a lifelong love affair
As for free will, there is such a narrow
crack of it for man to move in,
crushed as he is from birth by environment,
heredity, time and event and local convention.
〰 Sylvia Plath 〰
photo © Ian Stauffer on Unsplash
A Matter of Definition
the lack of evidence for free will is by no means a license to abdicate
personal responsibility in how we move through the world.
〰 Maria Popova 〰
In philosophical circles, the word freedom has been associated with will for at least two millennia. Free will ~ as an abstract concept ~ means that humans have a significant amount of control over their own actions ~ in theory. The question whether we ‘have free will’, or not has various significant implications ~ related, for example, to moral responsibility and privilege.
Why responsibility and privilege?
We’ll get to that in a moment.
The free-will-question has been giving many famous philosophers some serious headaches, including Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Kant. It still seems to be a hot topic, which crops up every so often in articles in psychology journals or the New Scientist.
A few months ago, a young writer from Porto asked me, “Do you believe in free will?”
This was at a party. It was the first time we met, and we’d only briefly exchanged a couple of skimming-the-surface thoughts about writing. The question caught me out of the blue, but not entirely unprepared.
Instead of offering a deep-dive into a theory of free will, I bounced the ball back into his court with another question, “What do you mean by free will?”
The conversation ended abruptly when my fellow writer was summoned to the dance floor by his girlfriend, and the questions drifted off into the balmy Portuguese night.
So we didn’t make history that night by solving one of the world’s ancient riddles.
Thinking back to the question, however, “do you believe in free will?” ~ I can now give a cheap and cheerful party-answer to this one:
“I don’t believe free will is a matter of belief, but a matter of definition.”
A new question fermenting in my mind since that conversation has been, “How did these two words ~ freedom and willpower ~ become associated with each other in the first place?”
Why did anatomists in the late 19th century assign different parts of the peripheral neural network to a voluntary nervous system (associated with will) and an autonomic one (associated with freedom)?
I know these names are meant to describe specific functions. But they could have used entirely different words. Moreover, the terminology for parts of the nervous system has changed more than once since the early anatomists scribbled their Greek and Latin labels onto human body parts, proving that this terminology is not encoded in genes or bone.
Goddess Frigg seated on the throne, painting by Carl Emil Doeppler
Freedom from Beloved to Worthless
Nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.
〰 James Baldwin 〰
The English word freedom triggers associations with liberty, independence, liberation, autonomy, autarky, self-determination, emancipation, self-governance, and sovereignty. These are the primary synonyms you’re likely to find in any thesaurus.
The history of free [from Germanic friaz = beloved, dear; not in bondage] tells a slightly different story. According to ancient language-lore the verbiont free is a direct descendant of Frigga, the Germanic queen of heaven, goddess of married love, and wife of Odin (German Wotan) ~ the chief god in old Germanic and Norse religions before colonisation by Christianity.
Frigg has merged with Freya, goddess of sexual love and beauty in Norse mythology, who has produced the German word Frau (= mistress of the house, lady, woman, wife) as one of her descendants.
Frigga [= beloved, loving, beloved wife] has many descendants in the Germanic languages, including German Frieden (= peace) and freien (= to court). English offspring are free, freedom, Friday (day of the week dedicated to both Frigg and Freya), friend, friendly, friendship, befriend, and all names beginning or ending with ‘fred’ which means ‘peace’.
The Gothic ancestral verb frijôn means to love, court someone, marry, make someone ‘their own beloved’.
Free in its older sense also shared its meaning with the Latin privus (= private individual) and the Greek idios (= one’s own person).
In other words, free was related to being a private person in your own right, as opposed to a slave who was a person in bondage.
Slaves were obtained by taking prisoners after a victory in battle. Free women and men were fellow humans of your own kin, tribe, or clan, which explains the development of a third meaning.
The Old English freod (= affection, friendship) is closely related to Old Norse friðr (= peace; love, friendship) German Friede (= peace) and Old English freo (= wife).
Freo is one of the old English words for kinship. A free woman or man was a clan member other than a slave. In other words, free was an attribute of someone with whom people lived in peace, friendship, close affinity and perhaps affection.
Having said that, we know that in Ancient Rome the difference between a ‘free woman’ and a female slave could be either considerable or negligible, depending on the goodwill of the free man who ‘made her his own’. Presumably the situation in Germanic and Norse cultures at the time were of a similar order.
A brief overview on the transmutations of free over the past centuries shows a shift from courtship to political and economic liberties:::
The sense of unrestrained movement developed in 13 c.
Association with untamed wild animals emerged in late 14 c.
The biggest shift in meaning happened in the 16th century, when the word free was used to describe something that was given as a favour.
The association of free with gratis entered the English language in mid 15c. Gratis (originally from gratiae = thanks) is related to gratitude and grace, both of which got lost along the way, through replacement with ‘for nothing, without recompense, free of charge.’
free lunches were offered in the 1800s in bars to draw in customers.
free love "sexual liberation" attested from 1822
free trade is from 1823
free speech in Britain was used in the sense of a privilege in Parliament since the time of Henry VIII. In U.S., in reference to a civil right to expression, it became a prominent phrase in the debates over the Gag Rule (1836)
free passes on railways were available since the 1850s.
free world = ‘non-communist nations’ is attested from 1950
Here are a couple of questions we may want to ask ourselves in the current climate, where speech and other freedoms others are under threat :::
How free is the will, when freedom is enslaved by trauma?
What is free will, when freedom has traded love for taking liberties?
What does free will mean, when willing itself is corrupted by confusion, inner conflicts, and the treacherous assumption that life with free will at the helm is a free ride?
photo © Bernard Hermant on Unsplash
Willpowered Nerves and Autonomous Relations
For the rest of us, who struggle to avoid going for dessert,
freedom is always a question of degree rather than an
absolute good that we do or do not possess.
〰 Cristof Koch 〰
Intriguingly, the words free and will both appear in our anatomy ~ in our nervous system, to be precise. We don’t use these exact terms, but their synonyms are similar enough to take note.
The so-called autonomic (= free) and voluntary (= willing) nervous systems are two parts of the peripheral nervous system, which serves the whole body with neural functions ~ apart from the brain and spinal chord, which are supplied by the central nervous system.
The so-called voluntary part ~ now renamed as somatic nervous system ~ of the extensive network of neurons and neural plexuses are those which obey the commands of the will ~ in a healthy organism.
The ANS controls all visceral functions on automatic pilot ~ heartbeat, breathing, digestion, urination, reflexive responses, and all instinctive activities. The VNS is associated with the voluntary control of body movements plus the majority of nerves which carry information from the senses.
Autonomous [from Greek auto = self, same + nomos = law] (in use since 1777) refers literally to something that is subject to its own laws.
Autonomic (a variation of the same word in use since 1832) means self-governing. Since late 19 c it has been used largely in the field of physiology.
Four centuries before the word autonomy was adopted, English speakers had another word, meaning more or less the same thing. This term was borrowed from Latin.
Autonomy [from Greek autonomos = independent, living by one’s own laws] (used since 1620s) is the right to self-governance and self-determination. Autonomy is freedom from external control. The word therefore reflects more or less the same as the original freedom as opposed to slavery.
The Latin word privilegium (from privus = private, individual + lex, legis = law) is a translation of the Greek autonomous.
Privilege ~ a direct adoption of the Latin privilegium ~ has been used in English since mid 12 c. It literally refers to a law applied to a private individual, i.e. a free person.
photo © Birger Strahl on Unsplash
Free Will in Love
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
Except the one in which you belong.
〰 David Whyte 〰
‘If we didn’t have free will we would be predetermined robots and therefore would not have any responsibility for our actions.’ ~ according to a popular Anthropocentric theory.
This argument is fundamentally flawed ~ based on a false assumption of a polarity between ‘free will’ and ‘predetermined robot’. As if we didn’t have any other options. Humans are far more complex than that.
In a recent substack article, Rebekah Barnett writes about the way the word ‘voluntary’ has become doublespeak in Australian politics (applicable to politics all over the world)
In the same way that voluntary no longer means ‘out of one’s own volition and free choice’ ~ when there are dangerous ropes attached to the options, and the ropes on either side are shaped into a fatal noose ~ free will may not mean what we might assume it means :::
freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention.
Voluntary choice or decisions based on one’s own beliefs and consent, unconstrained by manipulation, interference, coercion, or threat of serious consequences in the case of non-compliance.
Freedom, in its deepest and truest sense, stands for belonging and autonomy. Independence and interdependence. An inner peace nurtured by love, friendship, kinship, and knowing one’s place in the world.
Free ranging unrestrained willpower doesn’t mean getting whatever the hell you want, regardless of the trail of destruction you leave in your wake.
Freedom of will does not translate into a fairy godmother granting all your wishes.
Freedom of will is not about getting others to see everything your way, by getting clever about manipulating external reality, or pressuring unsuspecting fellow humans, or throwing a big enough tantrum.
The act of willing itself is mixed up with aching, coveting, craving, desiring, fancying, hankering, hungering, itching, liking, longing, lusting, pining, wanting, wishing, and yearning ~ which instantly gets entangled further with begging, clamouring, demanding, dying for, favouring, insisting, lacking, needing, starving and an incalculable sweep of conflicting wills ~ even within oneself.
Using the expression ‘free will’ with this type of implicit meaning is a misnomer. Firstly because this act of willing is driven by confusion rather than love. And secondly because in such confusion the act of willing turns against itself and becomes a trap (most likely a trap of fear, related to personal trauma).
As an alternative, I invite you to imagine the mental faculty of willing as a human individual for a moment. Let’s say he is a male he.
Free Will knows exactly what he wants. He is a Will in love. His eyes are set firmly on ‘the one’ who, which, or what becomes the love of his life. He doesn’t ditch this (person or thing he likes) as soon as those (other objects of desire) appear on his radar.
Free Will doesn’t have a sense of scarcity nor does he act from a place of desperation.
Free Will doesn’t impose his own agenda onto anyone. Neither is he dependent on repeated reassurance or eternal approval from the outside.
Free Will is a healthy will. He knows what he’s about, is clear about himself, and poised within his own centre. Free Will is always a joy and privilege to have around, whenever he honours us with his presence.
The presence of Free Will is a great privilege, not because we can claim it as a ‘unique function of human Consciousness’ ~ which may or may not be the case. It is a privilege in the original sense of the word ~ privilegium (= law applied to a private individual).
The presence of Free Will also feels like a privilege because he fills us with a delicious sense of clarity and imparts his power onto us. Onto the whole of our being. Because Free Will is not separate from the totality of human Consciousness (even if he often appears to be absent).
The privilege of Free Will comes with responsibility. Again, this is not a finger-wagging-responsibility in the sense of ‘moral obligation’. It has nothing to do with guilt, blaming, shaming, duty, or indebtedness.
True and pure responsibility, with no strings attached, is the human ability to respond.
Respondability is the innate power of human Consciousness to cultivate the ideal conditions within our own inner ecosystem ~ a natural habitat where Free Will feels at home.
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