Free will

This morning I was in Café Matinée and this time it was about free will. Café Matinée is organized by Consequent, a network of free will skeptics. I've been struggling with that for a long time, with the concept of free will. It seems like something people would rather not think about. However, for me it is very clear, free will does not exist. You don't choose your own thoughts, you don't choose the outside world, you don't choose to be unlucky or lucky and you don't choose your emotions. When it comes to those thoughts, many people make a mistake. If you meditate often, that is one of the first things that becomes very clear, you do not choose your thoughts. Thoughts are like clouds floating by. And you can jump on it for a while, ride on the cloud for a while, but eventually the thought disappears again. If you react very emotionally to something, you can be stuck in a certain thought for a little longer. But everything is a consequence of a lot of complex previous actions. Our world is so complex that it seems as if free will exists. I could be wrong of course, but that is certainly how I experience it after 44 years. There is no free will. Of course, some things seem to arise much more from our will. You can react reflexively to something and everyone will agree that that is not free will. But even planning a murder with premeditation down to the last detail is not free will.

Strangely enough, there was general consensus on that this morning. Perhaps also because it is not without reason that they are a network of free will skeptics... :-) Consequence had provided some pushback by inviting two speakers who did not entirely agree with the 'we have no free will' statement. However, for me the discussion ended up being about two completely different things. The first speaker talked about free will not existing. That explanation was very clear to me. Truth is usually very simple. I think the second and third speakers were talking about something completely different, namely whether people's behavior should be followed in a society. The second and third speakers talked to me about when something is legally bad luck and when you are 'responsible'. Two completely different things. Just because free will doesn't exist doesn't mean you should just let everything and everyone go. To protect our society you sometimes have to intervene. You can't just let a murderer continue to commit crimes. Even though that murderer did not act of his own free will.

I find things difficult. Very difficult things. Ultimately, it's no one's fault. My question at the end was mainly how we ensure that intervention results in a better world. If free will does not exist, then perpetrator and victim also become rather vague. It would be best to live in a society in which a society is protected against murderers, but also a society that investigates whether it can prevent murderers from being 'made'. A society in which both perpetrator and victim are helped. I even wonder whether perpetrators and victims are often helped. It seems more like too many people make too much money from courts, prisons, lawsuits... and ultimately forget that it should be about helping both perpetrators and victims. When I think of someone like Vangheluwe, it even seems that it is mainly the perpetrator who is helped. And goes free. Mediation would be more appropriate instead of a society that has to divide everything into good and bad. That being said, if anyone ever raped my daughters, I would probably delete this blog. I think many people also don't want to accept the idea of ​​no free will because of personal stories in their past. Spiritually speaking, I even want to go one step further. If time and space are relative, which they are; although I think Einstein was much further ahead in that thought experiment than I was; then everything has already happened. Then the future and the past are equal. The story of the universe has long been completely written. It's fixed. Everything that has happened and everything that still needs to happen is certain. Control is a complete illusion. If there is no free will, then everything is fixed. I don't think there is a middle ground in between. It's free will or no free will. Consciousness, wow, consciousness, that word encompasses so many things. Words are so dangerous, they contain so much power and are usually used inappropriately. Consciousness seems to me to be from a completely different world. Consciousness is like the number 0. It is something that is nothing and nothing that is something. Meditation is the one thing I would recommend everyone start doing right away. Even though there is no free will, consciousness seems to be present in some way. Even though we have no choice, we are apparently able to see and realize that. Consciousness, I haven't quite figured it out yet. It seems like something you can't focus on. It just depends on when you want to investigate it, it is no longer there. That's why I think, on a spiritual level, that the universe is a story that is completely fixed. A kind of catalog from which you can choose spiritually. And in the beginning we choose easy lives, lives where we have everything, lives without pain with only joy, money, love, family, friendship, health... But eventually that starts to get boring and we take on a challenge. We then choose a more difficult life. After living 1000 lifetimes of having everything you want it probably gets pretty boring. And once you've done enough lives, you start looking for real challenges. Then you look for stories that are terrible. And all the while there is that consciousness there, which seems to be aware of those truths as if it were not free will. The stories are fixed, past, future, time, space, everything is written. It's a bit like watching a movie at the cinema. You can't change that movie. The movie is fixed. That's how I see life. Things are certain, but you have chosen this life. That's my bit of comfort at the moment. I chose it myself. Maybe we should start believing people like Shakespeare more. "All the world's a stage; And all the men and women merely players." Truth as a truism. What I really liked about this Café Matinée is that there were all kinds of people, all critical thinkers, all hungry to exchange ideas and learn new things. Grateful that there are judges who realize that free will does not exist and that leniency is therefore certainly appropriate for everyone. Grateful to live in a society where we are allowed to have these kinds of discussions. To me, this kind of thinking is the most normal thing in the world, but in many countries it is probably life-threatening. The only question I still have is what kind of 'punishments' make a better world. Suppose you decide not to hold anyone accountable for their actions and just let everyone do it, what would happen then? I wonder about that very seriously. People are going to say it will be total anarchy, but is that true? I believe that long ago, when all people were nomads, when people lived more in connection with nature, it was quite okay to live. Maybe I could be wrong about that. If you tore your Achilles tendon then you probably had a serious problem. Today, however, we have gone too far in that control. Everything must be converted into data, everything must be checked, we must eradicate coincidence and arbitrariness, children who 'pull a bell' must be given a gas fine and someone must always be found responsible. What kind of intervention can you use to make a better world? Does locking people up in prisons lead to a better world? We have been working on this system of courts for a few hundred years now and when I look at the world it does not seem to have become a better world. Although I think it was a lot worse in the Middle Ages. However, for many people in the world who suffer from hunger, who die in wars, who suffer from dictators... the Middle Ages may seem to be a lot better... Are we intervening in the right way? Or is it just vanity to think that our intervention will make the world a better place?

Another question I asked myself is whether people have the freedom to change their thought system? In any case, they do not have free will. But suppose you have been working in a certain thinking system for 20 years, you have written books about it, your friends also think the same way, are you going to risk your entire career just to say that you were wrong all along? Many people cannot afford it financially, but it is often also something social. Perhaps people with absolutely nothing to lose can still be the greatest heroes of today.

Free will. There isn't one. I can easily destroy every argument you present. You don't choose your thoughts. One of the best therapists I've had, a behavioral therapist, always told me that you don't choose your emotions, but you do choose your behavior. Even though I don't agree with it, I raise my daughters that way too. Because I am convinced that if you are given the right tools in your upbringing, you can learn not to act based on emotions. But of course you have to be given the tools, and you don't choose that again. This means that I hope for a world one day in which both perpetrators and victims are helped. Even though I fear so, this universe story has already been written. It doesn't matter. And yet it does matter. Fatalism is not necessary. Now you don't have to sit on a mountain and refuse to talk or do anything. People who have made it often feel that they have worked hard and deserve to be rich and famous. They forget that there may be thousands of others who also worked hard and didn't make it. Therefore, seize the day, count your blessings, bad luck and good luck, it is often a matter of perception. You have a terrible accident, you spend weeks in a coma in the hospital and afterwards you meet the woman or man of your life in that same hospital. Life is 1000 times stranger than we can even imagine.

Bad luck and good luck, they are words that lose their meaning if you assume that everything has already happened. It's not bad luck or luck, it's just how the story is written. It's a bit confusing, this blog, with jumps from one to the other. I can't help it, I have no free will. Thank you to the people of Consequent, thank you A for taking me along, thank you for my choice for a fucked up life story ;-) and thank you to all the people who are crazy enough to read this text in its entirety. If you want to know more, reading Sam Harris is a very good start.

Yow.

"Those who have had no philosophical training at all blame others for mistakes they themselves make. Those who have had some training blame themselves. Those who are fully educated blame neither others nor themselves." – Epictetus

“The strongest insight, that of the complete unfreedom of the human will, is nevertheless the poorest in success, for it has always had its strongest opponent: human vanity.” – Nietzsche

“It is exactly as just to punish or reward people for their actions as it is to punish or reward them for the (natural) color of their hair or the (natural) shape of their face.” – Galen Strawson

Café Matinée about 'What is called bad luck'

'Bad luck' and 'luck' are basic concepts for the free will skeptic. The title of Jurriën Hamer's recent book is Why villains are unlucky and heroes are lucky (2021). When free will does not exist, it affects our view of control. 'Bad luck' and 'luck' replace 'freedom of choice' and 'own fault'. You can't blame villains for bad luck and heroes can't be blamed for their achievements because of luck.

But what exactly do 'bad luck' or 'luck' mean? Where are the boundaries between undeserved luck and admirable skill, between forgivable bad luck and self-induced failure? In his thought-provoking book The myth of luck. Philosophy, fate, and fortune (2020), the American philosopher Steven Hales gives a pessimistic answer. You cannot capture bad luck or luck with a theory. The outer limits of bad luck and happiness are too arbitrary. Hales calls 'bad luck' a cognitive illusion that does not exist in reality. 'Bad luck' and 'luck' belong on the historical waste heap of unscientific concepts, comparable to 'ether', 'life force', 'phlogiston', 'witch'. Consequently, there is nothing that corresponds to the concepts of 'bad luck' and 'luck' in reality.

If Hales is right, the free will skeptic finds himself in a strange situation. On the one hand, he attaches great importance to these concepts. The realm of bad luck or good luck is much greater than expected. “Luck swallows everything,” thought Galen Strawson. On the other hand, this bad luck imperialism would be a pyrrhic victory because this empire would not exist in reality. It would be a non-existent planet or an empty universe. How does the free will skeptic get out of this stalemate?