Yikes! Been way too long since my last post. Not that anyone is reading my crap, though I owe it to myself to be more diligent in this. Anyways, quick update. Moved to Atlanta in Feb, enjoying my new job here, and well just trying to settle in to my new habitat. If it counts for anything, I do have some blogs lined up, but they're all in drafts. Actually, what I'm going to write about today just occurred to me a few days back. Fh edits all my stuff (sometimes what I want to say is a tad bit extreme), so he brings me down to earth. But I wanted to go raw on this one today, just get it out cause it's been pestering me for a while.
And that is the question of free will. This is the notion that the behavior of rational entities is solely determined by their understood choices, independent of any seen or unseen constraints. Of crucial importance in literature, is the concept of determinism. The question then becomes if one has free will, then nothing is predetermined, and vice-versa. There are two sides to the coin: that free will exists and that it doesn't exist. Of course, for philosophers to pump out their papers and make any sort of living, there always has to be some gray areas. And rightly so. I'm of the belief that free will is earned and unearned. That humans are destined to, and repelled from. That while God has a master plan for us, it is the responsibility of the individual who must morally steer their path. And probably most importantly, I believe that free will can be harnessed for our own good, and in effect, the master plan can be altered. As a result, the question of determinism becomes less important.
If you've ever felt that you're destined to do something, then by implication you don't believe in free will. If some higher omnipotent divinity has laid out the tracks of your roller-coaster life, then you'll fine to be on track. Omnipotent divinity? Shucks to that! I'm not an atheist, and the only such Divine Force in my life is my God. And since God is the almighty controller, then nothing is indeterminate. Everything is foretold, and free will is just a figment of our human imagination. Though I believe in free will and that I'm destined to do something (big) in life! Oh, the predicament!
Unfortunately free will is tied to this concept of determinism. If we can come to grasp what determinism is, then maybe we can grasp free will. Determinism is exactly that, something which can be accounted for, determined to occur, will happen, etc. What will happen or be determined is not of importance, but just that a certain chain of events will expire for an outcome of high probability (e.g. 1.0) to occur some time in the future. How many chance it takes to achieve this goal is also of no relevance. Hence the only important thing is the concept of time. And as Einstein so beautifully put it, everything is relative. It's 2 A.M here in Hotlanta, and 12 A.M in Phoenix. Wonder what time it's at in God's abode? Is time even relevant for Him?
So we must diverge for a minute, and investigate the teachings St. Thomas Aquinas. His conjecture was that time is of no relevance to God, that he is "outside of time". The past, present, and future are all but a mere blur to Him. So our events and outcomes are not really foreseen by God, but in a way all happen simultaneously to Him. Everything is just the present for Him. Our past, is His now, our present is His now, and our future is also His now. So in a sense, you don't have any more or any less free will now as you did yesterday, because God already knows what you're up to. So if we assume the theory of St. Aquinas, then the question of predestination disappears. There are no more seen or unseen constraints, just our choices. And my God, I like making (good) choices!
Well even a stone can make a choice. It can decide to roll down the southern side of the hill or the western. So it too has free will? No. Free will entails that an entity can be under the influence of judgement, punishment, reward, knowledge, morals, etc. Humans qualify. Being in control of our own destiny is what makes us human. The choices we make may not always be the right ones, but they are YOUR choices. They have consequences and benefits. Though I may feel like I was destined to do something important, my tiny human mind cannot grasp infinite destiny. I would be selling myself short if I just stopped at my destiny, because then I would have succumb once again to predestination and lack of free will. Nay. I rather believe that I'm making good and bad choices that are continuously and infinitely, evolving me to become a better being.
And how many choices do we experience in our lives that let us exercise free will? Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by them. If you've ever read the short stories from the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series, you know that it's all about the choices you make. If you decide to flip to page 85, you may just end up killing the butler, and then your story will unfold in jail. However, having picked one of the other 3 pages, might have had better outcomes for you. Actually, I remember that as you kept reading the story, as you near the leaf of this "decision tree" the amount of choices lessened. This could be for the good, or for the bad. But here once again lies the problem, is it enough just to feel like we have all this free will. That we can keep on making infinite decisions, changes, choices? I for one would love to have less free will if that meant I had less choices to pick from! Sounds crazy heh? Well to me its not. Its sort of like navigating a maze. When you start off, you got so many directions to go. You start exploring each path placing cookie crumbs along the way so that you don't visit the same path twice. When you read a dead end, you backtrack. You repeat this procedure until you exit the maze. In computer science we refer to this as depth-first search (DFS). This is because you are going as deep as you can go in one path of the maze before you reach a dead end.
But what is life if nothing but a big maze of choices and exercising free will! The ones you can navigate it using the shortest path are usually the most successful. But for us others, we need to make a lot of dumb choices before we make one good one. And usually that good one is simply to just back-track! I believe that instead of just hoping that humans have free will, it's better to pray that we can make good use of the choices we have in front of us. It's more important that we can learn from them, so the back-tracking is reduced. And mostly, the maze of life is amenable: walls can be broken, and the so called master plan can be altered!
Of course it can, because there was no master plan in the first place! If you're religious, the only master plan that matters is to be sitting with God in Heaven. Any other good that occurs in your life is just icing on the cake! But to achieve God's heavenly abode, one must steer the driving wheel of life while not under the influence! To break down the walls of life, one must use moral discrimination and act wisely. Making the most money isn't really one's master plan, its just part of the path. Having the best car, fancy clothes, or even good health are all also just part of the path. Materialistic or Earthly desires shouldn't be one's true goal in life. That is not to say that such things are not important, or that do not lead to some sort of happiness, they just may. And as a result, we as humans can continuously change our faith when it comes to matters of materialistic well being. And for most, that is all that matters, which is just fine. If anything, such "master plans" are more amenable to change then the plan of attaining God. Free will can be easily exercised when your only goal in life is to have a corner office on the 23rd floor overlooking the city.
So don't fret. If you remove the concept of determinism from free will by taking into account St. Aquinas teachings, then we are all good. We have full right to the notion of free will. Things can change, people change, and being the optimist that I am, they usually change for the good. Free will becomes less of an issue when one just believes that what they are doing is morally right and just.
And by the way, if you've not seen the movie "Adjustment Bureau", I highly recommend if you enjoyed reading my blabber about free will!
