Philosophy
Off The Tracks: Time, Determinism, Awareness, and Free Will
Is awareness a choice?
What if nearly all of our choices were the result of preconditioning, and our waking experience is simply a biologically-generated hallucination deciphering ultimately mathematics-based patterns derived from the initial momentum of the universe? What if our decisions really are “turtles all the way down,” a confusing web of thought and stimulus that ultimately leads back to varying levels of subatomic interactions and the big bang? Can choice exist in this paradigm? If we are truly searching for a space to wedge our free will into, I suppose the question then becomes: If all of our thoughts really do derive from some pre-ordained inertia, do we still contain some type of biologically accessible quality beyond thought that registers in our determined, limited, mammalian minds as freedom?
Without diving too deeply into the philosophical semantics, authors, and vocabulary that accompany these issues, I would like to discuss the idea of free will, how we normally consider it, and how the sense of freedom that gives meaning to our experiences can be incredibly subtle. Free will is normally expressed as a freedom to choose or decide to some degree. The degree to which free will can be invoked has been a continuous topic of debate- as much so as the topic of whether it can be invoked at all.
There has come as of late a scene of scientists and thinkers frolicking in the philosophical realm of hard determinism, and relishing the conquest of epistemological reductionism. Epistemological reductionism barely passes my word processor’s spell check, but, however clunky, it is a way of expressing the dominant ‘western’ idea that what can be known (epistemology), can be known by breaking down complex phenomena into simpler fundamentals- thereby reducing experience into simpler components that can be viewed through the lens of the scientific method. Epistemological reductionism has led to “hard determinism,” the idea that the cosmos is predetermined by physical laws down to subatomic levels that lead back to the big bang, and that human choices are not exempt from the cosmos and those laws (sorry — no free will here).
This determinist snow-globe is full of facts deriving from neuroscience, biology, and psychology, but there is a faith in the determinism dome that is not often admitted, or even considered. The faith only comes out when you shake the globe, and the glitter rises from the crannies, fluttering over the factual landscape. The sparkling is rejoicing, the fanfare behind the claim of the final answer — how we should live based on hard science. The glitter says that nothing is “our fault” since we never really had any choice to begin with (I believe this snow globe plays “We Didn’t Start the Fire” when wound). The faith is in the closed system, the domed ceiling, in finding the culprit at last. It was that damned free will screwing us up all along!
To better illustrate the determinist view of existence, I would like to provide a great metaphor from the determinist Trafalmadorians, a fictional alien race with a human zoo exhibit featuring Billy Pilgrim from Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5. Here, the alien zookeeper describes their human captive’s perception of time verses the Trafalmadorian’s:
“The guide invited the crowd [of Trafalmadorians] to imagine that they were looking across a desert at a mountain range on a day that was twinkling bright and clear. They could look at a peak or a bird or a cloud, at a stone right in front of them, or even down at a canyon in front of them. But among them was this poor Earthling, and his head was encased in a steel sphere which he could never take off. There was only one eyehole with which he could look, and welded to that eyehole were six feet of pipe.
This was only the beginning of Billy’s miseries in the metaphor. He was also strapped to a steel lattice which was bolted to a flatcar on rails, and there was no way he could turn his head or touch the pipe. The far end of the pipe rested on a bi-pod which was also bolted to the flatcar. All Billy could see was the little dot at the end of the pipe. He didn’t know he was on a flatcar, didn’t even know there was anything peculiar about his situation.
The flatcar sometimes crept, sometimes went extremely fast, often stopped — went uphill, downhill, around curves, along straightaways. Whatever poor Billy saw through the pipe, he had no choice but to say to himself, “That’s life.””
This determinist metaphor paints humans as listless beings carried by the chronology and causality of time to their pre-ordained destinies. It seems that the way we relate to time is directly connected to our perception of agency. The reductive model of determinism depends on the successive order of time and our lack of access to the past to prove that we have no free will. In other words, the “initial conditions,” that order everything about our lives are locked away in the past, preordained and untouchable. What is interesting about Vonnegut’s model, is that while the Trafalmadorians view chronology as a psychological human construct, the great moment of time is still hardwired and unable to be willfully influenced — a classic example of Vonnegut’s mind-twisting methods of discussing free will and time.
The idea that all of what we would consider “choices” are actually uncontrollable impulses derived from layers of circumstances, conditioning, and instincts coiled into our DNA provides the scaffolding for the most compelling scientific argument against the notion of “free will.” Expanded and applied, this idea even has some potentially positive impacts on society, abolishing the underlying notion behind blame, judgement, and punishment. If we are not ultimately responsible for our behavior (as interpretations of determinism would imply), then, we have no right to judge or punish ourselves or others.
Prison is, therefore, a very bad idea, since we can’t choose our behavior. We can finally stop condemning ourselves for all of our weaknesses and aversions, and lessen the inner conflicts that rise into outward violence. It’s been argued that realizing our biologically ordained “innocence,” in determinism can feel even more freeing than the sloppy version of free will we’ve swallowed all this time, and there’s a growing group of popular smart people picking up and promoting the concept of idealistic determinism.
On the other hand, the idea of any force ungoverned by deterministic law is a dualist notion. Dualism, roughly, is the idea that the body and the mind can act as separate entities in some sense, sometimes described as the distinction between body and soul. It is the idea that there is a “you,” even separate from your body. There are a lot of different versions of dualism, and depending on who you ask, there are all kinds of attitudes around this idea. Usually, the belief in any transcendence over determinism lies in some version of dualism. Materialists (believing that absolutely everything is the result of physical interactions of matter, i.e. nothing “beyond”) take issue with this sort of supernatural separation between mind and body. Reductionism in science depends on this materialism. To prove our lack of free will, many scientists and materialists point to neurological experiments that prove our hardwired biological reactions to stimulus and the fact that all mental states have a physical chemistry in the brain. Physical chemistry which was ultimately dictated by the preconditions of the cosmos — therefore, no free will.
So my metaphysical question about a realm beyond thought where some sort of “freedom” might reside represents phenomena so far undetected or rejected by the realm of science, which depends on materialism and reductionism to function. It is important to mention that the scientific method is only one tool we’ve found, relatively recently in human history, for discerning truth from the cosmos. It has been an incredibly useful tool for many developments. But, when the subject of study is way outside of the realm of the “observable,” by our current tools, like the individual experiences of specific mental states are, the scientific lens might not shed any useful light on the phenomenon.
I haven’t figured out an alternative truth- discerning system to the scientific method (yet — stay tuned), but if there is an answer to my initial question about some quality or place beyond thought, it is my guess based on my life experience (and a lot of reading) that a quality like that might be best described as “awareness.” Awareness is not what I would describe as a “thought,” it’s more like a state of being. And when I say “state of being,” I don’t mean that awareness is a passive process, like breathing can be. Awareness is active, not in the sense of moral dictation, it is not a thought saying “Do this and not that.” Awareness is a state that simply watches actively without condemning or condoning, separate even from the nagging thought that says “watch, be aware,” — awareness is the inner gaze itself. If free will exists, if there is any “choice” in the web of causality, I believe it resides in awareness, in choosing to see yourself and your setting with a clear, non-discriminating gaze at every possible moment.
Bringing this back down to earth — in my lived experience, I’ve found over time that the only choice I have in this cosmic shit-storm of variables is awareness. Actually, as I’ve become more aware of my thoughts, I’ve realized that a lot of what seem like “choices” in the moment, are totally preordained by my conditioning and circumstances. Becoming more actively aware has led me to agree with the determinists more than I ever thought I would. But there is that one pesky detail that keeps me from totally conceding to hard determinism— that of awareness itself!
The “choice” to be aware is so subtle that the phenomenon slips away at intervals even as I attempt to write hedges around it. It’s can be difficult not to gush spiritual while talking about awareness, although, while pondering this state, it’s easy to see how different religious traditions have entire books of poetry and prose attempting to offer glimpses of its meaning.
A whole lot of time in my own mind has taught me that trying to order myself around in this world is a futile exercise. My thoughts go where they will, and sometimes to places we unilaterally tend to evaluate as exceptionally weird or wrong. Everyone has these types of thoughts sometimes. If I try to condition myself out of certain thoughts or behaviors out of damage control, while it might work for a time, this conditioning is just another hack, a form of discriminating mind control that does not contribute to overall meaningful being. I may receive the desired behavioral outcome for a time, but the outcome is hollow, based on fear, and usually doesn’t last.
Try challenging yourself not to think about something- the brain automatically wants to pick at it even more. The mental conflict starts at the first juncture. Often, the only way to stop thinking about something is to blast it out of your mind with some type of distraction. This is a habit that can lead down unhealthy roads. It’s a retroactive tactic that lessens your overall tolerance to your own raw being. However, if you allow yourself to fully and honestly experience whatever thoughts and sensations come up naturally in real time, without condemning and condoning, you might find that the thoughts subside on their own. Without judgement or justification, you can watch your behavioral reaction too.
In my experience, my behavior shifts without effort when I am maintaining awareness, there is no shoving any thoughts under the rug, no ordering myself around. I don’t have to dictate anything to myself when I can view intimately the implications and ramifications behind my thoughts and behaviors. When I’m aware, I don’t need to act, I don’t need to try to change anything, for I realize that I am part of the picture I’m observing, I am not separate- and at that realization- the underlying conflict of separation ceases. My behavior may shift in desirable ways based on awareness, but its not because I willed it to- its because I allowed the biological machine of my mind-body to access more “data” more clearly- and my behaviors are automatically sculpted directly from that store of information.
One of the most poignant consequences of awareness is humility. If you are intensely aware of yourself in every instant, you cannot possibly judge another person, and if you do- you’ll be intimately and immediately aware of the plain ugliness of your judgement. For you know all the jealousy, insolence, and violence that lives within you when you consistently try not to push away or cover difficult or unruly thoughts. You notice them, and in that noticing, there is a great humbling, and a dismissal of the idea of punishment (similar to the assertions of idealistic determinism).
When you are fully aware of yourself, you know that sometimes, people do things that don’t make ethical sense, and that is due to the poverty of their own mental situation. You know this because you’ve watched yourself thinking or acting selfishly. Punishment, a retroactive whipping or forced reconditioning, doesn’t work on the deepest level. Punishment does not encourage long-term meaningful being. What does work is awareness, if you are able to be fully aware of the pain you caused another, then there will be an inward recoil- awareness that can topple some heavy dominoes.. It’s only in brushing things under the rug, hastily justifying and avoiding a clear inner view, that a person is able to continue acting wickedly.
For the sake of argument, we’re going to posit that awareness is the extent of free will, and we’re going to characterize free will as something outside of the realm of behavior, since awareness does not evaluate or “act” in the traditional sense. Awareness does not condemn or condone, it simply is. In this model, evaluation and behavior modification are conditioned, determined responses that would follow from awareness, so they would be determined according to awareness.
But that doesn’t fit the timeline, right? All the preconditions of the universe are what determined everything, and those existed way before you decided to try Buddhism. Well, let’s inch out even further on this woo-woo limb, just for fun. I’ll propose something which has no scientific backing whatsoever: what if awareness was an “initial circumstance” of existence, a precondition, from which all determined actions and outcomes derived — “wedged in” to the determinist model? What if awareness is our access to eternity, a timeless state that allows human co-determination with the cosmos? This conjures some mystical inklings about the emergence of consciousness, and the potential intentionality of the universe, but bear with me.
If awareness is a determining force, it would have to be a precondition that governs a universal law. But if it is a precondition, then the only way we could experience awareness in our waking life is if awareness were a timeless state, resisting the chronological biological hallucination. To elaborate, there is some pretty esoteric physics that gets into the perceived chronology of time, but basically, there is a whole way of thinking about time and space as one big moment or landscape where everything interacts with everything else (similar to the Trafalmadorian’s vista of time — although their vista is fixed). If this is true, that awareness is a timeless state, it could be a determining force that corresponds to notions of “free will.” A determining force that we can access right now, by deciding to be present, and accessing eternity.
Now, since this is starting to sound a little like some self-help double BS (best seller/bullshit), lets go back to Vonnegut’s metaphor with poor Billy Pilgrim and the Trafalmadorians. Where would awareness fall into this metaphor? If Billy were fully aware of his situation, Billy would know he was on the flatcar, and that his path was dictated by the geography of time. In that knowing, despite the erratic movements of the flatcar, he would know there was an overall vista he was not fully perceiving, and know that his reactions to stimulus, taking place within the steel sphere, were conditioned. While there is still no room in the initial metaphor for Billy to go off the tracks, and the Slaughterhouse 5 universe is a hard determinist one — time is still one big moment to Trafalmadorians.
In my version of the metaphor, the vista of time would shift ever so slightly under the pressure of Billy’s clear gaze and presence, where his only real “agency” would rest. Billy would be a co-determining force of the cosmos by accessing the timeless force of awareness that intertwines with the other universal preconditions- in a reality where “before” and “after” are only imagined concepts. The flatcar would still travel along it’s rails according to chronology, but the great panorama of existence would be tinged with awareness and hues of awe, and within the sphere at the end of the welded pipe eye-hole, there would be a free mind — unconstrained by time, aware of its dynamic entanglement with eternity.
Vonnegut seemed to think that believing in free will was an important human exercise, even if he didn’t think it was real. While I’ve tried to wedge my way of thinking about these ideas into some already existing concepts, I can’t say for certain whether the dominoes just keep falling from “before,” or if we can potentially alter their course, even ever so slightly. All I know is that the only real peace I’ve ever felt occurs in this impartial observing that has been called “awareness.” It is the only thing responsible for any “intentional” changes in my life, or intentional changes I’ve witnessed in the lives of others — some miraculous. It is the closest thing I’ve ever found to the idea of free will. The one choice, to be aware, at any given moment, and revel in the grand vista of time, relishing the eternal mystery of living.
