Free Will
A Misapplied Question
I recently watched Ben Emlyn-Jones' videos on the free will and determinism debate recently and thought I should make a
comment on it.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/vPKZENgpYk19/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/bDoUJBvaYGuP/
In this one he reads through my uncompleted draft of this article before I got round to completing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H-pM6xMfIo
He covered
the conventional arguments but these are subject to certain logical fallacies
which I will detail.
The first one
is that the debate is almost always approached from a materialist causality
level and so leads to a foregone conclusion.
This is a version of the 'Have you stopped beating your wife yet?'
fallacy.
Laplace's
Demon is effectively a statement of that foregone conclusion by couching
everything in terms of the determinist universe from a point of view of
classical mechanics and so forth. I do
not contend the mechanistic argument because the solution to this is outside of
that and it is a lost battle before it even starts.
The next step
is that the very term 'Free Will' needs to be unpacked before we can go any
further. We all know or at least think
we know what is meant by 'Determinism' but there is very little consideration
of what we mean when we talk about 'Free Will'.
There are at
least three directions of consideration from this.
Absolute
randomness and chance
Ethical
imperative
Soul 'causality' as outside of physical mechanics.
The first one
to deal with is the question of 'What would a free choice be?'
You rightly
drew attention to the perpetual regress of the homunculus 'all the way down'
which is used to justify determinism.
This is alright as far as it goes, but it is posed as the only
alternative to a 'Free Will' which is completely 'Undetermined'. But how can something be completely
'Undetermined'? If our actions don't
come from some reason then they must be entirely random like how we
understand quantum physics. Entirely
without meaning. This is why I introduce
the term reason as distinct from cause. Causes are mechanical processes, reasons are
psychological. I think this probably has
some bearing on Molyneux's willingness to argue for Free Will even though he is
an atheist materialist. Actual 'Free
Will', if it does exist or if there is any meaning that can be extracted from
the term must involve some kind of meaning being present in the actions that
people consider 'Freely chosen'. The
alternatives are complete material determinism which reduce consciousness and
the Hard Problem to mere epiphenomena or else completely random and meaningless
choices like The Dice Man. I
don't accept any argument which refuses to acknowledge the really Hard nature
of the Hard Problem. In fact, I think
the answer lies in accepting the Hard Problem as part of the solution, as I
shall explain.
The next stage
of my case that I want to lay out is the Ethical Imperative. It is rightly observed by many that
Determinism voids ethical responsibility.
This is a very serious matter.
The social consequences of the two competing belief systems are quite
obvious and dramatic. I would like at
this stage to pose an alternate label for what has been up to now called 'Free
Will' ~ 'Ethical Responsibility'.
Absolute
determinism voids responsibility while 'Free Will' accepts and engages with
it. If one can claim that all your
behaviours are the result of external forces and that you can do nothing about
them yourself through choice, agency or taking any kind of responsibility, then
you can get away without taking any blame for the most atrocious actions, as
you described with some of the serial killers you mentioned.
So there is
clearly a very different set of outcomes between the two types of belief
systems, which is an interesting fact since the determinists claim that
everything is determined, but those who accept that at some level they have the
choice to take responsibility produce a more satisfactory outcome. One that is probabilistically more functional. That's a concept you're going to come across
a lot in the book by the way!
Now that is
interesting. Something of a paradox that
a false belief would produce a more functional outcome would it not be if hard
materialist determinism is actually the case.
Which I would suggest it is not!
But also bear in mind that the Determinist is nonetheless making a
choice when he claims that his actions are ‘determined’ and that he can do no
other. Yet the one believing in Ethical
Responsibility is also making a choice, which is more congruent with their belief.
So now we
reach what I have referred to as 'Soul Causality'. You go into this and say that it is Woo,
which is a tacit submission to the materialist paradigm. Nearly every culture and civilisation in
recorded history has held beliefs about the soul, the afterlife, animism and so
forth, so I contend that calling this Woo is a serious and unnecessary
concession at a conceptual level which isn't justified.
Addressing the
eternal regress, homunculi all the way down, we get to the real nitty gritty,
the Soul and Consciousness, the Hard Problem.
The fallacy
here is to treat the Soul as simply another mechanism which is caused to act
according to influences upon it.
But this is
not the case.
Firstly it is
non material. The materialist claim that
Consciousness (they won't acknowledge Soul, so we have to go with
Consciousness) is simply an epiphenomenon or by product of the electrochemical
fields created by neurones is merely an assumption. It's never been proved, and the reason why is
because of the Hard Problem. There is no
proven mechanical causal link between brain processes and consciousness because
they are different ontological categories.
There literally cannot be a simple causal link. There may be associated patterns, but
correlation doesn't equal causality, this is not merely an assumption but a
known fact of psychology and the basis for superstition and gambling addictions
amongst other thing. The brain draws
patterns from experience, and they can be wrong!
We need to
have recourse to Sheldrake's morphic fields at this stage. He proposes that the world is made up of
countless interacting fields. Our
consciousness is a field and when it is functioning optimally it recognises
structure and meaning in its perceptual field.
Meaning simply cannot be reduced to 'nothing more than' a set of
material causal events. What would that
even mean?
Meaning is an
interpretive field in consciousness. A
gestalt. Our rational minds are always
trying to reduce everything to simple causality which is why we find the ‘Free
Will’ paradox so confounding, but if there are larger consciousness fields
involved in this then it is a lateral and holistic phenomenon rather than the
linear causal sequence that determinism holds to be the case.
This is the
point that I have to try and explain very carefully because the reductionist
Laplace demon in our own minds wants to try and reduce it to linear causality.
Consciousness
is a field which integrates and interprets meaning. Leibniz's Monads did this. Each is a unique point of view which
is reflected back to the rest of the Universe. That is why every soul is unique. There is something to be learnt from every
point of view. Consciousness could be
described as orthogonal to material reality.
It intersects it but is somehow perpendicular to it. But there is that point of intersection. How do the two interact? They are ontologically different but they
intersect. They have some things in
common but are not identical.
Consciousness
or the Soul are not linear causally created things in the way that a brain is. And reasons, while they have features in
common with material causes are not the same and cannot be reduced to
them. Meaning is not something
that is materially caused, it is something that only exists in consciousness,
which as we have established, is not reducible.
These may seem
like fine points, but this is the business of philosophy, to winkle out the
distinctions in order to have a better understanding.
So
consciousness is at least to some degree outside simple material causality as
generally understood. And yet it has
ways of working which make it function so as to be able to respond to meaning
which is an interpretive field in consciousness.
What we need
to do now is consider and examine how consciousness, or perhaps the Soul behave
outside of strict conditions of material causality, while doing our best to
avoid slipping back into a materialist causal paradigm.
Consciousness
is indivisible and irreducible. It
cannot be deconstructed into constituent parts.
Now this is
where some will interpret me as conceding to determinism, but it is more subtle
than that.
Returning to
the argument from ethical responsibility, the higher level ethical decisions,
which are what we are really concerned about here rather than simple behaviours
which may be reduced, are arrived at through a gestalting of meaning derived
from holistic reflection, rather like Leibniz's monads. A ‘monad’ is an ‘entelechy’ as Leibniz calls
it something which brings form to potential. the actualization of form-giving cause as contrasted
with potential existence. In other words a point of consciousness
that brings meaning into existence. Thus the argument is that there are inherent
qualities within the nature of the consciousness, soul or monad which are
uncaused, at least in the material sense, since they are present in that thing
which is itself uncaused, at least in a physical sense. This is the Hard Problem. Consciousness is uncaused in terms of
material causality since it is not a material thing. This is the ontological paradox we basically
face.
The term
‘entelechy’ that Leibniz used derives from the Greek telos,
purpose, fulfilment or meaning. From
which we get teleology the study of explanation by meaning. Not Newtonian causes.
The
etymological implications of telos include perfection,
completion, unity. Psychologically
speaking consciousness or the soul is seeking that state for itself, one of
completion or unity with the divine. So
ontologically we are looking at the universe in terms of consciousness as the
primary substrate.
Now beings may
move into greater or lesser degrees of harmony with that sought unity or
perfection. Material causes being on a
different level may either help or hinder moving into that harmony. The ethical nihilist sees no greater meaning
or telos and so is subject to the vagaries and rigid limitations
of an entropic Newtonian universe.
Whereas the person who takes ethical responsibility is choosing to
navigate the landscape of meaning that is human existence. I haven’t read Peterson’s Maps of
Meaning but I like the phrase which I imagine he is using in some vaguely
related way.
So we are
looking at how we as humans fit into a larger context of meaning. ‘Free Will’ is as I have said a problematic
term. It is as I see it more like
navigating across an ocean in a sailing ship.
You can tack or run before the wind in many different ways, some more
successful than others, some dangerous and some which might get you wrecked on
a rocky shore. Your destination
is your destiny. I will come back to
this.
Robert Pirsig
makes a compelling argument for the existence of quality as an objective
feature of the Universe in his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,
as does CS Lewis in The Abolition of Man for the existence of objective
value (not values as such which is a slightly different
argument that we don't need to go into here).
Both of these
rely on consciousness as the means whereby these things are
understood. So the next stage in the
argument becomes simpler. There is
objective value and quality in the Universe which pre-exist our perception of
them. When we experience quality or
value we do so in relation to something that already exists. It is thus the consciousness or soul seed
which already has the passive recognition template within itself that
recognises the value or quality.
Of course this
is a subtle process which is easily overlaid or modified, but as Lewis points
out most persuasively in his Abolition the concept of the good
has to come from somewhere even for the most ardent social relativist, who is
perhaps just inventing some twisted notion of what they think is good,
but they still think it good, desirable.
So to return
to the earlier point of soul causality and the implied infinite regress
of homunculi all the way down there is an alternative, but one which some might
find unpalatable.
That
alternative is that there is objective value in the Universe. 'What works' is perhaps the simplest way of
putting, it although of course that is subject to critique and needs to be
defended as 'for the whole' or somesuch; but again, we have a solid foundation
in that it must 'work for somebody' or we fall into the abyss of postmodernist
power models in which there is no good, and contradictorily all power is bad
etc etc. We can see how these relativist
type models are unable to support themselves with internal consistency.
So I return to
the alternate model that there is value, it does exist as a quality, even a
fundamental quality, in the Universe, beside simple material things and
events. Consciousness or the Soul has
some relation to both and thus mediates reality, which is pretty much our
intuitive sense of the world as it is.
Reaching the
question of choice then, we are left with the question of how Consciousness or
the Soul respond to quality or value. A
Soul that is in tune with value will recognise it and try to respond to it,
whereas one that is not won't. The value
and meaning are the telos that the consciousness is seeking.
A Soul that is
more in tune with the good and value will freely choose those things which
accord with it, while those who aren't are more constrained in their actions
because their actions will lead to less good, or even harm.
This is where
the random acts as being free falls down. Freedom must be the freedom to choose good or
bad but there must also be a reason or meaning behind it. Determinists put up a Straw Man argument here
because they don’t allow the existence of value, meaning and purpose which
exist within the unique entelechy. One other thing Leibniz pointed out about
monads or entelechies is that they are each unique since they are perceiving
the universe from a unique perspective.
This amongst other possible reasons contributes to the unique
characteristics of each soul.
This is why
many religions believe in the pre-destination of the Soul, because its path is
determined by its own nature. This in
many instances leads on to a reincarnation model in which the Soul evolves and
becomes more in tune with the good so that it becomes more free.
There is an interesting
turn of phrase in the Book of Common Prayer in which it refers to God 'whose
service is perfect freedom'. So a Soul
or Consciousness which chooses the good because it is in tune with it does it
freely, but is determined by its own nature to do so. To choose the good surely must
be akin to freedom, open, increasing. To
choose the bad, the opposite.
Constraint, emprisonment, closed, with diminishing options.
The soul
potential is explored and expressed through material experience. It is the seed within the soul that gives the
meaning which is expressed in its choices.
This seed is a cause but not in a material Newtonian
way. It is what the mediaeval
philosophers called the Final Cause, a term CS Lewis was keen
on. The Great Attractor some might call
it.
Soul alignment
with the good must inevitably lead to an ever greater and widening field of
opportunity, all those things we know to be good. Health, wealth, prosperity, fulfilment, love
and so forth. Soul alignment with the
bad must lead to a diminishing spiral of lessening opportunity ultimately. The good is ever higher integration with
universal laws, while the bad is the opposite, separation and denial.
So 'Free Will'
as posed by the materialist reductionists is a fallacy, whether set up
intentionally or unknowingly. Returning
to the point that a belief in Free Will produces a more functional society than
the one of apathy that would result in a determinist dominated one, we can
begin to see why that would be the case.
Because behaving in such a way that is in accordance with actuality is
bound to be more functional than behaving in such a way as to deny it. Although the dark magician will perhaps seek
to act against the good as an act of choice, in the end it leads to limitation.
So the Final
Cause of our existence is the motivator. We may navigate in various ways but in the
end there is the end goal. Union with
the Divine or Unified Field of Consciousness.
'Soul
Determinism' may not be the kind of 'Free Will' model that some would like to
see, but it steps outside the two main problems with the conventional debate,
the causal prison of the perpetual regress all-the-way-down model and on the
other side the meaninglessness of completely random behaviour.
The single
biggest problem that we seem to face as a feature of living in the material
world is being ourselves in the face of external pressures. Certainly we must accommodate material
existence, maintain the body as Krishna has it in the Bhagavat Gita, but
to achieve some kind of happiness and fulfilment we must also bring forth that
which is within us and unique, else what is the purpose of human existence?
So we have
through our gestalt field a means of synthesising meaning from the impression
of the material senses on the monad which has an inherent sense of
meaning. This is most definitely not
causal determinism in the conventional sense but the means of ingress into the
material world of meaning and value through consciousness, which are factors
entirely orthogonal to the linear sequential action of material causality.
Determinists
will not like this argument because they are unwilling to address the Hard
Problem. But it is central. It is a paradox because we live in a material
world and they want material causes.
The only way
that meaning and causality can be reconciled is if they are part of the same
thing. What I mean by this is that consciousness, the Hard Problem is a
property of matter. Materialism denies meaning to consciousness but if consciousness
is actually an inherent property of self-organising systems as Sheldrake
postulates the entire problem collapses.
I posit
Sheldrake fields mediated by cymatic resonance, stepped down in frequency by
such organs as the pineal gland, thus creating organisation at the quantum
level of neuronal firing. Penrose and
Hammerhof have done extensive work on quantum tubules which are involved in
neuronal firing.
But I must
emphasise that these material responses originate in the realm of meaning and
relation to the telos of the soul.
Consciousness
is often conceived of as an eye, or more specifically, as a lens. It is the lens between the material world
which it perceives and the world of mind in which representations and
interpretations of it are elaborated.
Thus if there
is a continuous integral spectrum of being that is matter, but spirit is a
characteristic of it inherent to what it is, then in its very existence a
living being has some degree of autonomy. Indeed, looking at primitive life,
isn’t that one of the most important distinctions between animal and plant or
inorganic matter? Life interprets as a monad or entelechy from its unique position and trajectory in time and space and responds. The more developed the life, the greater the freedom. Matter simply reacts.
As with so
many philosophical problems the question of ‘Free Will vs Determinism’ is a
false dichotomy created by the assumption of division between mind (will) and
matter (determinism).
