Free Will: Part Deux

Hi, and welcome to Studious! I’m your host, Stuart Byers. Each week on Studious, we try and parse out life’s greatest riddles. We’ll tackle topics of particular interest to me, and hopefully to you the listener as well. If not, consider this one of those great podcasts to fall asleep to.

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This week on Studious, we are going to pick up where we left off on our Free Will argument with Hard Determinism, and explore the possibility of breaking our programming, and hacking our own code. Is it even possible? We talked previously how in a world of universal causality, there are no uncaused actions, and how you are the biproduct of all the actions leading up to your creation. You didn’t get a say on what circumstances you were born into or when, what privileges you’d have at birth if any. Nowadays, we do get a little more wiggle room with changing superficial traits we carry by using diet and exercise, or in extreme cases, going under the knife, but these are hardly the things that make you the authentic you. In fact, points could be made at how “authentic” these alterations really are.

So aside from brazenly just claiming we are something we are not, which is in the playbook now, (I still see you, Rachel Dolezal) is it possible to change the direction of this locomotive we are on, or are we doomed forever to stay on course? Well, if you break it down simply, what we are talking about are the trajectories of life. Every decision we make, we ultimately make for a reason, or perhaps a sum of a million reasons, like what we had for breakfast, or that cup of warm coffee we were just holding. While we can be aware of those micro-nudges guiding our decision-making processes, how do we affect the macro of changing who we are?

If you caught our episode on Aristotle, then we are talking about achieving Eudaimonia: becoming the best version of ourselves. And listen, while there are certain aspects of our personality that are core to our belief systems and essentially who we are as a person, we can take whatever flaws or detriments we have, and if not eliminate them, find out how to utilize them to our advantage.

The first step in derailing your train, is to actually derail this train of thought. I’m gonna go a bit off topic for a second. Now, if you’ve been listening faithfully to the podcast, you’ll understand that I enjoy a good nature show from time to time. I find that by studying animal behaviors, it gives me a unique perspective to glean some sort of new take on the human condition. This happened to me several years ago when I saw a documentary about the cuttlefish.

Now I’ve discussed the cuttlefish here on Studious previously, I think; honestly, I don’t remember which episode. Feel free to fast forward if this is redundant.

I’ll be brief. If you don’t know of the cuttlefish, google image search that little critter. They look kinda like an octopus that decided to wear its tentacles like a moustache. Squidish, but stumpier in both body and tentacle length. Anyways, when mating, the larger males will target a female, and usually if the female is impressed by his stature, she will swim under his bulky form and collect the sperm cloud he emits to where she keeps her eggs, under that lady tentacle-mustache.

Now there are smaller male cuttle fish that know they clearly are no match physically to take on such a brute, so in order to reproduce, they must change their tactics. This is a rare example of nature selecting brains over brawn. The smaller male will morph his shape and body colorings to appear as a female. Now, to be clear, he still identifies as a male, or at least we assume he identifies as a male because of his intentions, but nowadays it’s anyone’s guess. Anywhoodle, the clever little cuttlefish approaches, and now the larger male thinks this has become a two-for-one buffet, and daddy is hung’y! So both of the small cuttlefish swim under his dominant form, and unbeknownst to the large lothario, she takes the seed of the little twink underneath, because she appreciates the wit and guile of this gender-bending chameleon.

And after that, why are we even using the chameleon as our go to for describing stealth or deception? The chameleon clearly ain’t no cuttlefish. He can only change his color, not his shape. Weak, chameleon, weak.

So, why am I talking about cuttlefish? Well, when I went back to college in my mid-thirties, I wrote a paper about why we should champion cheating in college, citing the cuttlefish and a pantheon of trickster gods. If you remember, these gods of myth usually end up being the creator gods, so we’ve always understood that creation and creativity comes from this place of breaking the rules, the taboos, and the breaking of tradition. Is that a stretch, given the rote memorization that is general education your first two years of college? Hardly.

It was with this paper that I also discovered my writing style. Back when I wasn’t so verbose, the word count of papers was always my kryptonite. So, like the cuttlefish, I had to devise a new strategy to achieve my goals.

I always enjoyed creative writing and storytelling. I hated writing these dry argument papers for composition classes. So, I took a chance and tried using anecdotal evidence to open the dialogue and engage the reader. My favorite way of doing so is the curve-ball. I always enjoyed reading works that had a surprise twist. So, I would begin with a story, so seemingly off the topic that I was there to write about, that the fun for me as a writer, was bringing it around and tying it back to the original premise. It also would eat up a large portion of my word count. Two birds as they say.

What I didn’t understand is that people hate reading dry argumentative papers just as much as I hated writing them. However, we are taught this basic writing structure in order to teach young minds the steps of developing an argument. This is the bones of an argument. However, you don’t tell a story by simply laying out the plot. The devil is in the details.

So, we’ve been discussing throughout the podcast the importance of narrative. The real mystery of living a full life of purpose in not achieving this state of fulfillment and happiness. That’s a destination. Like the topic sentence, body paragraph, conclusion form of writing, we weren’t meant to stop our writing style there; we are meant to exceed expectations. And here’s the real secret: There is no destination. Like before when I said that life is a never-ending series of hoops to jump through, you gotta get used to that idea, because it’s true. There’s no destination, because once you’ve jumped through that hoop you’re currently on, it’s on to the next hurdle. We humans are problem solving mammals, and if there isn’t a new challenge, a new problem for solving, we stagnate; we lose purpose; we die.

Now, does this mean that we can’t sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labor from time to time? Of course not. Goals should be met with rewards, but life is also about balance. We don’t get to live in reward-town all the time. At some point, we gotta saddle back up on the horse of adventure.

So, what is my destination with where I was going with all this? There actually is one. We were talking about cuttlefish, which wasn’t only there to illustrate my writing style and open our talks on narratives. Creativity is not only championed in nature, but it also seems our only chance at breaking the mold and getting some of our free will back. Let me see if I can walk us through this idea, because I often forget why I think the things I think, and how I got there in the first place.

Ok, let’s talk rudimentary composition. It’s a metaphor for life really. Somewhere in junior high, we are taught how to write a paragraph. There’s a topic sentence. And then, there’s supporting sentences, which support the idea, and then there’s a resolution or a conclusion. Just like the principle of “self-similarity” as we see with atoms looking like smaller versions of solar systems, the paragraph is the smaller version of the essay, which is the smaller version of the thesis. Same structure: introduction, which usually includes the topic or thesis statement, body, conclusion.

This is what we are taught, these rules, this structure. The same goes with the rest of our formal and informal learning. We are taught the rules of education, the rules of social interaction, the rules of society, the rules of our cultures, the rules of our sexes. So many rules.

If you study Joseph Campbell, author of The Power of Myth and The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he calls this the dragon, “Thou Shalt.” Thou shalt do this, thou shalt do that. It is our responsibility as youth to learn the ways of the dragon. However, it is once we ascend into adulthood that we learn to slay the dragon “Thou Shalt.” You gotta learn the rules before you can break them. And why? Because you need to understand which ones are worth respecting and which are worth challenging.

This is what I did with the argument paper, because that is what worked for me. My strength was in narrative, so I used that to push my writing. The introduction completely breaks format, because we don’t even learn what our thesis statement is until after the intro.

And my writing style is like my thinking, jumping around all over the place like a Tarantino movie. It can be a little discombobulating, but I suppose the strength of it is keeping people guessing. And what problem-solving mammal doesn’t enjoy a little guesswork?

But there is a necessity of checking in with the listener to see if they’re still following or losing interest. It’s all about finding the right balance. And again. I’ve strayed from the point, so let’s circle back.

So, with writing we are taught format, and in life, we’re taught the basics of how to be part of the group. It’s all formatting. It’s all programming. Which brings us back around to our topic: if our free will in incumbent on our programming, how do we change that programming? We have to hack the system. To change the programming, we must begin to operate in that modality of thinking outside the box and breaking with tradition.

So, now that we’ve addressed the problem, the solution seems forthcoming. Let’s just get creative and shake things up!

Not so fast.

In the 1960’s, psychologist E. Paul Torrance developed a series of tests now known as The Torrence Tests of Creative Thinking, or TTCT for those of you who love anagrams. These measured creativity amongst individuals, and found that creativity peaked in humans between the ages of 5-8. Now, some could argue that this is of course when the brain is still highly malleable, and those neuro pathways haven’t fully formed, and that argument should be noted, because I think this is biologically at play here. I think life is also about compromise. Often times, to gain something valuable, we have to trade something valuable in return. While we are learning the rules of society, something is also happening in the background: we are formalizing our internal brain structure. We are losing malleability. Now, we are gaining a lot, because we are taking in lots of data, and internalizing systems, which gives us wisdom and experience. However, if we become too reliant on this new data, we never stop to question it. And we may have no right questioning it, because it could be very sound data from a certain perspective. It could be 99% accurate.

Take Newtonian gravity for example. His theory worked just fine terrestrially for around 200 years, until Albert Einstein came along to question it. Notice, Einstein didn’t throw away Calculus in the process. He just refined our theories on gravity and relativity.

And there’s a second benefit to making these pathways rigid and hard-wired. They allow us to make split-second decisions, instead of having to mull over our choices, which given the proper timing, could be the difference between life and death.

So, we’ve traded off our creativity from our formative years. Well, let’s examine what that word creativity even means, past the obvious, which is the ability to create.

Creativity is the ability to see possible varying outcomes. This is just like the choices we make every day. Problems can have a multitude of solutions, and let’s circle back around to that idea, because that is why we are here. We’re trying to get unstuck from our programming and give ourselves new opportunities to strategize and plan and choose differently.

But in adulthood, this is our blind spot. As we age, we lose our creativity, our ability to see all the various possibilities. Many of these stem from dismissing any answers that seem silly or stupid on the surface. And why is that? It’s all about the herd and conformity. We are careful to upset others’ opinions. There are obvious rewards to fitting in the herd, with assimilation. And this isn’t a slam at conformity or fitting in. We all must make concessions in some form or other to harmonize with our communities. And check that word… HARMONIZE. When I was in my second musical, I was taught harmonization. Before that, I understood that sometimes people sang high and some people sang low, based on obvious biology, but I thought they were all still singing the same notes, just different octaves. No, your altos could be singing a D and your sopranos could be singing an F sharp. It kinda blew my mind. And that is what it’s like to harmonize within a community, not everyone will be singing the same notes, but they’ll be working in tandem to produce something beautiful. It’s the balance we find between individuality and conformity.

So, step one is to open our minds to various possibilities, even ones that are seemingly outlandish. As Al Yankovich points out, we must Dare to be Stupid. And with this stupidity comes a second challenge to conformity: upsetting the herd. Some of our decisions will need to be made that will have very negative outcomes for others, possibly even the whole herd. Dare I say, decisions that on the surface might even be considered EVIL.

And we spent a good three episodes exploring representations of evil on the podcast. I may have spoke briefly about this, but I was watching one of these collector shows once and this guy collected action figures. And might I quickly point out the distinction between dolls and action figures. It really is all about the amount of hypothetical action these collectibles find themselves in. By this definition, I think aside from the points of articulation, Barbie might need to be recategorized.

Anyways, this guy was talking about how he was always more drawn to bad guys, and not because he was some kind of thirst trap on Love Island. He said that villains were always proactive. They had desires and worked to find solutions to their problems. Heroes, by definition were reactive, waiting for those villains to break with societal norms and challenge the status quo. This made them less interesting by comparison.

And perhaps this is where we are starting to move societally. We are starting to confront these black and white narratives, opening ourselves up to other possibilities with anti-heroes and the like. However, we should also be aware of the parable of the scorpion and the frog. Some villains are nothing more than self-serving narcissists, willing to sacrifice anyone in their way. It’s just their nature.

Let me make a really quick point that I’m not pushing for people to make “evil” a normal part of their curriculum, or decision-making processes. It’s more about checking our blind allegiance to dogma or normative behavior. It’s really more of a question of intent. I think as adults we can elicit what makes for self-serving behavior, but we also need to be suspect getting sold on ideas that are “in service of the greater good.” The utilitarian argument appeals to pragmatism, but it also appeals to the ego, that somehow, we are smarter than others and know what is best for them. So, while I’m championing you take back the control in your decision making, I’m not keen on those in a big hurry to control others.

So, this has gotten away a bit from this silliness we should be savoring in opening our world to new possibilities. Would it help if you shoved a weasel in your pants? Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Ok, now that our pants weasels are firmly placed, we can get started. If you haven’t seen it, one of my favorite films The Zero Effect from director Jake Kasdan, son of Empire Strikes Back and Desperatodirector, Lawrence Kasdan. It stars Bill Pullman as this neurotic private eye, and probably was the inspiration of the television series, Monk. So, Pullman is helping a client out and he’s explaining his detective method with the audience. Let me quote Darryl Zero real quick:

 I always say that the essence of my work relies fundamentally on two basic principles: objectivity and observation, or "the two obs" as I call them. My work relies on my ability to remain absolutely, purely objective, detached. I have mastered the fine art of detachment.

He then goes on to reveal that when he’s looking for clues, he never narrows his focus on to what he’s looking for. To illustrate this point, while looking for evidence left by a blackmailer, his open field of vision allows him to kind the client’s keys, which the man had revealed were also adding to his stress on top of the blackmailing.

This is part of opening oneself to creativity, not just daring to break the rules, but by being open to new possibilities when they arise. People always think taking the chance or risking is the tough part, but only because they are unaware of how many opportunities they passed on by not entertaining their outcomes. Again, just ask the contestants on Love Island.

So, you could ask me, “Stu, how will I know what these new opportunities are?” And that’s just it, I can’t guide you in this process. You will most likely make many mistakes along the way. You won’t recognize these possibilities or different choices at first. And that’s ok. But the point is to now be open that there could bemore possibilities than you previously considered, and that’s a good place to start.

One of the easiest things to do is to consider the exact opposite of whatever you were first considering. Explore that idea for a second. What does that look like? What are the possible outcomes of that decision? It’s like that episode of Seinfeld when George decides that every decision he ever made in life was wrong, so he spends a week doing the opposite of whatever impulse he has, to optimum results. Think about this new decision for a moment.  Even if it sounds like a horrible idea, and it should, considering it is the exact opposite of what you were previously considering, try and image one good outcome of choosing that way. Then consider why that choice provided an acceptable outcome. What about it made it work? Can we apply that dynamic to a different decision, maybe one more balanced than our two extremes? Now you are beginning to make some progress.

Another strategy is to try doing things weird just for the sake of being weird. If you listened to our podcast on Philip K. Dick, he said the following,

David Hume, the great­est skep­tic of them all, once remarked that after a gath­er­ing of skep­tics met to pro­claim the verac­i­ty of skep­ti­cism as a phi­los­o­phy, all of the mem­bers of the gath­er­ing nonethe­less left by the door rather than the win­dow. I see Hume’s point. It was all just talk. The solemn philoso­phers weren’t tak­ing what they said seri­ous­ly.

So, while I persistently ask you to remain skeptical, that’s not what this quote is all about. Get weird. Go out the window every once in a while. Do something unexpected. You’re getting older now, and you’ve gotten too rigid. Shake things up. Drive into that neighborhood you always just drive past. Order something different from the menu. Try new things. Be daring and do things that don’t make sense. Listen, this advice is way easier to dispense than to take. I understand that. And while you may unleash some inner creativity, that’s great, but your primary objective is to first do weird things for the sake of being weird. Why? Because it’s fun, and you lost that ability to have fun while you were busy learning other people’s rules.

So, while we are recognizing some of our adversities in changing the things we can possibly change, they seemingly stem from indoctrination, but at the heart of that, the prime motivator is fear. We are properly kept in check, and rightfully so, by our desire to please others and not earn their scorn or ridicule. These are powerful motivators. They might seem evil in nature, but they’re just as evil as a gun. The gun isn’t evil, it’s a device with a potentially lethal purpose. Don’t get that misconstrued with evil, because that gun can just as easily disable an attacker with ill intent. People don’t like being shamed, so we see the behavior as evil, because we associate negative connotations having felt its effects. But is shaming inherently wrong? If you touch that alter boy inappropriately, should you not be ashamed of your actions? There are plenty of behaviors that should inherently feel shameful.

But be careful. You know what they say about people in glass houses. If you feel it’s your job to shame your community, I’d like to ask who made you our moral compass to follow. And while I don’t condone fat shaming, if you feel ashamed for being fat, then recognize those feelings and make the proper changes in your life. This isn’t about vanity, that’s just a powerful side effect; you feel better when your clothes start fitting better and you get that sexy back. Get in better shape because of your health. This gives you the ability to do, even if that means fending off an attacker, or outrunning a wild animal. Maybe it might even allow you the ability to play with your children without getting winded. And really, this is all about achieving that Eudaimonia Aristotle was talking about. You may never be fit AF, but you can just make it a point to do better, because you want to become the best version of yourself, if not for yourself, then for the people you love and that love you.

Now, I could spend the rest of this time lecturing you like some deranged motivational speaker or cult leader, but then I’d just be another podcast puppet of the self-help machine. Then I’d be just like all those skeptics that Hume met with, none of them taking the window. Let’s get a little weird for a moment.

If any of you know me, it’s probably no great mystery that weirdness comes natural for me. It may seemingly come naturally, but I definitely made a concerted effort at one point in my life to lean into it. And there have been many moments in my life where I ditched my salmon ways and swam downstream.  There is a wild comfort to just give in and Stepford the fuck out of your life. Not so long ago, I left the city for the suburbs, adulting my way into a mortgage. And honestly, I should have probably done it sooner. But that’s a fiscal decision and not the direction where I wanted to take this.

Your weirdness doesn’t need to be a grand gesture. My wife hollered at me earlier to tell me that I needed to spend more time on my day off with the family. By that, she meant I needed to get off the computer writing, so I could spend time with my son because she needed to take a shower. She had forgotten something and left the bedroom naked. She began rummaging through the kitchen for whatever she was looking for. I spent this time shutting our bedroom door, then shutting the baby gate outside that. I then obstructed the path with a highchair, and when she turned around, I was in the process of adding two more dining room chairs to the pathway.

“What are you doing?” She asked me perplexed.

“I just wanted to spend more time with my family,” I responded.

It wasn’t lost on her in that moment that I was warm to her form, so they say.

And what made me do that in the first place? Because I was thinking about doing weird things for the sake of being weird. It started off as me being a pest, or somewhat of a nuisance, closing the bedroom door, then the baby gate. But it was the genius of really creating an apocalyptic wall a la The Walking Dead, that I got to express my feelings towards my wife in an unconventional way.

And this is how we should think about treating the people we love, with creativity and mirth. It’s far better to craft an experience for an individual than giving a mere gift.

I once spent an entire day calling my grandma, “boss.” I would say how boss she was, how everything she was doing that day was just boss. She was a real boss lady, and I wasn’t afraid to tell her so.

It also happened to be her birthday.

I can honestly say I don’t remember what gift I gave her, probably a Stephen King book, as she was an easy fan of his tales of the macabre. When she began to open her gift from me, she paused to open her card. If it wasn’t apparent by the story, I got her a boss’ day card instead of the traditional birthday card. And why? Because I just thought it would be more memorable and her sense of humor would approve.

Last week we talked about linguistic relativity, and we landed on this softer version, as opposed to linguistic determinism. We figured this because though language can shape perception, it isn’t enough to fully determine one’s path or trajectory in life. I think we can apply a similar thought to hard determinism. It’s kinda like what we talked about with heroes. If you aren’t proactively battling for your free will like a criminal mastermind, then your path will forever be guided by outside forces. In short, don’t be a hero. Let the Clark’s of the world worry about being the übermench.

And I really can’t stress this point enough, because it’s advice that I need to heed myself. I suffer from chronic road rage. It has gotten worse since my move to Miami, as many drivers here come from foreign lands and haven’t assimilated to our rules of the road: in particular, the left lane being reserved for passing cars only. I can’t channel my inner Don Henley with that 2004 Honda Odyssey on the far left. I need to constantly remind myself that it is not my job to be the driving instructor for South Florida. It’s a battle to lay off the horn and woosah the fuck out.

And that’s not even being a hero, per se, but an enforcer of the rules. It comes from a good place, wanting for a smoother commute, not for just me, but for everyone. And the phone usage while driving has reached new heights. It’s a goddamn jungle out there.

But again, it’s not my job to educate these people, and honestly, my horn will never accomplish this tutorial. It’s like arguing with people on social media. You will never reconfigure someone’s worldview they’ve spent a lifetime creating with a pithy post or retort.

So, can we go full Buddha in these moments?

I used to walk my dogs a lot when I lived in an apartment, two chihuahuas. I kept them on a tight leash, never letting them stray more than 3 feet from my side. One day, I was walking them, pushing the stroller simultaneously and said to myself, “self, why are you being so uptight and controlling with these dogs?” It was at that point that I relaxed their leash and let them run free. Not even a minute later, they blindly ran out into traffic.

What’s the takeaway here? It’s all about balance and wisdom. I wasn’t being controlling, I was in charge of the safety of two very stupid pets. It’s like doing the same for a toddler. You wouldn’t let a toddler run free near a busy street. Some of you have smart dogs that know to stay out of the street. Good for you and your dogs. I, however, do not. You could argue that I could spend more time teaching them how to not run in the street, but ain’t nobody got time for that, and honestly, you’re assuming an actual canine level of sentience with these beasts. They just don’t possess the faculties.

While we can nudge people in the direction we want through positive and negative reinforcement, we really need to pick our battles wisely. If you think you are going to nudge people politically, think again. Also, know that you are arguing an opinion, not an objective truth. Even objective truths can be hard to argue for those who don’t want to hear it. Most of the time, we are all just arguing our points to win the argument, and to be right. Being right seldomly changes anyone’s minds.

And that brings us around to the Socratic Method, which I’ve already began writing about for next week’s episode.

Until then, have a blessed afternoon, whatever that means. That’s all the time we have here on Studious. I’ll see you next week.

If you have time at the end of the episode, please like, subscribe, comment, rate, leave a dick pick, or whatever other form of self-expression that nobody is asking for. Thanks again, for listening to Studious.