053 - Do We Have Free Will? Reason and Evolution Suggest "Yes" (with Qualifications)

A question for the ages -  are we free?

A recent survey of over 1,700 philosophers worldwide found that over 50% hold a compatibilist view, that both determinism and free will co-exist.  Hegel was a champion of freedom and made it the cornerstone of his philosophy.  He also recognized that much of our lives are also pre-determined.  

In this episode I will argue that free-will  occurs in the present moment, where we have some degree of freedom to choose between alternative paths that we can envision.  Only humans have this capability of thought to look to the future.   

Without  free-will, the universe becomes dead, with no purpose or no rationality behind it.   As Charles Peirce as well as Hegel have posited, this freedom is baked into the core of the cosmos itself.   The current episode discusses this important question from several different standpoints, including time, randomness, reason, purpose, and evolution.

Transcript is available on the podcast's Facebook page, @cunningofgeist.

Transcript

Gregory Novak 0:00

Hello, this is Gregory Nowak. This is the cunning of Geist episode 53. Welcome back. The purpose of this podcast is to explore philosophy psychology and science. With an emphasis on the great philosopher, George William Friedrich Hagle. The central tenants of this podcast are as follows one. That there is more going on in the world than blind purposeless, naturalistic materialism. It is called Geist in German, translated as mind or spirit in English. To that evolution is central to the universe. Three, that there is a higher realm. Then the finite plane of existence. But it is not separate from us. It is spirit Geist and is working within us all. It is our internal passenger who can provide direction and meaning and purpose to life. And for. That we are all part of an historical process of increasing human consciousness of spirit, which allows freedom and rationality to evolve in the world with the aim of spirit, knowing itself is actual. Now in this episode of the cutting of Geist. I will be exploring the age old question. Do we have freewill? You've probably thought about this a lot yourself. during the, the course of your life and you can read many different opinions on it. So we're going to get into this today. As you can tell from the title of this episode, I come out on the side of affirming that we do in fact, have some degree of free will. And I'll be explaining how I come to this conclusion. During this episode. However, I need to point out that I'm not denying that much of our activity is in fact deterministic. In other words, we react in ways that can be predicted based on our inherited biology. The culture in which we were raised and the choices in front of us. Again, I'll explain more of this in, in detail. As we, as we proceed. And finally I'll be addressing what both Hagle and Charles Pierce, the great American pragmatic philosopher had to sand the subject. First some background. Today in our secular materialistic scientific age, I believe many people believe in a fully deterministic universe that if we could know the exact position and movement of every subatomic particle throughout the entire universe, that we would be able to accurately predict the next outcome at all levels. This view holds that the universe is actually one big machine at. Very complicated machine for sure. But a machine nonetheless. The premise here is that evolution when it occurs is blind. And that why we don't know why the universe exists or why it has the laws that it does. But starting with the big bang was she'd be able to trace and understand everything that exists or will exist from that point on. This view holds that the mind is just an epiphenomenon of matter. As a result of matter. And the mind is fundamentally no different from the mindless protons, neutrons and electrons. The composed manner, again is just something that's created after the fact. Uh, by matter itself and it's not fundamentally different. Time also enters this worldview. And the position is that an actuality? The universe is one big block of space, time that the future already exists and the past still exists. It is like, if I'm an American I'm driving. Cross-country from New York city to Los Angeles through Chicago. When I reached the cargo, New York city is still there. And Los Angeles is there or the entire trip. So when I'm in Chicago, new York's the past Los Angeles, the future, but they all still exist there. It just, I'm seeing it from a different perspective. Now, this was a view that was held by Albert Einstein. He called our perception of the passage of time, a stubbornly persistent illusion. He had an early friend named Michelle Beso and PON Beso his death in 1955, which is actually just a few weeks before Einstein's own death. Einstein wrote a letter of condolence to the best of family where he said the following quote. Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That signifies nothing. For those of us who believe in physics, the distinction between past present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion and quote. So one of the most famous quotes of. Everything that Einstein has said. And clearly. Puts a stake in the ground in terms of what he believes in. And that's the black universe of space-time. So. What this means is if you can imagine it is that spacetime is like a three-dimensional movie. Uh, that's already been filmed. The early parts of the film are equally realized the latter parts. It's all in the film on the can somewhere. We're watching this movie, like someone sitting in a movie theater, but that is just an illusion. The movie's already been made. There's no choice whatsoever in the matter of what's going to happen. So as observers, we just go with the flow, like we're watching a movie. Interestingly clinical psychologist, Kenneth wop, Nick. One of the editors of a course in miracles used a similar analogy in his book. Entitled a vast illusion time, according to the course of miracles. There's obviously no free will in such a universe. Now. I see several problems with this view and I'll be getting into them in more detail, but to summarize. The problem that I have, the main one is this block space, time universe. If Einstein is a dead universe. There is no life in it. There's no evolution in such a universe and no real thought. And this goes against what I believe. We experience every day in life. It goes against rationality as well. And I'll explain this as we move along. Now in this episode, I'll be covering several topics, including the nature of time. Randomness. Reason slash thought. Purpose slash teleology evolution. And I will be referring to Hagle and Charles as peers, particularly throughout because of they're so relevant to this topic. Now first. Let's discuss time. For starters, I've always had a problem with Einstein's blocking universe of space-time is. As I just said, and that's because it's, it's a dead universe. British physicist, Julian barber. Relatively recently wrote a very creative and interesting book in 1999 on how he believed we come to experience. This illusion of time, even though it's it's a dead block space-time universe. He called his book the end of time. And while his analysis was certainly very interesting and thorough, he's a very competent physicist. It's still left us with a dead four dimensional universe at the end of the day. And also his, his reasoning for this, which I was able to follow. Uh, it was so incredibly complicated that it seemed to be much easier to just accept the way things seem to be in real life. Uh, that w we're all in a state of becoming. Now my contention is the time change process are all fundamental to the universe that there is an evolutionary process going on with meaning and purpose. Charles Pierce agreed with this view as well. Sort of Hagle is, you know, Hagle put becoming as the first determinant concept in his science of logic. So it's, it's right there at the beginning becoming. And. Uh, even before time comes into existence in the universe. Hagle believes that becoming is, is there. Now the past is certainly cemented. It's written in stone. It can not be changed. The present is what's very interesting. It's the dialectical moment of a liveliness in which the moment dies and becomes fixed in the past. You had at that same exact moment, the future appears and life continues. It is constantly becoming. And. We have choices in that moment. Let me explain this. Philosopher and esoteric assist PDU spend. He had an interesting theory regarding the dimensions of time. Postulated six dimensions, but we're only going to cover the first two here. He wrote about this in many of his books. But it's developed theories presented in his book. A new model of the universe published in 1934. So, let me summarize this. The first two dimensions. We can view the present moment is a series of points on a line. That's one dimensional time. That's what a Einstein views is. It's four dimensional block, time universities, three spatial dimensions, and one time dimension. And this one dimension of time runs from the past, through the present, into the future. Now, what does Penske is saying? Is that in each present moment, there's also a diagonal line. It's two dimensional, not one dementia. And this diagonal line represents different possibilities before us. The line. Is not infinitely long, early. They're not an infinite number of possibilities. Because they're not infinite choices. Before us, but, but there is this diagonal line with a certain amount and a certain set amount of possibilities. For example, I cannot say I want to be in Paris in the next moment and arrive there instantaneously. Each moment contains what the past has given us. And we are really limited in what we can do, but we do have a choice. I can decide that I want to go to Paris next month and it start putting plans together. Moment, a moment to get me there. There are certainly physical, biological, and time constraints that we must live by. If I want to go to the grocery store, I must drive or walk there. I can not fly there. Uh, by myself. And so on. In each moment, there are a few choices available to us and. They lead to a different path going forward. So. Our set of choices in one moment creates a new set of possibilities in the next moment and so forth. And this continues moment to moment. So you can end up with a completely different path depending on the choices that you make at each particular moment. And of course there are different time horizons, as I mentioned. Um, sometime horizons are a few minutes in length. I'm thirsty. I will go get, get a glass of water. Others are much longer. I want to attend this university to study philosophy, right? I choose to. Be with this person as a partner. Uh, for the rest of my life, those are big choices that impact us over over decades. Now in some ways. This immediate choice before us in the present moment is. Corresponds to the wave function in quantum physics. And this wave function is essentially a probability curve. He may be familiar with the bell shape curve, which is the probability of, uh, let's say, uh, how tall people are, whatever you can do it for almost anything. Quantum physics also comes up with The probability that an electron will be in a certain place a certain time. Now once the particle is observed and we find out which one of those places. It's in it. It's all these possibilities go away and it actually becomes there. It's the particle is there. So the observation create makes it actual, not just a probability anymore. so. This is just like the president. Momma wants the choices made. Then it's actual, it becomes burned in stone and we go forward with another set of possibilities. Now. The spin ski believed that. All the possibilities that are available to us. So we can, in fact, enact are in fact real. That there, these alternative realities are in fact all, all real. Eh, we do experience one of them. But the rest of them are real as well. And this is similar to the multi first theory that many scientists hold on today that. Each time that there's a quantum decision, the universe splits off into different universes. I'm not in that camp. Um, but that's native. They're hearing they're there. Maybe we'll get into that in a future episode. The point is, is that the future is up for us to shape. It is open and it offers a set of probabilities. At each moment. I will explain why this solution is preferred over the dead block time narrative when we get into purpose later on. but for now I want to spend a few minutes talking about randomness. We discussed randomness before, primarily in episode 46. If you're calling that episode, I covered Charles Pierce's theory of TYC. Ism, which is a Greek word for chance. Pierce believe their randomness pure randomness was an essential feature of the universe. He postulated this back in the late 19th century. And I believe he has been vindicated by quantum physics. Which has shown beyond a doubt that randomness is a fundamental feature of the universe. Einstein fought against this entire life, his entire life in that. Resulted in his famous quote. God does not throw dice. Physicist today can not explain this and do not understand it, but the truth of this matter can not be denied. Um, some postulate that there's a level of existence below all this, which could end up saving determinism, but that may be just wishful thinking. And such a realm has not been finding it may never be found. Now. I key point here and we've discussed this before. Is that in pure randomness? That there may lie the concept of freedom. Freedom being the core of life in the universe. An uncaused event can be looked at as random, or it can be looked at as a conscious choice. This may be operating at the deepest levels of the universe. It can be a very, very primitive choice as it works in quantum physics where the, the electron decides to be in one particular spot. Or it could be in a much bigger standpoint, but Pierce works this into his theory of how the laws of the universe were created. It maintained. And again for more in this interesting theory, please go back and listen to episode 46. The skin also provide a basis for panpsychism that the universe is essentially conscious. Even before humans appeared that all matter has some elementary level of consciousness. And that we've covered many times, but particularly in episode 24, Is what is meant by substance is subject and which is a key to understanding Hagle salt philosophy. Now there's another element which comes into play in any discussion of free will. And that is the nature of thought reason itself. And Hagle said this very succinctly and very clearly, let me quote him, quote. Freedom is precisely thought itself, whoever rejects thought and speaks of freedom. Doesn't know what he's saying. The unity of thought with itself is freedom. The free will the will is only free as thinking will end quote. So here hago from once is quite clear. Freedom is thought thought is freedom. Our will is only free when it is thinking rationally. And Hagle also says whoever rejects is, does not know what the hell they're talking about. So. And that sense we as humans have a freedom that the animals and plants do not have. We can think. And this thinking allows us to process information, to analyze advance and plan activities. It allows us to set goals that may go against the established norms. And this is Hegel's famous notion of true infinity that we have discussed your numerous times, but particularly in episode four, The road to true infinity. This brings us to purpose. Because we are thinking creatures. We have a unique ability. To envision a future. We can see different futures for ourselves. Is this something animals can not do. The higher animals can learn and adjust based on memory. And we do as well. The difference is we can also envision a future. We can look at the two dimensional line of this Penske's and postulate. If I take this path, this is likely to occur. If I take that path that is likely to occur. Now psychologists often point to one's planning. Horizon is one of the many indicators of intelligence. It is smarter to think ahead days, weeks, years, and decades. And it is just. Just live day by day. And. As we've discussed Hagle belief purpose was central to the universe. We discussed this. And both episodes 26 and episodes 41. Now the big question is, and we've addressed this before. Is there an underlying purpose to the universe? I believe that there is, and this is central to both the philosophy of Hagle and Pierce. The universe itself is evolving to a state of greater and greater rationality and freedom. That's its purpose. Now, finally on to evolution. Again, we addressed evolution specifically in episode 43, go back and. Revisit that episode. If you would like more information, but let me briefly discuss it evolution in the context of free will. We know it in, in that episode that, the evolution that Hagle and piercer referring to is not just Darwinian evolution. That includes more than that. Hagar refers to. The evolution of spirit, the evolution of ideas, Pierce refers to it as the evolution of creative love. I believe they're actually referring to the same thing at rose by any other name. I believe this is also similar to the creative mind that William waddles references in his book, the science of getting rich. Which we discussed extensively in episode 41. And how it influenced the worldwide bestseller. The secret. So. As the university evolves, our freedom evolves. And peer saw a prodo freedom in the initial universe. When this freedom actually began to form laws and evolve laws. That allowed the right kind of advancement of thought and freedom to know itself. To allow the evolution of creative love. The universe is becoming more conscious and more free. And this process continues today. And this is essentially the view that Hagle took as well. The March of history toward greater freedom and rationality. This is what's going on. Now as we've seen spirit love, thought, rationality evolution, all these concepts tie together. Because the universe is one whole. Now, finally, let me review where current philosophers shake out on this issue of freewill. And philosophy, there are three camps. Regarding the question of free? Well, one is compatible lists. Who believe determinism can coexist with freewill. Two is incompatible lists. Who believe free will cannot ex. Exist because the universe is wholly deterministic and three libertarianist who believe humans have full freedom to do whatever they please. Now an interesting survey was conducted in 2020 among over 1700 philosophers worldwide. It was done by philosophers. David Burchette and David Chalmers, current many philosophical issues. Really interesting to peruse. Now, here's what they've found though, regarding free will, in terms of what these worldwide philosophers believed. 59% chose compatibilism as is the correct way to look at freewill 33% chose libertarianism as is the correct way. Only 11%. Joe's in compatibilism. As, as what they thought was going on and the 11%, another 11%, Joe's some other. Some other thing. So the majority of philosophers out there over half are compatiblist. And. Aye. We just have to say that I believe if a similar survey was done done among scientists, there'd be a larger percentage of, there's no freewill. A larger percentage in the incompatible as camp. That's just speculation on my apartment. Now I would fall into the compatiblist camp. And most of the scholars that are read on this regarding Hagle would put him there as well. Then it's because a large percentage of what we do is essentially predetermined. We have many involuntary instincts. We breathe, we eat, et cetera. We also have an inherited psychology, perhaps even a collective unconscious as we discussed in episode 49. We have certain inborn needs and desires and thought patterns that we can not shake off easily. If at all. Uh, we also have the time in which we live. I was like, guys, the spirit of the age of phrase, Hagle coin. Then it influences us and we really can't act outside of that. plus we have our families, our societies, our state, all of these impact us and narrow our choices in any situation. On a personal note. I've had many experiences where I could not will my body to do things I thought I should do. Even some simple things. Sometimes, it just seems like the mind, the heart and the body all have a different, uh, objective. And they do. Take dieting, for example, it's probably the best example, perhaps exercise. We all know that we sh what we should ideally eat each day. So why is it so hard to follow the plan? That is because our rational minds aren't in total control. And there's this interesting analogy that we talked about back in episode 30, four of the. Horse-drawn carriage. As a metaphor for a human. Uh, the carriage is like our body. The horse. Represents our emotions. The driver is our left brain. Either our mind or stand and the passenger inside the culture represents our purpose, the holistic right brain Vernon, our spirit within. And with many people today, these four aspects often have difficulty communicating with each other. The free will is represented solely by the passenger. But if the coach mint is unaware that there's even a passenger inside the coach, then there's really no real freewill. The coach, man. Then we'll just go here and there at the whim of the horse, making sure the horse is fed and so forth. That is the only direction it has the emotions. Now on the other hand, if the Coachman is aware of the desires of the passengers spirit, He must still be able to, to negotiate with the horse, to get where the entire horse-drawn carriage needs to go. Where the passenger wants it to go and he must keep the carriage, the body in good working shape as well to accomplish anything. So there's much that is predetermined for us. Our bodies are what we inherited through Darwinian evolution or emotion to memories. Some of these memories may even be inherited. the emotions can certainly have their own, things they want to do. but it is not free will it is based on memories and based on biology. And based on what we've inherited. It's predetermined based on these past experiences. Our left brain minds, the coach driver. Can also only rely on what what's. He's been taught. The current circumstances, what is available to him? This is true with us. We can. The left brain's only can rely on. What's been taught current circumstances. What's available. True free will. Though. Can only be expressed when there's a clear goal or direction or purpose given by the passenger. I spirit. And spirit is not unique to each individual, but is one continuous entity that we all have within us. Spirit is one. So. To summarize. I believe that freedom is an essential feature of the universe. It is what underlies everything. Is what makes the universal live and not dead as the universe evolves and becomes more complex, more things become predetermined. And true free will becomes more specialized, but it does exist. It exists primarily in our ability to envision different alternatives for the future. And this requires a purpose, not just bodily or emotional purpose, but a rational purpose. Now one can say that are envisioning different alternatives is predetermined. And to a certain extent that's true. Uh, but there are always those flashes of insight and intuition that create breakthroughs. And if there's a predetermination of the alternatives, there must have been a predetermination of that predetermination and so on ad infinitum and infinite regressed. One thing is clear. There is a drive in history toward greater freedom and rationality in the world. The last 4,000 plus years of history point to this. And over the next 4,000 years, I'm sure this advancement will continue with the normal fits and starts. Those that stand against free will say that no one has the power over the facts and the facts of the past and the laws of nature in tail, every fact of the future. And yet I contend in the present moment there exists a cognitive freedom to choose differently. This is true infinity. This is life. Well, that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. It's such a rewarding experience for me to be able to produce these, these episodes and. Get the kind of response. that I've been getting. And, uh, and I'm glad that the many of you find these, episodes helpful. Please follow the podcast, Facebook page at Cunningham Geist, where I'll be listing all the references cited here. And I often post relevant comments between episodes on this page. So please feel free to comment. There are many. More people are doing so. In over the last few weeks. You can also follow me on Twitter. Gregory Nowak also at cunning of Geist. And please be sure to like rate and review this podcast, wherever you listen to your podcasts and also tell your like-minded friends about it as well. Spread the word. And feel free to share episodes. On social media and of course, check out the Hagle study group on Facebook. If you're not already a member. This is Gregory Nowak. This is the cunning of Geist. CNX time.