Do you have choices or is it all an illusion? Here’s my answer.
One of the greatest dilemmas in philosophy is whether free will is real or not. Are we living with real choices, or is it all an illusion? Are we under the impression that we are free, while all along it’s been nothing more than a weird side effect of nature’s laws? These are questions essential to your existence, and they need answers.
You need to decide on an answer for yourself.
If everything is part of a chain of cause and effect, then it doesn’t seem like you’re really free. If you are not subject to the laws governing cause and effect, then you need to explain how that’s possible. I’ll be exploring these ideas here, and how I solve them with spiritual answers.
Determinism
One of the most enduring philosophical arguments of humankind about free will has been determinism. Determinism tells us that the laws of nature govern the chain of cause and effect going back to the beginning of time for all physical objects. All events are determined by previous events. Everything is an effect of a cause before it, and that cause was an effect of a cause before that, and so on.
The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says:
Causal determinism is, roughly speaking, the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature.
This presents a problem for us if we think that the brain is part of nature. (Most people don’t deny that!) And if we think the mind is the brain, then the mind is not exempt from the deterministic condition of nature.
For instance, a kid in Australia could blow out their candles and if we traced the wisp of wind from the kid’s mouth, we could conceivably follow it to where it ends up in the Caribbean as part of atmospheric disturbances that comprise a hurricane. The idea is that we could also understand the laws of nature to the extent that we know exactly which neuron firings cause which decisions to be made in the brain. Our science just isn’t advanced enough to trace this yet, that’s all — or so the theory goes.
This is the argument that many materialists make. Our minds are just parts of our bodies — located in the brain — and none of our choices are free. Every free choice we experience is just an illusion produced by the mind, somehow veiling us from the truth: that we have no free will.
But I don’t buy it. No. The laws of nature don’t apply to the mind — our minds aren’t physical!
Problems of the Mind
In order to decide whether determinism rules our minds or if we have free will, we have to first decide whether the mind is physical or nonphysical. If it’s physical, then you have a real conundrum on your hands. Whether you are an atheist or materialist and you want to believe that you are free, you will have to think very hard about how the very cells in your body somehow escape the laws of nature enough to allow free will.
Luckily, I am not a materialist. Sure, I used to be. But I firmly believe that our minds are not physical, and maybe not even located in the brain.
I believe that our minds are in another dimension from our bodies and mental events are closer to a spiritual level. They are in the realm of energy and can coexist with the physical, but aren’t dominated by the physical. Spiritual traditions around the globe share this basic belief.
If your mind isn’t your brain and it’s on another plane completely, then your free will can be real. We can only say that cause and effect apply to physical things, right?
I’m glad we got that out of the way. Now we can delve into other reasons to believe in free will.
Don’t Ignore Your Experience
Humanity loves to think and think and come up with reasons to distrust personal experience. We’ve convinced ourselves that science tells us everything we need to know and that our gut feelings can be wrong. Even our senses can be wrong. We’ve allowed ourselves to even question whether the experience of freedom is truly free.
We all have limitations in our lives. I currently can’t levitate spontaneously — maybe you can. I truly believe anything is possible, but generally, the laws of nature do apply to our bodies. We can’t walk through walls and we can’t bring people back from the dead. We also have social limitations, such as finances and societal statuses.
Some may even argue that our daily perceived freedoms aren’t truly real because we are all slaves to capitalism or social programming. While these things may be true, there is still an element of basic free will.
We have choices, and we know that we do.
We have the ability to choose our path at any moment. Our minds aren’t under the control of anyone but ourselves. We feel this. How can anyone possibly convince you that you don’t have free will when you have experienced nothing else but free choices since your birth? Would you really be willing to give up this belief because a scientist told you that they discovered that free will is an illusion?
It’s shocking that some people are willing to give up the belief in their freedom. What kind of life results from this?
If you can convince yourself that free will is an illusion, then how can you trust yourself about any experience of life at all? Any conclusions or judgment calls that you make can no longer be trusted. That’s not the life I am familiar with.
That’s not a life I would want to live.
Freewill is Real
Freewill might be a problem if we think that all events are part of a series of cause and effect, including our brain activity. However, spiritualists don’t have to worry because we don’t think the mind and the brain are the same thing. The mind is energy. It allows us to have a level of freedom in our life choices that science can never measure because it’s not physical.
And why would you deny your experiences? You shouldn’t. I always advocate trusting your intuition to find out what’s real.
