Epistemic status: ~20 years of personal practice but without any concrete theory or rigorous cross examination. Mostly gut feels. If you think I’m dumb, please tell me why.
Sam Harris has said that evil arises in the minds of those who conflate determinism with fatalism (according to The Atlantic, and I’m paraphrasing even that for dramatic effect). The reasoning goes that determinism is merely acceptance of the unending chain of cause and effect applied at the level of molecules, environment, and genetics to human thought and action, while fatalism is the interpretation of that fact in a negative light; i.e., if everything I do is predetermined then nothing I do matters.
I do not find it difficult to reject fatalism while accepting determinism. How do I sidestep what seems to be a moral and spiritual quandary for others? I think I’m able to do it now only because I was so worried about paradoxes previously. They really bothered me in my teens and early adulthood. How could these self-contradictory concepts exist in what otherwise seemed like a clean and ordered existence? (Not, mind you, a clean and ordered life. Just the nuts and bolts – the physics – that made up that life.)
As I considered more of these knots in our collective understanding I started to notice a pattern. What I noticed was that it seemed like we were often just doing this to ourselves. What I mean is that a lot of these problems really weren’t. Not if you thought about them in a different way. Today I might say that the framing was off. I didn’t really have that terminology in the past. I just noticed that it often came down to semantics. I noticed that the meanings of words sometimes changed even without changing context. Sometimes we had words to express non-real concepts and then we used those words in ways where they weren’t appropriate. We were trying to plug spellcraft into math because we didn’t understand we were wizards.
Zeno’s arrow gets where it’s going every time. But in my mind, I have these concepts of “instants” and “infinity” that I couldn’t square with reality. But that’s not a paradox. That’s just a couple of bad concepts. Or not bad, but not currently useful. Instants and infinities aren’t concepts that are useful when you are trying to figure out parabolic trajectories. I was letting myself get tied up into knots by mixing apples and oranges. Perhaps that seems like a cop-out to you. Perhaps this mindset is also why engineering appealed to me. Concepts are great. They are fun. But they are better when they are useful. If something doesn’t apply, then set it aside. Don’t let it get in the way of what you are trying to do. And if you aren’t trying to do anything… listen, I’d prefer you go babble in the corner to yourself and not infect the rest of us with your mind worms.
So, I realized (or convinced myself?) that paradoxes (at least sometimes) were really just semantics. Essentially paradoxes are artifacts of imperfect language. Or bad initial assumptions. In any case, when explored from other angles many of them simply disappear. It was relieving to let some of that anxiety go. (Relieving enough that I still wonder if it’s too good to be true sometimes.) What has only recently become apparent though is that I have found myself applying the same logic and insight to other contexts in ways that are surprising upon reflection. Surprising, but oh so useful.
Free Will seems to mean the innate capacity to choose. But that still means nothing. What innate capacity? The soul? What’s the soul? All answers proffered seem ridiculous. (I know, to others the answers are comforting. I would love to feel cosmically comforted. Really. But, like, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle I guess.)
Anyway, where Free Will sits it looks to me like a label on an empty spot in my understanding. No, that’s not quite right. Since it’s not like a black box with the label attached. It’s more like there’s simply nowhere to put the label. So, call it what you want, if it’s not really pointing at anything it doesn’t really matter. (Except it clearly does to So Many People.) Am I trying to tell you that I have no ego? Ha, no. I’m vain, I’m whiny, I’m absolutely worried about the status of my heinie. I just don’t feel the need to label that “I” with this notion of Free Will, which to me is something that doesn’t seem to exist.
However, it’s vital that I understand what other people mean when they reference it. And so, am I arrogant? Well, maybe. I don’t think I’m an objective observer there, so it doesn’t matter what I think. I suppose it matters that I recognize it can come off that way. I don’t want to come off that way. I certainly don’t think I’m “better”. Objectively I think I’m missing out on some comfort! Probably makes it more difficult for me to fit in.
But I’m off topic. I want to explain why there is no room for Free Will.
“I” am the totality of the strange loops that drive my behavior. Dennett and Hofstadter gave me the tools to speak about myself (how’s that for meta?). Their language feels more complete to me. It leaves no room for Free Will. The dark and hidden areas where Free Will once lived have had a spotlight turned onto them. Where a soul was expected I found something so much more satisfying. I found a song. Achingly delicate and fragile and mutable. Patterns shaped by my experiences and the experiences of so many before me that I can never meet directly, and yet, they are still a part of me. How beautiful, how humbling, this collective symphony I’m a part of. It awakens a responsibility not only to those currently around me, but also all those whose melodies have reached me from the past and all those who might hear them in the future through me. Even if I’m a horrible transmission medium I can still contribute to resonance effects downstream. I don’t know who I’m singing for, it’s likely that at the bottom of the turtles we are all only singing for each other. Many parts of one. Who knows? Most likely I just don’t have the right words yet. It’s not a paradox. It’s just semantics.