Free Will

We live in a creature that is subject to some predictable cause and effect relationships.  Some individuals can develop impressive abilities as the result of focused practice.

Like the ability to drive, effective operation of the vehicle requires some knowledge about how things work, and then lots of practice in real settings.   To operate the motor vehicle you must appreciate that pressing the accelerator pedal makes it go faster, turning the wheel steers it, etc.   Once you learn how it works it becomes a matter of practice - with some guidance from dad or a driving instructor - to achieve the desired competence. Those who live in the north are forced to develop additional skills to manage icy roads.  While it seems unfair that life is harder and more dangerous for northerners than for southerners, fairness is irrelevant.  Northerners and Southerners must each cope with the reality they are presented.  As partial compensation for the additional burden, northerners get to be better drivers in wintry conditions than southerners. 

The big advantage of skill acquisition over receiving treatment is that former is irreversible.  "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime." 

Each of us is dealt a hand with a specific genetic code, personal history and social circumstance.   For each hand there are better and worse ways of playing it out.  Good outcome results from shrewd planning and effective performance, not wishful thinking.  Because each of us is unique, skillful playing cannot be taught like a course in school.  Unlike Newton, who shared the same universe as his predecessors and so could "stand on the shoulders of giants," each of us must develop the necessary understandings during the one life span we get. 

Turkeys make excellent mothers; they spend much time warming and cleaning their young. But this complex behavior is triggered by one thing - the "cheep cheep" sound of her chicks. If the chick makes that sound the mother will care for it, otherwise she will ignore it. Cialdini¹ describes a study in which a polecat, the turkey's natural enemy, was stuffed with a tape recording of the "cheep cheep" sound. When the stuffed pole cat was pulled by string to approach turkey she attacked it viciously, but when the taped sound was turned on, the turkey not only did not attack it, but gathered it under her to comfort it. When the sound was turned off she again attacked it.

We are different than turkeys, and can choose how to behave. In fact, some people select long-range goals, develop plans, and make adjustments along the way until they achieve their goal. Their biographical course appears to be self-determined.   Turkeys cannot consciously guide their future course, and as far as we know, nothing else can either.   

Perhaps a new phenomenon – free will - emerged with human cognition.  However, some cognitive scientists argue that free will is an illusion which results from our being so much more complex than turkeys.    We can't resolve the free will debate by asking people whether they intended to do something or not, because the experience of intention may be an attribution that follows behavior rather than the actual cause of the behavior.  The subjective experience of free will is not evidence for its existence.²

We can never be sure that A causes B, as there could always be a third variable C that causes both of them.  While it seems that our intentions cause our actions, there may be causes, of which we are unaware, that produce both of them.  In fact, there is evidence that even before we are aware of the intention to perform an action, the neural precursors of the action have already occurred.  For example, subjects were told to note the time on a clock when they made the decision to press a button, and then to press the button.  They took 0.2 seconds on average to press the button, after they decided to do so.  But an EEG monitoring their brain waves revealed a spike 0.3 seconds before they decided to press the button. ³

Even if willful control of our immediate behavior is an illusion, we can utilize cognitive resources to willfully influence the unfolding course of life’s events.  It is possible to apply inductive and deductive reasoning in a way that can change the course of one's life, and transform a tragic biography into a heroic one.   This discovery is especially important for those who have been caught in an addictive trap. 

To use the gift of rational processing it is important to appreciate when it is available and what it can and cannot do.  

• Rational processing is too slow to influence behavior in real time.   Performance, to be smooth and responsive to a changing world, requires a rapid, holistic processing.⁴  When we try to consciously control ongoing behavior, we disrupt it. 
• Rational processing is only possible when there is a surplus of cognitive resources.  It is not available when cognitive resources are otherwise occupied - e.g., by complex cognitive demands, or by strong emotional states.
• Rational processing is free of state-dependent biases: 2+2=4 is true regardless of one's state of mind.  For an explanation of state-dependent perceptual biases, please see: The Soul Illusion. 
• Rational processing can produce rapid change - e.g., "I used to believe in the tooth fairy, but one day I realized that it was my mother all along."  This is contrasted with the long time and many repetitions required to change a habit. 
• Rational processing can influence future behavior through a variety of means including:  pre-commitment, rehearsal of desired performance, environmental engineering.  For more about this please visit:  Pathology and the Study of Paths.

A veteran addict may appreciate that:

1. The costs of a first lapse will be greater than its benefits.
2. Nevertheless, in some situations it will seem that the benefits of a first lapse will be greater than the costs. 
3. This temporary, state-dependent appraisal of costs and benefits will cause me to relapse. 
4. Later I will view the relapse as a big mistake, but then it will be too late.
5. Therefore,  while I am in this dispassionate state - free from the distortions caused by temporary fears and desires - I pre-commit my future behavior.   For more about this strategy see:  The Impeccable Path.
   • Needless to say, everyone is unique and there is no one best path.   This kit describes another approach to mindfully influence the unfolding of one's biography: the OPEN Path. 
   • Still another path is to develop the skill to intentionally change one's state of mind - see Hypnosis and Ordinary Trances.

Do we have free will?  At lower levels probably not, even though our experience of cause and effect makes the existence of free will seem self evident.   On the other hand if we define free will as the possibility of self-determination - the ability to have a premeditated influence on the unfolding of our biography - then free will is possible, albeit a  nontrivial task.  This web site is designed to develop and exercise the skills you need to escape dependence.

Footnotes

1. Influence: Science and Practice - Cialdini - 1988

2. The Psychology of Attention [1997], Elizabeth Styles. Psychology Press, LTD, UK

3. I. Kirsh & S Lynn - Automaticity in Clinical psychology, American psychologist, 1999, 54 504-515

4. Integration of the Cognitive and the Psychodynamic unconscious - Seymor Epstein. Amer Psychol., 1994, 49, 709-724

When we analyze will we shall find ourselves pushed back to the level of attention as the seat of will. The effort which goes into the exercise of the will is really effort of attention; the strain in willing is the effort to keep the consciousness clear, i.e., the strain of keeping the attention focused.

- Rollo May

I will act AS IF what I do makes a difference.

- William James

In discussing evil, the Zohar [an ancient book of Jewish mysticism] tells the story about a king who wanted to test his son, to see if he would be virtuous.  So he hired a woman to entice the son, instructing her to use all her wiles with him.  The Zohar asks, "Is the woman not also a loyal servant of the king?"  In this parable, as soon as the prince realizes that the woman is in the hire of his father, she is no longer a threat. The same is true of evil. 

- Thomas Edison