C4Chaos
August 2006 
Free will vs. science, determinism and evolution
Diederick
These days, ~C4Chaos is pretty much determining my life as it is lived on the web. He tells me where to drag my cursor's ass and directs me into virtual black holes, such as the famous ZPod:KB101, and the Dilbert blog. I must say I do enjoy it, shame on me, leeching off his C-ness.
Anyway, I was checking out a post on the Dilbert blog yesterday, in which the author was arguing that with science and evolution running the show, free will has been bumped out of the picture. Illusion, superstition, a product of circular reasoning. I could not constrain myself and had to respond to the stimulus he was offering, so I sort of disproved the argument that is to follow by its being conditional upon Scott Adam's bait. That's pretty evil, really.
Oh and I'm posting this here, 'cause ~C told me to and, with his free will, constrained me into this. Thanks, ~C(for Constraint) ;-)
------------------------
In a way, you could say free will vs. evolution is about free will vs. conditioning. Another way of looking at this is creativity vs. constraint.
If you want to be taken seriously, you'll need to deal with conditioning and constraint. If you insist everything's free will, you're lost already, in my view. It's too naive.
So the question could be rephrased as: assuming constraint is real, in what entity, property or process does it reside? The answers people have given to that pretty much tell the story of sociology, which deals with the relationship between the individual and society - very relevant.
Marx focused on the economic base, which for him gave rise to -and constrained- the superstructure of society, including politics, morality, religion, etc. Although he believes free will is possible to the extent that he believes in revolution, he negates his own position by making that free will dependent upon certain historical developments, such as the Enlightenment and the development of the capitalist mode of production. Whenever you're going to make free will dependent upon anything else, that is, specifying the conditions under which it occurs, then you're lost, for you've just given primacy to conditions and constraint.
Then came the postmodernists who said 'no man, there is not one Truth about these things, everything should be seen in context, there are as many truths as there are people, so all truth is relative!'. Which really means no-one can tell you what's right or wrong, do whatever you like. Doesn't really say much about free will or constraint, just collapses everything into relativity, leading to nihilism and narcissism, I'd say.
One way I'm trying to look at free will vs. constraint (I'm writing my graduate thesis on this), is by relating it to time, as in the past and the present. I'm not saying this is the ultimate truth, but that it may contribute to finding a more adequate perspective on the issue.
In a way, lived time is nothing but a chain of 'present moments' fading into the past. That is, each present moment resembles the past moment (sometimes very much, sometimes a bit less). However, it is also always a little new, even if it would be just that you've grown a heart-beat older.
You could say that each present moment builds upon the inheritance of the past. You've always had two legs, you can't all of a sudden grow a third one. This is a constraint of your body, which exists in time (and space of course). However, even though there's an inheritance of the past that is in many ways a constraint on the present moment, it also allows for (sometimes more, sometimes less) novelty. This moment is also not exactly the same as the previous, something's different.
I'd argue that, to the extent that a person can be aware of the present, he can exercise free will. Not free will as in everything is possible, because it needs to build upon the options bequeated to the present by the past. Nevertheless, in the present moment there's room for taking a new direction, doing things a little different.
This would have to do a lot with habits, both physical and mental. A habit is really an inheritance of the past, and if you're not aware of it, your present behaviour or thoughts will be determined by this habit, by memory, by the past.
Nevertheless, when you become aware, in the present moment, of these habits (reflection in action, 2nd order learning), you can do it differently. You could say this is choice, free will, I don't care about the words. Right now, you can reflect on you and decide whether your thoughts and behaviour are going to be in line with the past (which is really living in the past, allowing yourself to be constrained and conditioned) or whether it's going to be a tiny little bit different.
The crucial mediating factor between free will in the present and the constraint of the past, then, lies in awareness, or the ability to reflect upon your behaviour, your feelings and your thoughts. This is a uniquely human capacity. And that's why only human's have 'free will' in the sense of being able to reflect, act, reflect and act a little differently. This is learning, this is living, this is free will.
So in the end, it's really both. Find the space between stimuli and response, and you're free. Live on auto-pilot and have the response follow from stimuli through habits of the past, engrained in memory, and you're unfree. It's as simple as that, for me.
------------------------
from http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/04/free_will.html#comment-16043642
Access: Public
thanks for posting this bro. i had fun with it ;)
All that's left for me to do is immerse myself in the Dark, Murky Waters of ZPod:KB101 for my Bloggin' Baptism, after which I'll be good to go and join the Ranks of Those Whose Names Start With A Tilde.
Fear not, the birth of ~D is nigh!
….. no, no, no, NO. I must wait. I cannot live up to the ~. More practice. More meditation. More blogging! Some day….
“I'd argue that, to the extent that a person can be aware of the present, he can exercise free will.”
I agree. My hypothesis is that the amount to which one can exercise free will is directly proportional to the extent to which someone can live in the present moment… this, of course being partially constrained by the Kosmic habits that have already asserted themselves.
diederick said: “Fear not, the birth of ~D is nigh!”
nice. D is ordinal #4 in the English alphabet. in numerology The Number 4 is:
”Four derives its significance from various sources. It is the first “composite” number; that is to say, the first number that can be created from multiplying numbers other than itself and 1, in that 2 X 2 = 4. The simplest solid object — a tetrahedron — has four sides; hence four denotes solid matter in general and the Earth in particular, as the Earth is a solid object bounded by four cardinal points (North, South, East and West). Time is another concept strongly associated with four, on the grounds that the year has four seasons and the month has (roughly) four weeks; Christian-oriented observers also note that the life story of Jesus is told in four gospels, each of which is in turn linked to one of the four classical “elements” of fire, air, earth, and water. Specifically, the Gospel according to St. Matthew is associated with earth since his Gospel stresses Christ's incarnation in earthly form; water is accorded to St. Mark since his Gospel emphasizes the importance of baptism, fire is ascribed to St. John since his Gospel is the most “spiritual,” and air is assigned to St. Luke since his Gospel is the longest. The association with Earth means that four symbolizes being practical and “down-to-earth,” while the fact that four is the first composite number is linked to the idea of an other-directed, “composite personality” that takes cues from different and often conflicting sources, leading to fiercely independent, “out-of-the-box” thinking. In the Jewish religion, the number four is significant because of the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of God which is so holy it is never spoken. In Chinese numerology (as well as that of other Oriental languages), the word “four” is a homonym of the Chinese word for “death” (see Tetraphobia).”
hmmm. maybe that's why you have to word “die” in your name Diederick.
godspeed. i'll be watching you make an ass of yourself ~D. very groovy.
~C4無秩åº
“My hypothesis is that the amount to which one can exercise free will is directly proportional to the extent to which someone can live in the present moment… this, of course being partially constrained by the Kosmic habits that have already asserted themselves.”
That's exactly right, I think. Moreover, Kosmic habits -as in the past, karma- do not just constrain present behaviour, thoughts and other potential exercise of free will, but also enable it. An important addition, I think, as it tends to go all 'past is bad and present is good' otherwise. The present moment not only transcends the previous ones, but also includes them in its holonic embrace.
It's really good fun looking into all this for my thesis. Thanks for your thoughts guys!
And that crazy stuff you're posting is pretty fun too, ~C. My friends sometimes call me 'died', which is pronounced something like 'dede' or 'deed' (short ee), but when it's written in an email, those not speaking Dutch but English tend to get a scare ;-)
And down-to-earth? I don't think a lot of people around me would agree… Ah, here's Diederick again, talking about quadrants and perspectives (erh, beer-goggles) and emptiness and unity consciousness and what-the- is that all about anyway?
~Just Diederick
Yeah, I agree with that addition, Died. If you are freed from karma by being constantly in the present moment, it doesn't mean you get to grow a third leg.
but i have a third leg :)
That's a third pinky, ~C. You need to take off your beer-goggles.
your projections will not be tolerated!
Hi Diederick, nice subject. Here are two things that popped into mind…
“…Then came the postmodernists who said 'no man, there is not one Truth about these things, everything should be seen in context, there are as many truths as there are people, so all truth is relative!'. Which really means no-one can tell you what's right or wrong, do whatever you like. Doesn't really say much about free will or constraint, just collapses everything into relativity, leading to nihilism and narcissism, I'd say.”
It looks like the postmodernists were setting up the conditions for “collective free will” by creating the notion of relative truth, so we didn’t feel that others were stepping on our toes by not believing what we believe. The thing that seems to make it lead to nihilism and narcissism is when an person clings on to his own relative truth as being “exclusively right”, which at some level should create a division in the individual (haven’t read Boomeritis, but can imagine it goes into this). Perhaps this is one of the distinctions of where the green vMeme starts moving into 2nd tier; where it starts to authentically honour relative truth.
“…You could say that each present moment builds upon the inheritance of the past. You've always had two legs, you can't all of a sudden grow a third one. This is a constraint of your body, which exists in time (and space of course).”
I agree. This is where thinking in terms of different bodies, i.e. mental, astral, etc. appears to lead to different conclusions about our scope of free will related to time. For example, there are views on energetic healing that claim that diseases are first created at mental and emotional levels, and manifest in our energetic fields (don’t know if this happens simultaneously, who knows, this might take place in a timeless dimension). In time, they claim, what’s present in our energetic field starts to gel in our physical bodies.
Thanks for making your thoughts available; I enjoyed letting them mix with my own!
Roma