Before this year, I had never given much thought to free will. I thought that humans have free will but was never a major point of interest for me. This year, however, I’ve spent a lot of time reading about it, although much of this reading was unintentional as it just so happened to be a subject in several books I was interested in reading; after a while, I began to actively pursue the subject. My current thoughts on free will are largely based on what I’ve learned about it this year, as I’ll explain below.
I was surprised to find that a strong case against free will can be made. This gradually occurred to me as I read one book after another that, whether or not the author explicitly mentioned free will, contained content that made me question my position. The next several paragraphs will provide a brief overview of the points which stuck out most to me; I recommend reading all of them to fully understand what the authors are saying.
In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt describes how we make decisions based on which way our emotions have us leaning and then come back later with our reason to justify those decisions. This directly contradicts the notion that we make decisions based on reason, which seems to be a fairly common view, though perhaps not as common as it once was.
Robert Cialdini explains our tendency to act automatically when given the proper cues. In his books Influence and Pre-Suasion, he deeply examines a variety of factors outside of ourselves that shape our behavior, many of which we don’t even notice; if we do notice them, it’s still often difficult to recognize them as the cause of our behavior
Charles Duhigg shows in The Power of Habit how we go through our days mostly acting on habits because it saves our brainpower for the larger, more complicated tasks; the incredible influence habits have over us brings up questions regarding free will, especially with the two cases toward the end of the book involving manslaughter and compulsive gambling.
William Strauss and Neil Howe discuss their theory of cyclical time in The Fourth Turning, in which they claim that similar events repeat throughout history and that a great deal of the way people think and act is based on the time period in which they’re born. This makes it seem like the larger patterns of our lives, as well as the patterns of the world, are beyond anyone’s control, and all we can do is predict what will happen in the future based on similar events from the past.
However, there are a few points that suggest we have some degree of free will. One of these points came from Duhigg stating that we have the power to change habits that we’re aware of, and the others came from a book that is more spiritual rather than scientific. In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle spends a lot of time explaining how most people are unconscious (that is, they spend more time lost in thought than they spend focusing on the present) and under the control of their egos, which causes them to make decisions they wouldn’t make if they were present. He suggests that we are only truly free to make our own decisions when we’re not being run by our egos; in this state, we’re better able to resist our habits, influence from those around us, and the control of our emotions.
In closing, I now think that there are some things which are beyond our control (such as our circulatory systems, digestive systems, and other automatic bodily functions) and other things that we have the potential to control but normally don’t. Most people, myself included, get lost in thought and thus relinquish control to the ego. If we can stay present, however, then we can regain that control and make as many of our own decisions as possible. That’s my current position on free will, but it may change if I learn more that indicates I’m wrong. I’d love to hear your thoughts on free will if you choose to comment.