My Take on Free Will
I have yet to fully flesh out my own take on free will. I have had some interesting conversations about it and some in-depth analysis thanks to Sam Harris’s conversations and book about the topic.
From my personal experience it seems to me that thoughts, intentions, cravings, etc. arise from the void of consciousness. It seems as though I, the conscious witness of my experience have no say or influence on what appears next, or what meaning I will abstract from what appears next. This fact lays the framework for my opinion of free will.
Using the concept of luck and randomness, analyzing situations involving criminals and “bad guys”, if I had to switch places with them, atom for atom, right before they committed whatever crime they committed, I would have taken the exact same action as them. There is no logical reasoning that points to my ability to change the course of action that they took. Further, I couldn’t have shifted from their collection of experiences, values, and trauma, all of which combined led to their final decision to commit the crime.
At this point I have concluded that I am purely lucky to have the values that I do indeed have and the experience, relationships, and emotions that make up my psyche.
In the past, I just barely began pondering Sam’s take on free will and it was slightly psychologically disturbing to me. It seemed to prove that I have no agency over my life, that I was just a string of thoughts and emotions. That is wrong. There is no reason that you can’t be driven by your values, on top of that, you will be driven by your emotions. And if you can draw positive value from your emotions, than you can see the value in those emotions and steer yourself towards them.
I think free will as most people see it is an illusion, the pilot of the helicopter that is ones mind. The little entity in the head making decisions and controlling the vehicle. That doesn’t exist, as a matter of experience, all you have is what appears, and you have no will over what will appear. But that doesn’t discredit the value in positive emotions, honesty, love, and kindness. All of those things lead to objectively living a better and happier life and improving the lives of the people around you.
