This is the seventh in a series on how the free will belief that our world’s top thinkers, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein each considered completely mistaken provides a foundation for conservatism’s discriminatory policies against gays, the poor, criminals, the mentally ill and other disenfranchised groups, and how we progressives can pull that foundation out from under the GOP by exposing the free will myth. For a more detailed presentation of this strategy, read the series’ first post: How to dismantle the GOP by debunking the belief in free will.
When British psychologist Susan Blackmore asked eminent American philosopher, John Searle, what it would mean for our world to understand and accept that free will does not exist, he responded that this would:
be a bigger revolution in our thinking than Einstein, or Copernicus, or Newton, or Galileo, or Darwin -- it would alter our whole conception of our relation with the universe.
Scientifically, for our world to understand that nothing we humans do is ever truly up to us, as opposed to our current belief that so much is, would be a major revolution in human thinking. But how would this revolution play out in politics?
It would sweep the very foundation out from under the GOP’s conservative ideology. Without the nonsensical and discredited notion of free will, Republicans could not justly, or rationally blame, the poor for being poor, gays for being gay, the mentally ill for being mentally ill, etc.
And if they can no longer blame these victims of their hate-filled ideology for being who they are, the justification for vengefully punishing these groups vanishes, and the GOP is left without a moral rationale on which to base their hating ways.
Robbed of the free will notion, their hatred, blame and punishing would suddenly appear to them, and to the rest of the world, as irrational. It would become ineffective in motivating their base to hate people who are different from them. When that happens, the GOP that we know today will have the status of DOA, and what’s left of the Party would be in the unenviable position of either having to go back to square one in defending their hateful ways, or having to stop hating.
That’s what it means politically for our Country and world to evolve beyond the myth of free will. In the second story in this series, I explained how causality or cause and effect, make free will impossible. And for those of us who think quantum randomness, otherwise known as indeterminism and acausality, can save free will, I explained how a random or uncaused decision can’t be logically attributed to anything, including a free will. In this story, I’ll show readers, using their own experience, why we humans don’t have a free will. Okay; here goes.
So, you think you have the free will to decide what you will think, and decide what you will not think? For the next thirty seconds, I want you to decide to think of nothing but a banana. Couldn’t do it, could you? Where was your free will? Oh right; non-existant.
Well then, how about your freely deciding what you will not think. For the next thirty seconds, I want you to try to not think any thoughts at all. Ready, set, go! Hmmm. My guess is that you couldn’t do that either. Where did your free will go? That’s right; it never went anywhere because you never had it.
Let’s turn to morality. You try to be a good person, correct? But sometimes you fail. Sometimes you do what you shouldn’t have done, and sometimes you don’t do what you should have done. But wait, I thought you said you have the free will to think and do as you please? Hmmm...I guess you really don’t.
One last test. Survey after survey for decades has found that of all the things we humans want, what we want most is happiness. We’re hard wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain, which is, interestingly, yet another way of understanding why we don’t have a free will.
So now ask yourself. “Why am I not completely happy all of the time?” Why do I sometimes feel angry, or sad, or bored, or lonely or afraid?” Hmmm. Oh, that’s right, because we humans do not actually have the free will to think and feel and do as we would like.
Charles Darwin understood this. So did Sigmund Freud, and so did Albert Einstein. Take note that these three guys are probably our world’s greatest thinkers, (yes, Isaac Newton would definately also be among them). Well, hopefully now you understand this too.
Free will is an insidiously harmful and mistaken belief. The GOP uses it to blame people for what is not their fault, and then punish them for what is not their fault. The sooner we progressives expose to the world that free will is nothing but an ugly, hurtful myth, the sooner the GOP will be left stranded without a foundation for their hatred and bigotry. When that happens, far fewer people will vote for them, and it will be far easier for us to elect Democrats, and advance our progressive agenda.