Applied Free Will Theory
The Applied Free Will problem: The problem of applying your free will.
I am going to put aside the problem of whether free will exists and make the assumption that it does. This is starting with the plain observation that we seem to have choices in life. There is at least, the appearance of free will, the ability to choose. But yet, enacting this ability to make choices seems hard.
The story of this post is where I will start. I have been dividing my life in 100 day sets of goals and booked a hotel room for a night away to spend time reviewing the last 100 days and think about the next 100 days. I run my day to day using a pen and paper journal, so was prepared to review my journals. I had decided though that part of that time away was also to spend my time away writing about wisdom. It seems like something best thought about on a retreat from life, and I write best when I have uninterrupted time. I have to walk down a metaphorical set of spiral stairs into a cellar to write in a way I like, and each interruption takes be back to the top of those stairs. I have been contemplating the Applied Free Will theory but needed to write to really work the problem through until I had a semblance of an answer.
But it almost did not happen. And thinking about how it did happen helps me think about the Applied Free Will Theory.
Right now, I am doing what I wanted to do. I am in a hotel room I booked to spend time reflecting, using money I have earned. I have been for a swim in the pool, comfortable with the body I have from exercising and dieting. I have showered, and am changed, ready for dinner tonight, and have my computer open and am typing, contemplating an aspect of wisdom.
But I had forgotten I was going to write and hadn't packed my laptop. I was prepared to journal, with pen and paper, but when I write, I like to type. Journal with pen, work through a problem with a keyboard. As I drove into the city from home, I remembered I was going to write about wisdom, and that I needed by laptop, and turned around, drove home, and retrieved my laptop. That moment of remembering is a key. There was a thought "I" (past me) had put in my brain that surfaced at the key moment. It was triggered by the act of driving into the hotel, and appeared in my consciousness, making me drive back home and collect my laptop. That thought felt ephemeral. It was vague and loose, and I could have easily been distracted from it. It could have been blown away by a slight wind. I am very aware as well that it was a thought I had put into my brain in the past. Somewhere in my journals I've written a checkbox "write about wisdom” and linked that to going away to write at my 100-day review.
And so, here I am, exerting my free will. I have made plans, enacted them, and then in the moment, have fulfilled thoughts I have previously had about how to plan today. They were elusive though, almost lost thoughts, but they were present, and something inside me, the other deep inside "I" pushed it to the surface.
It returns me to my previous idea that the application of free will is in the small, repeated reinforcements of thoughts. As thoughts get reinforced, they increasingly influence my actions. Free will does not seem to be in the high stakes’ moment, but instead in the small contemplations that reinforce themselves, the thoughts that get repeated, the ruminations. Influencing these ruminations is the trick of free will. The practical tasks that help are meditating and journalling. In meditating I have the ability to see my thoughts in the moment. Meditating gives me the skill to pause before my thoughts move on, giving me the chance to catch one of those thought vapours, grab at it, and choose it. And then in the writing down of those thoughts, they are captured and transformed into an experience and a memory. The feeling of the muscles of my hands moving, the feeling of the pen in my hand, the seeing of the lines appearing on the paper, the composition of written words, in an order that makes sense of the thought that had been just smoke in my mind. The steps required to order thoughts into a series of words, to compose, to the find a rhythm of language, these steps reencode the thoughts in my brain because it engages language, motor and sensory. It is reinforced through a sensory experience, locked into a moment-by-moment sequence that makes the thoughts become memories that can be relived, that are remembered. And then in the moment when an action is required, those thoughts appear at the surface. Memories, though vague and ephemeral, which are more real than the first thought. And they change the actions I take.
Why do I need to retreat to write and to think? Physical brain capacity. All my ruminations about free will imply a cognitive capacity that is usually engaged with the daily aspects of life. There are things I do not do because I am running at full capacity. The limitations of work and tiredness take away my energy to do, to act. There are physical constraints on my brain. It functions differently when tired, when rested, when exercised, when fed, when starved.
Then there are my emotions. The emotions of free will are interesting. Contemplate mania, in which one feels amazing and takes actions that are beyond their capacity. Or the feeling of depression, in which no action can be taken. There seems to be a free will aspect that is analytical, that is the weighing up of a choice between actions. Then there is the colour, the emotion of the decision that biases which action is more likely. This is the "do I feel like it?" kind of question. This is why gurus talk about discipline, the decision to take actions regardless of how I feel about the action. It is why I have mantras like "I've never regretted exercising" because they remind me when I do not feel like exercising that I should do it anyway, that the emotion of a decision is not relevant to the action. It seems relevant to the application of free will, however. Sometimes my emotions are stacked against an action, and hence working against my free will, and sometimes they are working with my free will, lubricating the action. Ideally what I feel like doing is also what I want to do. Rather than, feeling like doing something I should not, which is a recipe for disaster. How do I influence these feelings, feelings as distinct to thoughts? Is there a mechanism of control over my emotions? Can I exert free will over my emotions? If the trick of free will is in the carving of grooves in the record of my mind, what can I do about the emotions? And if I did want to exert free will about my emotions, what would I chose? I would chose to be happy, yet aware of sadness. I would chose to be patient and kind, yet clear about standards. I think this is how I would like to be remembered, in how I managed my emotions, and how they then influenced my life. In fact, the picture of a wise man invokes their emotional state. It is the awareness and ability to sit with opposing yet both valid truths that is one of the signs of wisdom. It feels like it is this emotional state that is the best for decision making.
It does not quite feel like my emotions are subject to my thoughts. That in fact is an obvious statement. Take anger for example. It can be hard to think your way out of anger. But anger can make you do things quickly without much thought. My thoughts are subject to my emotions. Influencing them is an essential part of using my free will.
Emotions also seemed linked to brain capacity. Emotions are definitely influenced by my physical state. The worst emotional states are brought on by tiredness, alcohol, hunger, and ketosis. So, what I am wanting is to find a way in which I can be happy/sad, patient/kind/maintaining standards, whilst hungry, and tired and ketotic. Perhaps it is the same kind of process as carving the free will grooves. The more I contemplate my emotions, the more I write in a way that elicits the emotions I want, the more I encode memories of those emotions, the more wins I have from those emotions, the more it becomes engrained, the more likely it will become my state. Perhaps that is how I exert my free will over my emotions. But they seem more gooey than thoughts. They feel slippery and elusive, and easy to lose. They feel hard to change, and hence less under my influence.
It feels like there are key emotions that "unlock" positive emotional states. Gratitude feels like a key emotion. It feels like it unlocks a positive internal state in which I am going to make better decisions. The emotions I get from contemplating time, from meditating on perspective, from seeing the story of my life, and the people in it is a state of deep appreciation. I can feel a physiologic change when I feel deep appreciation. And a physiologic change is a direct influence on the brain and its capacity.
Does it follow that deliberately entering that state frequently will make it more likely to be the default state of my mind? It depends on how emotions are selected. It feels like my brain presents thoughts and selects emotions. It is like the thoughts are being projected onto the wall of an empty room, in which I, the watcher, sit. The emotions are the temperature of the room and the colour palette of the thoughts. I get focussed on the picture, not seeing how warm or cold I feel, or how black and white or how vibrant the thought is that is being presented. But what other choice do I have than regular contemplation of my emotional state? It feels like something I can put through the same process as my thoughts. The more I carve the groove, the more the track of my mind will follow it. Influence the pictures on the wall, and the colour of those pictures and the comfort of the room.
The question of how my mind works, and fundamentally whether "I" have "free will" is perhaps of some use. I have a feeling that there is something to derive from it, that contemplating the "unfree" nature of my will may have a ramification for my personal ethics, or for my understanding of others’ ethics, but it is perhaps a too hard question for this moment. Instead, I will start with the romantic idea that we are all potent individuals, with the expanse of life ahead of us, capable of so much, full of potential, and the path through that life is formed by the decisions we make of our own free will. But despite that potential, we falter, and make decisions that are less than optimal, and perhaps decisions we regret. We make decisions that shape our lives. Our decisions end in actions that that can change our bodies, which can hurt other people, which can kill. Our decisions end in actions that can uplift and save and help and give and change. We can build, we can create. There is a line from thoughts to actions to the outside world that seems to exist. And the assumption, perhaps romantic, that our actions are taken of our own free will, is the assumption I will use.
I do not exist in a vacuum of effects. My life is the outcome of decisions I make, set in a time and place, in interaction with other people, events, environments, resources, biases, prejudices, a complex web of interactions. I push actions into this world, and there is a little change in the world, and a push back. I push out another action, and there is a push back and a little change. And this cycle repeats. My actions create a world I live in. Being a surgeon is a certain kind of work. It creates certain demands, and structures, and those become constraints on my ability to exert my free will over my time. Being a father means I want to be with my children, and that creates certain constraints on my decisions. Some of these decisions restrict me from making other decisions. I have to work the weekend? Well, I can't go for a surf. Sometimes, the restriction on my free will is a completely external environmental constraint. The range of actions available to me can limited by the decisions I have made in the past. It is also the converse. The range of actions available to me is wider because of decisions in my past. Decisions that have allowed me to collect resources means I have more options to choose from. I am in a feedback loop with my environment. This loop needs attention, because it can constrain me, when it can also enable me. The things I am not doing do not have easy pathways to their action. They have barriers. My workspace is dirty, and crowded, and hot and dusty. The beach is a long way away and I am tired and do not feel like driving. So, I do not screen-print t-shirts and I do not surf.
To return to the question: Why do I do things I do not want to do? Why do I not do what I want to do? How can I do what I want to do to in the expanse of life ahead of me?
The answer seems to rest on:
That "I" am presented thoughts and emotions by my brain
These thoughts and emotions are influenced by the capacity and physical state of the brain and body: hunger, tiredness, movement, sex, and substrate
The thoughts presented to my consciousness can be influenced by grooves of thought "I" carve through inputs, attention, meditation, and journalling
The emotion: the colour and warmth of those thoughts, is best influenced by deep appreciation of time and perspective, itself a groove carved through repetition
I am in a feedback loop with my environment. It can enable or constrain my actions.
Carve grooves in your mind.
