Free Will: The Trick of It
Further thoughts on Free Will, or "why do I do what I don't want to do?"
Actions do not occur in a vacuum and are not suddenly spontaneous. They are a result of patterns of thought in my mind that are repeated over and over until they develop a momentum that makes action inevitable. They start as vague, ephemeral, fleeting ideas, almost imperceptible to my awareness. They are then repeated and reinforced by my mind until they completely occupy my awareness, and when the internal weight of them becomes strong enough, a threshold is reached, and an action occurs.
We think that free will exists in the moment before the action when we become aware of the thoughts, but instead, by that point, the action is almost inevitable. We describe this sensation of an inevitable action despite free will to choose otherwise as "having no self-control".
Long before this threshold level is reached are the very first appearances of the thought in my mind. I think it might be at this point that free will can be exerted. My will is weak, hence the entire wisdom problem. Because my will is weak only on the vaguest, earliest notions of an action can the will be exerted. It is in the awareness of the vaguest of thoughts that we can use free will to direct the mind. Our minds must, must, must be thinking, and the will can act to redirect the thoughts to a different course by distracting the mind onto a different line of thought. The mind is distractible from vague thoughts. But, once the mind ruminates over and over on a thought, it is no longer vague, becomes the focus of our mind, and almost becomes an inevitable action.
Over time, we become a collection of patterns of behaviours, and the path from initial thought to action becomes well worn, almost automatic and near instantaneous. Actions that we might have taken a long time to ruminate over and then act on instead become a trigger-response circuit that is almost instant, and almost impossible to interrupt. The mind to awareness to action pathway is well developed and almost automatic and can occur below our awareness. This is why behaviour change is so hard.
Exerting the will is not just a mental exercise though. There are physical elements. It is why, starting your day early, quietly, before the noise of the day, with meditation to focus your awareness on your thoughts and your body, and journaling, using your hands to write words that your eyes then see and read, is the basic strategy for formation of right action. This combination of physical environment and physical action seems to do two things. It gives a moment between the thought presented by the mind, and the reaction from the awareness to that thought. It gives you space to react to thoughts. This tiniest of moments between thoughts being presented and the response allows for a type of free will. But it is brief. And it is weak. And so, it is best exerted on the earliest and vaguest of thoughts about an action. Secondly, specifically looking at your thoughts and then writing them and reading them is a feedback loop to your mind that then provides fodder for its rumination, programming your mind in a way to think more about what you want to think about. The utility of meditation and journaling is to be aware of the thought loops that are forming, to act early, and to change them if you can so that you exert some influence over what you do.
I think an effective structure for this activity is to see the mind as the voice of the body's needs. It will present thoughts that will meet a need. If you want to be doing something different to what the mind is presenting, you need to be meeting the need, but with a different outcome. If you don’t want to be eating pizza and drinking beer, then you'd better find a different way to quench thirst and satisfy hunger. And if you want to be doing a completely alternative activity, like fasting instead of eating, then play one set of needs off against another. Use social proof and self-actualisation needs to override hunger and thirst needs. Reaching a fasting goal and telling others about it meets a need that is higher than the need for food and water. Being aware early in the thought feedback loop of the needs that drive the thoughts and then meeting them in ways that are in line with what you want might be the trick to free will.
