self destructive.

So let’s press on.  If nothing else, freewill is certainly an illusion, that is it say, I certainly have the feeling of freewill.  I feel as though I make decisions that I could go either way on, I feel power in making those decisions, control, and thereby I feel responsible for the outcome, whether good or bad.  Right now I feel as though I am deciding whether to continue writing or get something to drink.  To go to bed or continue writing.  To to prove to myself that I have more than those options, those options that jump out at me, I lie on the floor, or I slap my flippers together.  Silly, yes.  The machine is all encompassing.  Where can the will hide that it would be outside the machine.  My blood pumps, my neurons fire, chemicals are released, muscles contract, and where in all that is this magically will that has choice.  A little captain in my head, silly.  Of course, the question is does my will have a will?

And yet there it is again, that ability to see two paths and feel the power to decide which one to choose.  We cannot logic that away, not so easily.  Let’s go back and see if we missed something.

Much of this is operating under the notion that you only have freewill when you have a choice.  Computers do not have a choice.  When I drop a tennis ball it is not deciding to fall to the ground, for it has no other options, it cannot choose to not fall to the ground, or to fly upwards.  When I decide to start writing a Philosophical Dictionary, perhaps I had no choice, logically I had no choice, for I am doing it, the world was such a way that I fell to writing this, such as the tennis ball would fall, bounce off a shoe, bounce of a stone, and come to rest at the bottom of the hill.  And all the while this little tennis ball was thinking “should I bounce to the left, or bounce to the right.  Man I can’t decide… I’ll bounce to the left.”  Now of course there is a difference here.  The tennis ball has no ability to move itself, to inact change in any perceivable way.  We have muscles, and energy, we are chemical reactions, and this grants us the illusion, that we see ourselves as a one self, one mysterious self, where in reality we are a collection of things, a collection of explainable and observable reactions, a collection of tennis balls falling and colliding. 

I’m not saying anything new.  I’m trying to figure this out, just spitballing here.  Ultimately I think this will come down to quantum physics.  When we go in close enough we start to see breaks in the machine, unanswered questions, this are and are not, things are no loger fixed by logic, by A or not A, A can be A and not A, and it is within these indeterminacies that we have our best chance of finding our freewill.  It is only place or will has any flexibility.  This is a potentially non self destructive truth to be found, and therefore one worth keeping an eye out for.

A final thought, if there is will in cracks of existence, than the question arises, what restricts our will simply to our actions?  How deep does our will go?  With a clearer understanding of will can we do more than just get ourselves a glass of water?  Can we chagne our realities?  Our realities that are made up of these tiny undetermined cracks?  If all these cracks, this essence of reality is naturally undetermined, with the freedom to both be and not be, everything, all of it, the freedom to be and not be, well, isn’t that just another way to say nihilism?

Booya.
Booya.