Hi Robert, so brilliant, as always. I see it as you do, as I think you know. I call ego the sports commentator. "He's rounding first." "I did this." "I chose that." Always a split second after the movement, either of action or of knowing, recognizing.
right, still we always have a choice, we always have agency. and beyond destiny, we can choose (so to speak), we can overcome our destiny. but not always - not all of it
What a deeply offensive essay! Wasn't it wonderful? So offensive to perhaps see that free will is not there. Cherished beliefs crumble. Now what? Just be? How bizarre. Isn't that wonderful! But oh so odd. Haunted by this today Robert. I had read of these ideas before and thought hmmm, maybe. But your writing today resonated in a disturbingly (good thing) way that is truly haunting me. Feels like breaking up. Feels like relaxing.
And I have found on numerous occasions that the more I think in advance about an action or performing a skill that I've carried out repeatedly in the past smoothly and without drama, the more problematic its initiation and less skilful its completion becomes...
In this instance, the fabrication of an author is actually a disadvantage - not that I can do anything about it when it arises except notice it...ha!
"The story on the street" can be easily observed in the cinema by watching the plot of a film. For example, it is clear that the murderer is caught up in his own story, just as the victim is caught up in hers. No one would have chosen it, but both are immersed in it, each suffering their role. And when the plot thickens and more characters appear, they all enter, as if drawn by a magnet, because there is no other option....Then compassion arises for everyone, even though sometimes you feel like calling the "bad guy" a bastard son of a bitch.
Yes. He does. But I found his book on the subject, Determined, disappointing. He makes a number of arguments for the proposition that choice is an illusion, but then he undermines each one by saying it does not prove the point. It's almost as if he wrote the book with his fingers crossed behind his back.
Robert, I found the essay's core insight—that the action precedes the agent and that freedom is the cessation of the chooser—to be philosophically clarifying. I agree that for skillful, flow-state actions, the self is merely an after-image arriving to take credit.
However, I believe this idea can be dangerously misconstrued when the driver is trauma, not training.
I have firsthand experience watching myself being driven by what felt like a corrupted version of my system—a cascade of primal defense responses to which I had no contact and could not intercept at all. In these moments, the "self" that arrives afterward is not met with clarity or non-blame; it is met with crushing shame and overwhelming regret for actions that were entirely un-authored and unskillful.
The deterministic view absolves the metaphysical chooser, but it doesn't instantly absolve the psychological burden of the traumatized witness. The philosophical end of blame must be carefully distinguished from the psychological work required to regulate the conditions of the system, integrate that "corrupted" driver, and move toward true, non-resistant responsiveness.
In short, there is a profound difference between the freedom of un-authored competence and the captivity of un-authored compulsion.
From here, what you describe fits the same basic structure I was pointing to, although the texture of the events differs. When the system is under threat, movements can appear chaotic, driven, or unreachable. When the system is at ease, movements can appear fluid or skillful. The contrast is real, but in both cases the action comes first, and the “self” arrives afterward as commentary, not as cause.
Shame, regret, and the sense of having been overtaken by something “corrupted” also appear after the fact. They feel personal, but they don’t present themselves here as evidence of a person. They’re simply more activity in the same field.
A system shaped by fear or shock behaves according to those conditions until it behaves differently. No inner operator appears to be directing change, timing, or resolution. The shifts come when they come.
It may also help to separate two domains that often get conflated. In psychotherapy, the focus is on helping a distressed system find enough stability to function. I spent years in that role. But that is not what I’m doing now. What I’m describing here is the mechanics of the system itself—the way movements arise, the way the illusory sense of a chooser appears afterward, the way conditions shape behavior. None of this is a method for healing. It’s simply a description of how the process shows up from this side.
Where confusion tends to creep in is the idea that regulation or integration must be done by someone. Those formulations seem to imply a manager behind the system. But nothing in lived experience gives that manager any substance. If reactivity lessens, it lessens. If it persists, it persists. Neither case points to an agent who succeeded or failed.
The captivity you describe feels different from the ease of skilled action, but both appear as un-authored. Conditions vary, responses vary, and the sense of a chooser appears only afterward, trying to make sense of what already happened.
Nothing in this is a universal claim—only a description of how things look from this side of the glass.
Robert thank you for clarifying. Yet , I have to tell you I was watching me from my conscious adult part simultaneously like from a meta cognitive state and still was not able to alter anything despite having been fully consciously aware what was happening. And it was no one time event.
Robert, thank you for your candid reply. Given your background, I assumed you were familiar with the term meta-cognition, and I will clarify its relevance here.
Meta-cognition means "cognition about cognition" or "thinking about thinking." It refers to the human ability to monitor and regulate one's own thought processes, emotional states, and behaviors.
The Meta-cognitive Stance
When I said I was watching myself "simultaneously like from a meta-cognitive state," I meant that a part of my adult consciousness was:
Monitoring: Aware, in real-time, of the traumatic response cascade taking over the system. I was consciously seeing the fear, the physiological hijacking, and the unskillful action forming.
Evaluating: Fully capable of rationally judging the response as inappropriate, destructive, or "corrupted" relative to the safety of the present environment.
Attempting Regulation (Interception): Trying to use that conscious awareness to alter the physical and behavioral outcome (to "intercept" the response).
Why Meta-cognition is Relevant to Your Thesis
You assert that in both skillful flow and chaotic trauma, the action comes first, and the "self" arrives only afterward as commentary, not as cause.
My experience with meta-cognition acts as a critical counterpoint to your structure by introducing a "simultaneous self"—a locus of awareness that exists concurrently with the un-authored action:
The Problem: The experience was not: (1) action, then (2) self-commentary (shame/regret). The experience was: (1) un-authored action happening AND (2) fully conscious meta-awareness happening at the same time.
The Crisis: The meta-conscious adult self was present during the event, observing the trauma-driven system in control, and it was utterly impotent to intervene.
This is why the difference feels like "captivity" rather than just a variation in "texture." It is not simply the system behaving according to its conditions; it is the system behaving according to its conditions while the highest-order monitoring capacity is watching, trying, and failing to regulate it.
My experience is not evidence of a "free chooser" (I agree that no manager appears), but it is strong evidence that conscious, rational monitoring is not always the "after-image" you describe. It can be a simultaneous, powerless observer.
This observer is why the shame is so intense afterward—because it was there, it knew better, and it could not enact the change it was consciously aware was necessary. That simultaneous, powerless observation is the core of the psychological burden I was trying to distinguish from pure philosophical determinism.
Thank you for clarifying, Jay. What you’re calling a meta-cognitive stance doesn’t contradict what I’m describing. It only shows that awareness and agency are not the same thing.
Awareness can be present while an event is unfolding. It can witness, track, and even judge what is happening. None of that gives it the power to alter the system's behavior. Awareness appears within the field, not as its controller. It shows up alongside the reaction, not above it.
In the situation you describe, a traumatic reflex was running its course while a reflective capacity was noticing it. The simultaneity doesn’t imply authorship. It shows only that observation and reaction can arise in parallel. Awareness can see what is happening and still be unable to change it. That impotence belongs to the structure itself, not to a deeper self that failed to intervene.
The shame that appears afterward rests on the belief that the observing capacity was supposed to have agency. When that belief drops, the shame has nowhere to stand. There was observation, there was reaction, and neither one was being produced by a manager inside the system. Both were simply events.
The point, as I see it, is that awareness is not evidence of a chooser, even when it appears in the middle of the event rather than after it. This doesn’t erase the psychological burden you describe. It only removes the idea that an inner agent failed to act. No such agent shows up here.
Robert, thank you for sticking with this discussion. Your latest point urges me to be even more precise about the sequence of events, especially concerning shame and the observer.
When I experienced the trauma reflex running its course, the shame did not appear afterward because the "self" that typically processes shame was 100% exiled and unavailable. The meta-cognitive awareness you described was literally only an observer—a detached witness to the system’s failure. That witness was not the part that "wanted agency"; the desire for agency was a separate, exiled part (like the adult in a closed dog crate in the trunk of a car).
My subsequent work was not about correcting the philosophical error of agency; it was about psychological integration—specifically, liberating that exiled part from toxic shame.
Once that integration occurred, the structure of my experience fundamentally changed. This change directly challenges your deterministic model of parallel events by demonstrating a new functional capacity for intervention:
The Captivity of Trauma (Before Integration)
The un-authored sequence flowed automatically:
🎯 Trigger
➡️ Traumatic Reflex/Child Part Driving
➡️ Impotent Awareness (Observer/Adult in Trunk).
Result: Agency was impossible.
The Emergence of Agency (After Integration)
The structure now allows for a conscious, conditional pause:
🎯 Trigger
➡️ Reaction Urge/Child's Impulse
⏸️ Simultaneous Interruption: This is the key. The Rooted Adult Part steps in before the action. The meta-cognitive observer is watching this interruption occur.
✅ Pause/Choice: The functional moment of agency.
➡️ Skillful Response.
The integration created a functional capacity for conscious interruption where none existed before. The "adult part" (now soothing, knowledgeable, and rooted in equanimity) was able to step in and become a new, skillful condition that interrupted the old, reactive condition.
This "choice" is not a metaphysical exception; it is the emergent, conditional competence that arises when the nervous system achieves stability and integration. The adult self didn't just observe the conditions; it intervened in the deterministic flow.
My meta-cognitive observer is still present, watching the entire new process unfold. But now, it is watching pause and choice occur, demonstrating that the functional capacity for agency is indeed created by psychological work, not merely dissolved by philosophical insight. The shift came not when a belief dropped, but when a deeply exiled part was liberated.
Awareness and reactivity can arise together, but simultaneity doesn’t imply control. What you’re describing looks, from here, like a traumatic reflex running its sequence while a reflective capacity watched it. The observer wasn’t failing to intervene. It wasn’t an intervener at all. It was just another appearance inside the event.
The relief you call “integration” reads, on this side, as a shift in conditions: the system began producing a different response than before. When I practiced psychotherapy, I sometimes used images like an “inner adult” as tactics to promote stability, but those were never literal controllers. In the phenomenological view I’m describing here, no such controlling figure shows up. The river changes course when it changes course—nothing inside appoints itself to steer.
The point is spare and structural: awareness isn’t evidence of a chooser, even when it appears in the middle of the storm. That doesn’t diminish the burden you lived through. It only removes the idea that an inner agent failed. I don’t see one.
“Nothing is freely chosen, and nothing is personally deserved. What is, is, and cannot be otherwise. This includes the self that believes it should have done better, or the self that believes it triumphed. Both are after-images.” I totally aggree, this quote really clicks with me, I see it as the core of this great article, a lot of people I talk with about this topic seems getting it in a nihilistic way, although I see it as opposite, it is soothing and comforting to me 😌, I am not sure you ever read it but “determined” book for Dr. Robert sapolsky is really interesting.
I have read it. And you are right. Many people see determinism as a disturbing idea that cancels out any meaning in living. There are some comments here that discuss that.
I tend to think that “realities”, all infinities of them, are cassette tapes running backwards, and that what we like to call ourselves as a species:“Homosapiens”, or humanity etc, are not yet absurd enough to fast forward 😄
So say I have to decide whether to take a sip of wine, which I would love to do momentarily but it would take me right back into a long period of uncontrolled drinking until I could summon up the major will power to stop again. Or I could use a little will power now to deny myself that sip and almost effortlessly, I would remain alcohol free for a while longer. I can tell I definitely prefer the latter, so I'm not really making a free choice, I am responding to a desire some would call wise rather than a desire some would call unwise. But let's add a twist. Say I feel a desire to try a little quantum experiment. I happen to have a device with a little bit of uranium in it next to a Geiger counter that will beep when an alpha particle is ejected from a uranium nucleus. I decide that if the counter beeps within the next minute, I will take a sip of wine. It it doesn't, I will resist. The beep happens at 1 minute and 10 seconds. Whew! I'm not plunged back into alcoholic behavior. The choice I made, to use the counter, is not free. But the quantum event, as far as science understands things today, is truly random. So my alcohol-free future (for today, at least) was not predetermined by the laws of physics. It was truly random. This does not prove that free will exists, of course, but it does prove that the flow of my life is not necessarily predetermined nor is the history of the universe predetermined. Right?
Randomness doesn’t grant freedom. It only removes predictability.
If you hand the decision to a Geiger counter, and the counter hands the decision to radioactive decay, nothing about that introduces an author. The outcome may be unpredictable, but it is not willed. Whether the system follows a causal chain or a stochastic branch, there is still no chooser behind the motion.
In your example, the desire to avoid relapse arises on its own. The impulse to run a quantum experiment arises on its own. The relief when the beep comes late arises on its own. At no point does a decider appear. Indeterminism doesn’t rescue free will. It merely eliminates the illusion of certainty.
The flow of your life can involve determined forces or random perturbations. Neither alternative introduces a pilot at the center. You don’t need a sovereign will to avoid drinking again. You just need the conditions that favor sobriety.
I agree with you completely. What you just said says what my comment said except more elegantly. My life does not flow along a predetermined path, nor does the evolution of the universe. Determinism dos not exist on the level of the universe, nor does it exist in human lives as a whole. There are times where determinism, well, determines, but randomness prevents determinism from being locked in. This doesn't result in free will, though. But it does introduce freedom of a kind into the universe. And quantum processes may play a role in mental processing. No one really knows at this point whether it does or doesn't.
I’m not sure we do agree on this, Tim. Randomness is no more freedom than determinism. In either case, the biological entity is at the mercy of events over which it has no control. A coin flip doesn’t liberate the coin. A radioactive decay doesn’t liberate the drinker.
Unpredictability isn’t autonomy. It simply means that the next movement can’t be forecast. But whether the shift is caused or stochastic, the system still has no say in what arises. So yes, quantum indeterminacy might perturb the path. It might add jitter to the story. But a wobble in the chain isn’t a chooser. The outcome changes, not the structure.
I see no freedom in the emergence of perceptions, feelings, and thoughts, and the behaviors they generate, but only in the collapse of the claim that anyone is doing it. The release from personal authorship — that is the only genuine freedom I see.
I just see freedom from determinism. So I guess feelings inside me, over which I have no control, prefer that my life be not utterly determined in every detail from beginning to end. That random things can happen feels to me (again feelings I can't control) like a slight glimmer of freedom in a world in which there is no free will. Freedom from utter determinism feels like a small taste of freedom. My life is not set to proceed and end in a cast-in-stone way.
But it might as well be determined as random. In either case, you have no say in the matter. You’d never know the difference. I don’t know if you see that.
And even determinism does not provide predictability. Every particle in the universe is implicated in every outcome. No one can track that, no one can compute it, no one can stand outside the process and map its future. So the intuitive comfort some people take in “freedom from determinism” is misplaced. Determinism already feels unpredictable from the inside.
Randomness does not upgrade the situation.
It only replaces one form of unknowability with another.
The organism still does what the organism does, driven by conditions it did not choose, responding to impulses it did not design. The absence of predetermination isn’t the presence of autonomy.
If the system cannot move itself into alignment with a different outcome, then whether that outcome was causally precise or statistically noisy changes nothing for the supposed “me” inside it.
I can see that if someone - I for example - were to completely accept your perspective, intellectually and emotionally, that one would have a pretty good chance of feeling really good more of the time. Maybe the self-abnegation, the self-questioning, the self-blaming would have way less of a basis and might have a chance at diminishing substantially. One would be free to just take things as they come without any sense that one should struggle to be better, or should have done things differently. One could feel free to just do whatever one wants without agonizing over whether it's right. You have been, and perhaps still are, a therapist. Do you have any thoughts on this from that perspective? In posing this question, I can see that I'm still locked into thinking according to this pattern: if I would just do X, then I could feel way better about myself and about how things go for me in this world. So saying, "completely accept your perspective, intellectually and emotionally" is actually nonsense from your perspective because I don't have the control over my thinking and feeling that it imagines. Whether I can accept your views completely is not something I can make happen. It just will or won't and wanting it to be happen or trying to use willpower to make it happen is futile. No?
I completely disagree with you about will power to stop drinking. will power is exactly what keeps one drinking. there's no way at all to quit alcohol, or any other addiction, with will power. even if someone has abstained with will, the desire is still there, so there's constant conflict.
Now, I'm not saying that's what you did, but it is an indication that we - as a society - don't know what we're saying when we say free will, which Robert illustrates beautifully at the beginning of his writing.
So, I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm simply pointing out that addiction is something of an outlier in the free will discussion. on the other hand, it's a wonderful way of poking holes in what we think is free will, and what the reality actually is
Still, the A or B, or C (A+B) free will options are still the same tired arguments. I reject them all.
What you point to is more representative of reality, "...the coming to awareness of something already underway." This is destiny. IT's not flow, you're right about that.
It's important to point out that relatively recent findings in neuroscience haven't advanced the conversation hardly at all. Only sparked dispute, but it's starting to scratch the surface a little bit, which sends us outward for more investigation. There is also investigation inward, but that's very tricky when you're observing things like freedom, truth, action, and effort. There is so much dismantling of knowledge that needs to be done first.
The free will discussion, as you allude, needs to include reality and cosmic order. The free will debates I've seen and read don't account for cosmic order. They only talk about our experience and our understanding of matter and the mind. That's not the full picture.
I'm not saying you suggest what I'm saying, I'm simply pointing out that there are clues, and that the actuality of free will hasn't been identified yet. It's as elusive as God, and I don't see the conversation happening without some version of God (god, goddess, gods, etc.).
Belief in God is not necessary to join this conversation. Because it's not about God, or a god, it's about intent. Will is nothing without intent. Even a Buddhist can join this conversation, because a useful substitute for "self" can be made along with the atheist and their concession. Those adjustment don't detract, they actually add to the richness, because they further describe not only our experience and our reality, but our understanding (not knowledge) of cosmic order, however it is that we see that.
I, myself, don't believe in a modern western view of fate, purpose, or destiny. But destiny, in terms of karma, action, and causality, is telling. That is how we will arrive at an understand of action and how it comes about, whether there's a chooser or not, whether there's freedom or not, what effort was required, when it was initiated, and who's will initiated it (yours, God's, etc.).
Thank you for taking the time to lay out your view, Andrew. I’ll keep my reply brief and precise, since our frames differ at the root.
From here, nothing like a cosmic order presents itself in experience. I’m not denying it; I simply don’t see it as an observable feature of events. What appears are movements already underway, followed by awareness of those movements. That is the entire data set I can work with. Anything beyond that—destiny, divine intent, karmic architecture—appears only as ideas the mind generates.
That doesn’t make those ideas wrong. It only means they belong to conjecture, not to what actually appears.
You’re right that neuroscience hasn’t settled the issue. It can’t. It maps correlations, not agency. But on the experiential side, no inner agent appears either. There is no moment in the sequence where a chooser emerges, initiates action, or stands apart from conditions. What you call “destiny” or “karma” may simply be causality. Ordinary cause and effect seems sufficient to account for what appears here.
As for intent, in this view, intent is another appearance, not a driver. It shows up as part of the narrative the system generates about what already happened. This is why the standard free-will debates feel inadequate to me. They rely on background commitments—about the self, or the chooser, or the cosmic frame—that do not appear in lived experience.
I’m not trying to argue you out of your understanding. You’re describing how things look from your side of the glass. I’m describing how they look from mine. If the world shows itself to someone as ordered by an overarching will, that is the form their experience takes. I just don’t see that structure, so I can’t speak from it.
All I can say with honesty is this: events unfold, awareness comes late, and the sense of authorship appears afterward as commentary. Beyond that, I have no metaphysical picture to defend.
Robert, thank you for your thoughtful response. I don’t think our frameworks differ as much as you might think.
You’re right, cosmic order or anything like it cannot be observed in experience. It would simply be dismissed as coincidence, and would only have meaning to the person experiencing it. And that’s exactly why science and philosophy fail to make any real progress on free will.
That being said, I don’t think our views necessarily differ as much as you might think, either. But I simply cannot accept a deterministic view as it’s been set forth anywhere. Even when it’s clear, even when a scientist puts it in a spiritual context, it somehow breaks down and falls apart. Einstein didn’t believe in free will. I wonder if you’ve read Sam Harris‘s book, which I found as disappointing as I would expect Robert Sapolsky’s book to be.
I totally agree with what you’re saying about what appears to be. That’s why I differentiated between reality and cosmic order.
I agree with you that neuroscience won’t settle it. I agree with you that there is no inner agent. Still, we’re only scratching the surface. And I agree, the standard free will debates are not adequate, and that’s why I appreciate your article.
I agree with you, karma is causality. And what appears to be magic, and hasn’t been explained by any Westerner, is the fact that we can overcome that “destiny”. You could say it as simply as “shedding your conditioning”, which is being aware of the conditioning, and not making that “choice“. Again, it hasn’t been explained, although it has been discussed ad nauseam.
I think intent is where our discussion gains traction. I know you’re not trying to talk me out of my understanding, and, believe me, you won’t. But I would add the point that what we cannot, and will not define, meaning what science will not define, what philosophers will not define, is where that intent comes from. Whose intent? Growing up Catholic, it’s God‘s will plus my free will. I must align with it under that authority to have “freedom”.
I should clarify here that I’m not religious, not even a little bit.
I say intent, rather than intention, because “intention” in the productivity realm just means commitment. now, if we frame that as responsibility, we’re leaning towards authority. if we frame that as devotion, we’re leaning towards spirituality.
The question remains, and in my opinion, this is the reason why people are fervently discussing free Will, it’s because they want to know how to get down to action.
I love what you said, and I agree with it wholeheartedly: events unfold, awareness comes late, and the sense of authorship appears afterward as commentary.
Where we may diverge, and it’s not clear whether we do or not, is where freedom fits into this. For me, that’s not the end of the story. What you are describing is one condition, but it leaves out the occurrence I mentioned above, where we overcome our conditioning.
There are clear arguments that freedom comes from the realization of the lack of choice in the moment of truth when action occurs. This is most clear in the free Will philosophical discussion when we talk about leaping onto the tracks to save someone.
I think where the rubber meets the road is whether you see free will it freedom of choice, or freedom from choice. I think we both agree that it’s freedom from choice. But the “free” part of free will is one of the most problematic words in this gigantic topic. I’ll leave it there.
Well, Andrew, I don’t share your sense that our views converge. The difference is structural, not semantic.
I saw your exchange with Salvador Poe. When he calls the ego a sports commentator—arriving a beat late, narrating what is already underway—that fits what I was describing. But your reply to him went in the opposite direction. You wrote that we always have a choice, always have agency, and can overcome destiny.
As for “overcoming conditioning,” I see no way for that to happen, and certainly no one to make it happen. Conditions shift because conditions shift, and behavior follows those shifts. When the system reorganizes, responses change, but nothing in that reorganization points to a figure who intervenes or overrules a causal sequence. The moment you posit such a figure—even in subtle terms like destiny, intention, or will—you’ve already reintroduced the chooser you claim to set aside.
From here, nothing in lived experience supports that. I’m not speaking about metaphysics or cosmic frames. I’m pointing to what appears: movements arising on their own, awareness coming after, and commentary forming around events already in motion. Nowhere in that sequence does a chooser show up. And without a chooser, “overcoming destiny” becomes a restatement of belief, not an observation.
That’s why I can’t agree that our views are close. Your model requires an operator who can step outside conditioning and act. Mine simply reports what appears: conditions change, behavior changes, and no autonomous agent is found anywhere in the process.
You also speak of freedom as “freedom from choice.” That aligns with this view only if the phrase is taken literally. Freedom, from here, is exactly the absence of a chooser, not a chooser operating at a higher tier.
I’m not trying to dislodge your understanding. I’m marking the gap. You’re describing a world in which agency survives scrutiny. I’m describing one in which it never shows up.
Robert, you've misunderstood my "model". I don't have a model. I know you think my views are so fragile than you'll dislodge me from them, but rest assured, that is not the case. You've said that a couple of times now.
That's not true about Poe. You can go back and reread it. I'm not describing a world in which agency survives scrutiny. I'm saying no one would argue that we have the sense of freedom, the sense that we can choose. Indeed we can choose unwisely.
A sense of choice is not the same as agency. There's a difference between feeling you have freedom, or agency, and actually having it. I feel you could benefit from trying to understand what I've taken great care to say, not for your own edification, because I'm not here to change anyone's mind, but because there might otherwise be discourse rather than dismissal.
I don't believe are puppets in a play. I presume you don't intend to make it sound like that's your position, but the more I say, the more you appear to double down on that trope, which I don't think you believe, at least not based on your post. Perhaps I misunderstood.
There is truth in paradox. Free will is an oxymoron.
I think we may be talking past each other, so let me bracket my view entirely and ask you to be explicit about yours.
Are you saying that humans have a sense of choice, but that this sense does not correspond to any actual choosing? Or are you saying that there is, at times, a real interruption or redirection of action that is not fully accounted for by prior conditions?
I’m not asking about how it feels, or about paradox in general, or about oxymorons. I’m asking whether you think anything genuinely intervenes in the unfolding of action--whether there is ever an actual interruption of action at all.
If you can state that plainly, we’ll know whether we’re actually disagreeing, or just circling different language around the same absence.
Robert, will do. But it's going to take some explanation after I've made plain points numbered below.
I’ve been responding to you, not talking at you or past you. I didn’t say I disagree with your view. I said we have the same root. You said we have different roots, that’s your misunderstanding in my opinion. I didn’t say our views converge. I said they diverge. I’m saying the structure of our understanding, the foundation, is the same or appears to be the same, but the architecture is different, the stem is the same, the flowering is different. You may disagree but that’s what I perceive. I’ve read your post and your comments to other people here.
In a nutshell, there's no free will, and there's no locus of control. But it doesn't end there. Intuition plays a major role, as Libet's studies show. I have an EEG, myself.
Let me make the fundamentals clear. Correct me as you like on the numbers below.
1. We both believe there is no free will. Perhaps you lean more determinist, where as I don’t believe there is any at all. We can make nuances later, because obviously we all feel we have a choice
2. The ego or surface self or the mind or “I” or “me” thinks it is the one doing something, moving a cup, brushing the teeth, strumming the guitar, making the choice, having the insight, receiving the inspiration
3. There is conditioning and causality which determine action. We can call it karma or destiny, whatever you like. Nuances can be ironed out easily
4. Action happens. Let’s put aside freedom and intent and everything else for now
I’m saying that action happens. I’m not saying the doer chooses it in the moment. Their actions are determined by prior action, conditioning, and destiny (some things are inevitable).
I’m also saying that it’s possible to be aware of one’s conditioning and to let it go. I’m not saying this is a choice — it’s the opposite. I’m saying that it’s possible to go beyond. I understand you don’t think that’s possible to go beyond conditioning or maybe you didn’t mean it when you appeared to say that. But I know from experience that dropping conditioning is possible and in fact it’s critical.
I’m saying that to act “freely”, if I’m to use your language, is to act without conditioning. I never said that was a choice. That is the absence of choice. There is no choice. When the mind is clear there is action. There is no deliberation. The perception of choice is the indication of a confused mind. Let me be clear, when I say to act freely is to act without conditioning, I’m talking about the psychological condition of thinking, fear, desire, beliefs, identification, etc.
In that sense freedom and conditioning are mutually exclusive. Freedom is not a choice. When I say freedom is “freedom from choice”, I’m saying that there’s no choice because the action is clear, and you’re moving towards the horizon, whether you identify yourself as the doer or the chooser or not.
It’s not as simple as saying you’re free from having to make a choice and therefore you only have one choice to make and you are choosing it. I’m not saying that we choose the only choice. I’m saying there is no choice.
And I’m also saying, which I think is tripping you up, that it is possible to move beyond conditioning. That doesn’t make me a Catholic, who believes in free will, that doesn’t make me someone who believes that I can cut the puppet strings and have freedom of choice or freedom to act. You don’t decide to be free from conditioning in the moment, although you can change it over time (any compatibilist with would agree with that).
If a freight train is coming, it has inertia, and unless you’re Superman, you can’t stand on the tracks and stop it. Causality has inertia. But you can be the guy on the platform who doesn’t think or choose, and simply acts to save the person on the tracks.
What you’re essentially talking about is who acts. When I was a practicing Catholic I would have said I made the right choice and did the will of God. Perhaps the hand of God intervened and helped out. Yet the individual takes the credit. Where I think we agree is that there’s no doer to take the credit for the choice (no chooser). There was simply action. This goes back to what you said about virtue, and I agree.
To put a fine point on the destiny aspect, if that person was destined to be killed on the tracks, there’s nothing I could do to save him (some things are inevitable). But that doesn’t mean we are actors playing out a pre-written script. I am also saying that even though there is inertia, we are not necessarily bound to it. I am saying there is a part of me that is beyond all conditioning, including destiny (unless I'm destined to die by train). Obviously, that part is beyond cognition, beyond choice.
The body and mind are always affected by conditioning and by the material world. But there’s a part of each of us that is not affected. This is where we talk about intent, intelligence, wisdom, clarity, and freedom. The body cannot be free, in the ultimate sense, but it is not a meaningless meat bag automaton either. And it has been studied by FMRI & EEG.
Again, I presume we'll land in the same place on free will and conditioning, but not necessarily that there can be transcendence of conditioning in the moment. To be clear, I'm not saying there's an interruption in the causal chain (per your post and question), at least not one that we can identify with or claim credit for. I am saying, however, that action can arise from conditioning or from intuition (spontaneously without thought like high alpha/ theta/ or gamma waves vs spontaneously from fear, desire, like high beta).
I asked a very specific question: whether there is ever an actual interruption of action at all.
You didn’t answer it. Instead, you substituted terms like intuition, clarity, the unconditioned, and a part beyond conditioning. Those may be meaningful to you, but they do not address the question I posed.
So let me put it plainly, one last time.
Do you think action is ever interrupted or redirected by something that is not fully accounted for by prior conditions—or not?
If the answer is no, then we agree more than it may seem.
If the answer is yes, then you are positing a remainder—however you name it—and that is the point where our views diverge.
I’ve found that nature is far more influential on a person than nurture. It seems that nurture sets up the conditions but personality/nature determines the outcome.
Hi Robert, so brilliant, as always. I see it as you do, as I think you know. I call ego the sports commentator. "He's rounding first." "I did this." "I chose that." Always a split second after the movement, either of action or of knowing, recognizing.
right, still we always have a choice, we always have agency. and beyond destiny, we can choose (so to speak), we can overcome our destiny. but not always - not all of it
What a deeply offensive essay! Wasn't it wonderful? So offensive to perhaps see that free will is not there. Cherished beliefs crumble. Now what? Just be? How bizarre. Isn't that wonderful! But oh so odd. Haunted by this today Robert. I had read of these ideas before and thought hmmm, maybe. But your writing today resonated in a disturbingly (good thing) way that is truly haunting me. Feels like breaking up. Feels like relaxing.
Here, native innocence shines of its own accord, free of contrivance.
There too, old friend. Always a joy to hear from you.
Free Will suffers not the dilemma of apparent choice. Free Will simply is.
I don't think there's free will at all. but I wasn't always like this!
Yes.
And I have found on numerous occasions that the more I think in advance about an action or performing a skill that I've carried out repeatedly in the past smoothly and without drama, the more problematic its initiation and less skilful its completion becomes...
In this instance, the fabrication of an author is actually a disadvantage - not that I can do anything about it when it arises except notice it...ha!
🈚️😂
Nailed it again Robert.
"The story on the street" can be easily observed in the cinema by watching the plot of a film. For example, it is clear that the murderer is caught up in his own story, just as the victim is caught up in hers. No one would have chosen it, but both are immersed in it, each suffering their role. And when the plot thickens and more characters appear, they all enter, as if drawn by a magnet, because there is no other option....Then compassion arises for everyone, even though sometimes you feel like calling the "bad guy" a bastard son of a bitch.
You know Robert Sapolsky, right? Pretty sure he aligns with your view.
Yes. He does. But I found his book on the subject, Determined, disappointing. He makes a number of arguments for the proposition that choice is an illusion, but then he undermines each one by saying it does not prove the point. It's almost as if he wrote the book with his fingers crossed behind his back.
that's why I won't read it. I expected it would be like that
Haha…maybe because he is an academic…
Great post sir and the timing. My wife and I were having this exact discussion yesterday concerning the idea of free will.
Robert, I found the essay's core insight—that the action precedes the agent and that freedom is the cessation of the chooser—to be philosophically clarifying. I agree that for skillful, flow-state actions, the self is merely an after-image arriving to take credit.
However, I believe this idea can be dangerously misconstrued when the driver is trauma, not training.
I have firsthand experience watching myself being driven by what felt like a corrupted version of my system—a cascade of primal defense responses to which I had no contact and could not intercept at all. In these moments, the "self" that arrives afterward is not met with clarity or non-blame; it is met with crushing shame and overwhelming regret for actions that were entirely un-authored and unskillful.
The deterministic view absolves the metaphysical chooser, but it doesn't instantly absolve the psychological burden of the traumatized witness. The philosophical end of blame must be carefully distinguished from the psychological work required to regulate the conditions of the system, integrate that "corrupted" driver, and move toward true, non-resistant responsiveness.
In short, there is a profound difference between the freedom of un-authored competence and the captivity of un-authored compulsion.
Jay--
From here, what you describe fits the same basic structure I was pointing to, although the texture of the events differs. When the system is under threat, movements can appear chaotic, driven, or unreachable. When the system is at ease, movements can appear fluid or skillful. The contrast is real, but in both cases the action comes first, and the “self” arrives afterward as commentary, not as cause.
Shame, regret, and the sense of having been overtaken by something “corrupted” also appear after the fact. They feel personal, but they don’t present themselves here as evidence of a person. They’re simply more activity in the same field.
A system shaped by fear or shock behaves according to those conditions until it behaves differently. No inner operator appears to be directing change, timing, or resolution. The shifts come when they come.
It may also help to separate two domains that often get conflated. In psychotherapy, the focus is on helping a distressed system find enough stability to function. I spent years in that role. But that is not what I’m doing now. What I’m describing here is the mechanics of the system itself—the way movements arise, the way the illusory sense of a chooser appears afterward, the way conditions shape behavior. None of this is a method for healing. It’s simply a description of how the process shows up from this side.
Where confusion tends to creep in is the idea that regulation or integration must be done by someone. Those formulations seem to imply a manager behind the system. But nothing in lived experience gives that manager any substance. If reactivity lessens, it lessens. If it persists, it persists. Neither case points to an agent who succeeded or failed.
The captivity you describe feels different from the ease of skilled action, but both appear as un-authored. Conditions vary, responses vary, and the sense of a chooser appears only afterward, trying to make sense of what already happened.
Nothing in this is a universal claim—only a description of how things look from this side of the glass.
How refreshing, Jay. Once again, you and I are on the same wavelength.
Robert thank you for clarifying. Yet , I have to tell you I was watching me from my conscious adult part simultaneously like from a meta cognitive state and still was not able to alter anything despite having been fully consciously aware what was happening. And it was no one time event.
You are most welcome, Jay.
I am not clear on what this comment means. I don't know what a meta cognitive state is or how that applies to your first comment.
Robert, thank you for your candid reply. Given your background, I assumed you were familiar with the term meta-cognition, and I will clarify its relevance here.
Meta-cognition means "cognition about cognition" or "thinking about thinking." It refers to the human ability to monitor and regulate one's own thought processes, emotional states, and behaviors.
The Meta-cognitive Stance
When I said I was watching myself "simultaneously like from a meta-cognitive state," I meant that a part of my adult consciousness was:
Monitoring: Aware, in real-time, of the traumatic response cascade taking over the system. I was consciously seeing the fear, the physiological hijacking, and the unskillful action forming.
Evaluating: Fully capable of rationally judging the response as inappropriate, destructive, or "corrupted" relative to the safety of the present environment.
Attempting Regulation (Interception): Trying to use that conscious awareness to alter the physical and behavioral outcome (to "intercept" the response).
Why Meta-cognition is Relevant to Your Thesis
You assert that in both skillful flow and chaotic trauma, the action comes first, and the "self" arrives only afterward as commentary, not as cause.
My experience with meta-cognition acts as a critical counterpoint to your structure by introducing a "simultaneous self"—a locus of awareness that exists concurrently with the un-authored action:
The Problem: The experience was not: (1) action, then (2) self-commentary (shame/regret). The experience was: (1) un-authored action happening AND (2) fully conscious meta-awareness happening at the same time.
The Crisis: The meta-conscious adult self was present during the event, observing the trauma-driven system in control, and it was utterly impotent to intervene.
This is why the difference feels like "captivity" rather than just a variation in "texture." It is not simply the system behaving according to its conditions; it is the system behaving according to its conditions while the highest-order monitoring capacity is watching, trying, and failing to regulate it.
My experience is not evidence of a "free chooser" (I agree that no manager appears), but it is strong evidence that conscious, rational monitoring is not always the "after-image" you describe. It can be a simultaneous, powerless observer.
This observer is why the shame is so intense afterward—because it was there, it knew better, and it could not enact the change it was consciously aware was necessary. That simultaneous, powerless observation is the core of the psychological burden I was trying to distinguish from pure philosophical determinism.
Thank you for clarifying, Jay. What you’re calling a meta-cognitive stance doesn’t contradict what I’m describing. It only shows that awareness and agency are not the same thing.
Awareness can be present while an event is unfolding. It can witness, track, and even judge what is happening. None of that gives it the power to alter the system's behavior. Awareness appears within the field, not as its controller. It shows up alongside the reaction, not above it.
In the situation you describe, a traumatic reflex was running its course while a reflective capacity was noticing it. The simultaneity doesn’t imply authorship. It shows only that observation and reaction can arise in parallel. Awareness can see what is happening and still be unable to change it. That impotence belongs to the structure itself, not to a deeper self that failed to intervene.
The shame that appears afterward rests on the belief that the observing capacity was supposed to have agency. When that belief drops, the shame has nowhere to stand. There was observation, there was reaction, and neither one was being produced by a manager inside the system. Both were simply events.
The point, as I see it, is that awareness is not evidence of a chooser, even when it appears in the middle of the event rather than after it. This doesn’t erase the psychological burden you describe. It only removes the idea that an inner agent failed to act. No such agent shows up here.
Robert, thank you for sticking with this discussion. Your latest point urges me to be even more precise about the sequence of events, especially concerning shame and the observer.
When I experienced the trauma reflex running its course, the shame did not appear afterward because the "self" that typically processes shame was 100% exiled and unavailable. The meta-cognitive awareness you described was literally only an observer—a detached witness to the system’s failure. That witness was not the part that "wanted agency"; the desire for agency was a separate, exiled part (like the adult in a closed dog crate in the trunk of a car).
My subsequent work was not about correcting the philosophical error of agency; it was about psychological integration—specifically, liberating that exiled part from toxic shame.
Once that integration occurred, the structure of my experience fundamentally changed. This change directly challenges your deterministic model of parallel events by demonstrating a new functional capacity for intervention:
The Captivity of Trauma (Before Integration)
The un-authored sequence flowed automatically:
🎯 Trigger
➡️ Traumatic Reflex/Child Part Driving
➡️ Impotent Awareness (Observer/Adult in Trunk).
Result: Agency was impossible.
The Emergence of Agency (After Integration)
The structure now allows for a conscious, conditional pause:
🎯 Trigger
➡️ Reaction Urge/Child's Impulse
⏸️ Simultaneous Interruption: This is the key. The Rooted Adult Part steps in before the action. The meta-cognitive observer is watching this interruption occur.
✅ Pause/Choice: The functional moment of agency.
➡️ Skillful Response.
The integration created a functional capacity for conscious interruption where none existed before. The "adult part" (now soothing, knowledgeable, and rooted in equanimity) was able to step in and become a new, skillful condition that interrupted the old, reactive condition.
This "choice" is not a metaphysical exception; it is the emergent, conditional competence that arises when the nervous system achieves stability and integration. The adult self didn't just observe the conditions; it intervened in the deterministic flow.
My meta-cognitive observer is still present, watching the entire new process unfold. But now, it is watching pause and choice occur, demonstrating that the functional capacity for agency is indeed created by psychological work, not merely dissolved by philosophical insight. The shift came not when a belief dropped, but when a deeply exiled part was liberated.
My pleasure, Jay.
Awareness and reactivity can arise together, but simultaneity doesn’t imply control. What you’re describing looks, from here, like a traumatic reflex running its sequence while a reflective capacity watched it. The observer wasn’t failing to intervene. It wasn’t an intervener at all. It was just another appearance inside the event.
The relief you call “integration” reads, on this side, as a shift in conditions: the system began producing a different response than before. When I practiced psychotherapy, I sometimes used images like an “inner adult” as tactics to promote stability, but those were never literal controllers. In the phenomenological view I’m describing here, no such controlling figure shows up. The river changes course when it changes course—nothing inside appoints itself to steer.
The point is spare and structural: awareness isn’t evidence of a chooser, even when it appears in the middle of the storm. That doesn’t diminish the burden you lived through. It only removes the idea that an inner agent failed. I don’t see one.
“Nothing is freely chosen, and nothing is personally deserved. What is, is, and cannot be otherwise. This includes the self that believes it should have done better, or the self that believes it triumphed. Both are after-images.” I totally aggree, this quote really clicks with me, I see it as the core of this great article, a lot of people I talk with about this topic seems getting it in a nihilistic way, although I see it as opposite, it is soothing and comforting to me 😌, I am not sure you ever read it but “determined” book for Dr. Robert sapolsky is really interesting.
I have read it. And you are right. Many people see determinism as a disturbing idea that cancels out any meaning in living. There are some comments here that discuss that.
I tend to think that “realities”, all infinities of them, are cassette tapes running backwards, and that what we like to call ourselves as a species:“Homosapiens”, or humanity etc, are not yet absurd enough to fast forward 😄
So say I have to decide whether to take a sip of wine, which I would love to do momentarily but it would take me right back into a long period of uncontrolled drinking until I could summon up the major will power to stop again. Or I could use a little will power now to deny myself that sip and almost effortlessly, I would remain alcohol free for a while longer. I can tell I definitely prefer the latter, so I'm not really making a free choice, I am responding to a desire some would call wise rather than a desire some would call unwise. But let's add a twist. Say I feel a desire to try a little quantum experiment. I happen to have a device with a little bit of uranium in it next to a Geiger counter that will beep when an alpha particle is ejected from a uranium nucleus. I decide that if the counter beeps within the next minute, I will take a sip of wine. It it doesn't, I will resist. The beep happens at 1 minute and 10 seconds. Whew! I'm not plunged back into alcoholic behavior. The choice I made, to use the counter, is not free. But the quantum event, as far as science understands things today, is truly random. So my alcohol-free future (for today, at least) was not predetermined by the laws of physics. It was truly random. This does not prove that free will exists, of course, but it does prove that the flow of my life is not necessarily predetermined nor is the history of the universe predetermined. Right?
Tim—
Randomness doesn’t grant freedom. It only removes predictability.
If you hand the decision to a Geiger counter, and the counter hands the decision to radioactive decay, nothing about that introduces an author. The outcome may be unpredictable, but it is not willed. Whether the system follows a causal chain or a stochastic branch, there is still no chooser behind the motion.
In your example, the desire to avoid relapse arises on its own. The impulse to run a quantum experiment arises on its own. The relief when the beep comes late arises on its own. At no point does a decider appear. Indeterminism doesn’t rescue free will. It merely eliminates the illusion of certainty.
The flow of your life can involve determined forces or random perturbations. Neither alternative introduces a pilot at the center. You don’t need a sovereign will to avoid drinking again. You just need the conditions that favor sobriety.
I agree with you completely. What you just said says what my comment said except more elegantly. My life does not flow along a predetermined path, nor does the evolution of the universe. Determinism dos not exist on the level of the universe, nor does it exist in human lives as a whole. There are times where determinism, well, determines, but randomness prevents determinism from being locked in. This doesn't result in free will, though. But it does introduce freedom of a kind into the universe. And quantum processes may play a role in mental processing. No one really knows at this point whether it does or doesn't.
I’m not sure we do agree on this, Tim. Randomness is no more freedom than determinism. In either case, the biological entity is at the mercy of events over which it has no control. A coin flip doesn’t liberate the coin. A radioactive decay doesn’t liberate the drinker.
Unpredictability isn’t autonomy. It simply means that the next movement can’t be forecast. But whether the shift is caused or stochastic, the system still has no say in what arises. So yes, quantum indeterminacy might perturb the path. It might add jitter to the story. But a wobble in the chain isn’t a chooser. The outcome changes, not the structure.
I see no freedom in the emergence of perceptions, feelings, and thoughts, and the behaviors they generate, but only in the collapse of the claim that anyone is doing it. The release from personal authorship — that is the only genuine freedom I see.
I just see freedom from determinism. So I guess feelings inside me, over which I have no control, prefer that my life be not utterly determined in every detail from beginning to end. That random things can happen feels to me (again feelings I can't control) like a slight glimmer of freedom in a world in which there is no free will. Freedom from utter determinism feels like a small taste of freedom. My life is not set to proceed and end in a cast-in-stone way.
But it might as well be determined as random. In either case, you have no say in the matter. You’d never know the difference. I don’t know if you see that.
And even determinism does not provide predictability. Every particle in the universe is implicated in every outcome. No one can track that, no one can compute it, no one can stand outside the process and map its future. So the intuitive comfort some people take in “freedom from determinism” is misplaced. Determinism already feels unpredictable from the inside.
Randomness does not upgrade the situation.
It only replaces one form of unknowability with another.
The organism still does what the organism does, driven by conditions it did not choose, responding to impulses it did not design. The absence of predetermination isn’t the presence of autonomy.
If the system cannot move itself into alignment with a different outcome, then whether that outcome was causally precise or statistically noisy changes nothing for the supposed “me” inside it.
There is no pilot in a chaotic universe either.
I can see that if someone - I for example - were to completely accept your perspective, intellectually and emotionally, that one would have a pretty good chance of feeling really good more of the time. Maybe the self-abnegation, the self-questioning, the self-blaming would have way less of a basis and might have a chance at diminishing substantially. One would be free to just take things as they come without any sense that one should struggle to be better, or should have done things differently. One could feel free to just do whatever one wants without agonizing over whether it's right. You have been, and perhaps still are, a therapist. Do you have any thoughts on this from that perspective? In posing this question, I can see that I'm still locked into thinking according to this pattern: if I would just do X, then I could feel way better about myself and about how things go for me in this world. So saying, "completely accept your perspective, intellectually and emotionally" is actually nonsense from your perspective because I don't have the control over my thinking and feeling that it imagines. Whether I can accept your views completely is not something I can make happen. It just will or won't and wanting it to be happen or trying to use willpower to make it happen is futile. No?
I may have no say in the matter, but it feels better to me knowing that determinism is not inviolable.
I completely disagree with you about will power to stop drinking. will power is exactly what keeps one drinking. there's no way at all to quit alcohol, or any other addiction, with will power. even if someone has abstained with will, the desire is still there, so there's constant conflict.
Now, I'm not saying that's what you did, but it is an indication that we - as a society - don't know what we're saying when we say free will, which Robert illustrates beautifully at the beginning of his writing.
So, I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm simply pointing out that addiction is something of an outlier in the free will discussion. on the other hand, it's a wonderful way of poking holes in what we think is free will, and what the reality actually is
Reminds me of one of my favorite lines from scripture...
"There but for the Grace of God, go I."
Robert, would you say that there is a different quality to action that comes about when this “clarity” or “freedom” is there vs. when it is not?
Very interesting and well written work.
Still, the A or B, or C (A+B) free will options are still the same tired arguments. I reject them all.
What you point to is more representative of reality, "...the coming to awareness of something already underway." This is destiny. IT's not flow, you're right about that.
It's important to point out that relatively recent findings in neuroscience haven't advanced the conversation hardly at all. Only sparked dispute, but it's starting to scratch the surface a little bit, which sends us outward for more investigation. There is also investigation inward, but that's very tricky when you're observing things like freedom, truth, action, and effort. There is so much dismantling of knowledge that needs to be done first.
The free will discussion, as you allude, needs to include reality and cosmic order. The free will debates I've seen and read don't account for cosmic order. They only talk about our experience and our understanding of matter and the mind. That's not the full picture.
I'm not saying you suggest what I'm saying, I'm simply pointing out that there are clues, and that the actuality of free will hasn't been identified yet. It's as elusive as God, and I don't see the conversation happening without some version of God (god, goddess, gods, etc.).
Belief in God is not necessary to join this conversation. Because it's not about God, or a god, it's about intent. Will is nothing without intent. Even a Buddhist can join this conversation, because a useful substitute for "self" can be made along with the atheist and their concession. Those adjustment don't detract, they actually add to the richness, because they further describe not only our experience and our reality, but our understanding (not knowledge) of cosmic order, however it is that we see that.
I, myself, don't believe in a modern western view of fate, purpose, or destiny. But destiny, in terms of karma, action, and causality, is telling. That is how we will arrive at an understand of action and how it comes about, whether there's a chooser or not, whether there's freedom or not, what effort was required, when it was initiated, and who's will initiated it (yours, God's, etc.).
Thank you for taking the time to lay out your view, Andrew. I’ll keep my reply brief and precise, since our frames differ at the root.
From here, nothing like a cosmic order presents itself in experience. I’m not denying it; I simply don’t see it as an observable feature of events. What appears are movements already underway, followed by awareness of those movements. That is the entire data set I can work with. Anything beyond that—destiny, divine intent, karmic architecture—appears only as ideas the mind generates.
That doesn’t make those ideas wrong. It only means they belong to conjecture, not to what actually appears.
You’re right that neuroscience hasn’t settled the issue. It can’t. It maps correlations, not agency. But on the experiential side, no inner agent appears either. There is no moment in the sequence where a chooser emerges, initiates action, or stands apart from conditions. What you call “destiny” or “karma” may simply be causality. Ordinary cause and effect seems sufficient to account for what appears here.
As for intent, in this view, intent is another appearance, not a driver. It shows up as part of the narrative the system generates about what already happened. This is why the standard free-will debates feel inadequate to me. They rely on background commitments—about the self, or the chooser, or the cosmic frame—that do not appear in lived experience.
I’m not trying to argue you out of your understanding. You’re describing how things look from your side of the glass. I’m describing how they look from mine. If the world shows itself to someone as ordered by an overarching will, that is the form their experience takes. I just don’t see that structure, so I can’t speak from it.
All I can say with honesty is this: events unfold, awareness comes late, and the sense of authorship appears afterward as commentary. Beyond that, I have no metaphysical picture to defend.
That’s the extent of what I can offer.
Robert, thank you for your thoughtful response. I don’t think our frameworks differ as much as you might think.
You’re right, cosmic order or anything like it cannot be observed in experience. It would simply be dismissed as coincidence, and would only have meaning to the person experiencing it. And that’s exactly why science and philosophy fail to make any real progress on free will.
That being said, I don’t think our views necessarily differ as much as you might think, either. But I simply cannot accept a deterministic view as it’s been set forth anywhere. Even when it’s clear, even when a scientist puts it in a spiritual context, it somehow breaks down and falls apart. Einstein didn’t believe in free will. I wonder if you’ve read Sam Harris‘s book, which I found as disappointing as I would expect Robert Sapolsky’s book to be.
I totally agree with what you’re saying about what appears to be. That’s why I differentiated between reality and cosmic order.
I agree with you that neuroscience won’t settle it. I agree with you that there is no inner agent. Still, we’re only scratching the surface. And I agree, the standard free will debates are not adequate, and that’s why I appreciate your article.
I agree with you, karma is causality. And what appears to be magic, and hasn’t been explained by any Westerner, is the fact that we can overcome that “destiny”. You could say it as simply as “shedding your conditioning”, which is being aware of the conditioning, and not making that “choice“. Again, it hasn’t been explained, although it has been discussed ad nauseam.
I think intent is where our discussion gains traction. I know you’re not trying to talk me out of my understanding, and, believe me, you won’t. But I would add the point that what we cannot, and will not define, meaning what science will not define, what philosophers will not define, is where that intent comes from. Whose intent? Growing up Catholic, it’s God‘s will plus my free will. I must align with it under that authority to have “freedom”.
I should clarify here that I’m not religious, not even a little bit.
I say intent, rather than intention, because “intention” in the productivity realm just means commitment. now, if we frame that as responsibility, we’re leaning towards authority. if we frame that as devotion, we’re leaning towards spirituality.
The question remains, and in my opinion, this is the reason why people are fervently discussing free Will, it’s because they want to know how to get down to action.
I love what you said, and I agree with it wholeheartedly: events unfold, awareness comes late, and the sense of authorship appears afterward as commentary.
Where we may diverge, and it’s not clear whether we do or not, is where freedom fits into this. For me, that’s not the end of the story. What you are describing is one condition, but it leaves out the occurrence I mentioned above, where we overcome our conditioning.
There are clear arguments that freedom comes from the realization of the lack of choice in the moment of truth when action occurs. This is most clear in the free Will philosophical discussion when we talk about leaping onto the tracks to save someone.
I think where the rubber meets the road is whether you see free will it freedom of choice, or freedom from choice. I think we both agree that it’s freedom from choice. But the “free” part of free will is one of the most problematic words in this gigantic topic. I’ll leave it there.
Well, Andrew, I don’t share your sense that our views converge. The difference is structural, not semantic.
I saw your exchange with Salvador Poe. When he calls the ego a sports commentator—arriving a beat late, narrating what is already underway—that fits what I was describing. But your reply to him went in the opposite direction. You wrote that we always have a choice, always have agency, and can overcome destiny.
As for “overcoming conditioning,” I see no way for that to happen, and certainly no one to make it happen. Conditions shift because conditions shift, and behavior follows those shifts. When the system reorganizes, responses change, but nothing in that reorganization points to a figure who intervenes or overrules a causal sequence. The moment you posit such a figure—even in subtle terms like destiny, intention, or will—you’ve already reintroduced the chooser you claim to set aside.
From here, nothing in lived experience supports that. I’m not speaking about metaphysics or cosmic frames. I’m pointing to what appears: movements arising on their own, awareness coming after, and commentary forming around events already in motion. Nowhere in that sequence does a chooser show up. And without a chooser, “overcoming destiny” becomes a restatement of belief, not an observation.
That’s why I can’t agree that our views are close. Your model requires an operator who can step outside conditioning and act. Mine simply reports what appears: conditions change, behavior changes, and no autonomous agent is found anywhere in the process.
You also speak of freedom as “freedom from choice.” That aligns with this view only if the phrase is taken literally. Freedom, from here, is exactly the absence of a chooser, not a chooser operating at a higher tier.
I’m not trying to dislodge your understanding. I’m marking the gap. You’re describing a world in which agency survives scrutiny. I’m describing one in which it never shows up.
That’s the whole difference.
Robert, you've misunderstood my "model". I don't have a model. I know you think my views are so fragile than you'll dislodge me from them, but rest assured, that is not the case. You've said that a couple of times now.
That's not true about Poe. You can go back and reread it. I'm not describing a world in which agency survives scrutiny. I'm saying no one would argue that we have the sense of freedom, the sense that we can choose. Indeed we can choose unwisely.
A sense of choice is not the same as agency. There's a difference between feeling you have freedom, or agency, and actually having it. I feel you could benefit from trying to understand what I've taken great care to say, not for your own edification, because I'm not here to change anyone's mind, but because there might otherwise be discourse rather than dismissal.
I don't believe are puppets in a play. I presume you don't intend to make it sound like that's your position, but the more I say, the more you appear to double down on that trope, which I don't think you believe, at least not based on your post. Perhaps I misunderstood.
There is truth in paradox. Free will is an oxymoron.
Andrew—
I think we may be talking past each other, so let me bracket my view entirely and ask you to be explicit about yours.
Are you saying that humans have a sense of choice, but that this sense does not correspond to any actual choosing? Or are you saying that there is, at times, a real interruption or redirection of action that is not fully accounted for by prior conditions?
I’m not asking about how it feels, or about paradox in general, or about oxymorons. I’m asking whether you think anything genuinely intervenes in the unfolding of action--whether there is ever an actual interruption of action at all.
If you can state that plainly, we’ll know whether we’re actually disagreeing, or just circling different language around the same absence.
Robert, will do. But it's going to take some explanation after I've made plain points numbered below.
I’ve been responding to you, not talking at you or past you. I didn’t say I disagree with your view. I said we have the same root. You said we have different roots, that’s your misunderstanding in my opinion. I didn’t say our views converge. I said they diverge. I’m saying the structure of our understanding, the foundation, is the same or appears to be the same, but the architecture is different, the stem is the same, the flowering is different. You may disagree but that’s what I perceive. I’ve read your post and your comments to other people here.
In a nutshell, there's no free will, and there's no locus of control. But it doesn't end there. Intuition plays a major role, as Libet's studies show. I have an EEG, myself.
Let me make the fundamentals clear. Correct me as you like on the numbers below.
1. We both believe there is no free will. Perhaps you lean more determinist, where as I don’t believe there is any at all. We can make nuances later, because obviously we all feel we have a choice
2. The ego or surface self or the mind or “I” or “me” thinks it is the one doing something, moving a cup, brushing the teeth, strumming the guitar, making the choice, having the insight, receiving the inspiration
3. There is conditioning and causality which determine action. We can call it karma or destiny, whatever you like. Nuances can be ironed out easily
4. Action happens. Let’s put aside freedom and intent and everything else for now
I’m saying that action happens. I’m not saying the doer chooses it in the moment. Their actions are determined by prior action, conditioning, and destiny (some things are inevitable).
I’m also saying that it’s possible to be aware of one’s conditioning and to let it go. I’m not saying this is a choice — it’s the opposite. I’m saying that it’s possible to go beyond. I understand you don’t think that’s possible to go beyond conditioning or maybe you didn’t mean it when you appeared to say that. But I know from experience that dropping conditioning is possible and in fact it’s critical.
I’m saying that to act “freely”, if I’m to use your language, is to act without conditioning. I never said that was a choice. That is the absence of choice. There is no choice. When the mind is clear there is action. There is no deliberation. The perception of choice is the indication of a confused mind. Let me be clear, when I say to act freely is to act without conditioning, I’m talking about the psychological condition of thinking, fear, desire, beliefs, identification, etc.
In that sense freedom and conditioning are mutually exclusive. Freedom is not a choice. When I say freedom is “freedom from choice”, I’m saying that there’s no choice because the action is clear, and you’re moving towards the horizon, whether you identify yourself as the doer or the chooser or not.
It’s not as simple as saying you’re free from having to make a choice and therefore you only have one choice to make and you are choosing it. I’m not saying that we choose the only choice. I’m saying there is no choice.
And I’m also saying, which I think is tripping you up, that it is possible to move beyond conditioning. That doesn’t make me a Catholic, who believes in free will, that doesn’t make me someone who believes that I can cut the puppet strings and have freedom of choice or freedom to act. You don’t decide to be free from conditioning in the moment, although you can change it over time (any compatibilist with would agree with that).
If a freight train is coming, it has inertia, and unless you’re Superman, you can’t stand on the tracks and stop it. Causality has inertia. But you can be the guy on the platform who doesn’t think or choose, and simply acts to save the person on the tracks.
What you’re essentially talking about is who acts. When I was a practicing Catholic I would have said I made the right choice and did the will of God. Perhaps the hand of God intervened and helped out. Yet the individual takes the credit. Where I think we agree is that there’s no doer to take the credit for the choice (no chooser). There was simply action. This goes back to what you said about virtue, and I agree.
To put a fine point on the destiny aspect, if that person was destined to be killed on the tracks, there’s nothing I could do to save him (some things are inevitable). But that doesn’t mean we are actors playing out a pre-written script. I am also saying that even though there is inertia, we are not necessarily bound to it. I am saying there is a part of me that is beyond all conditioning, including destiny (unless I'm destined to die by train). Obviously, that part is beyond cognition, beyond choice.
The body and mind are always affected by conditioning and by the material world. But there’s a part of each of us that is not affected. This is where we talk about intent, intelligence, wisdom, clarity, and freedom. The body cannot be free, in the ultimate sense, but it is not a meaningless meat bag automaton either. And it has been studied by FMRI & EEG.
Again, I presume we'll land in the same place on free will and conditioning, but not necessarily that there can be transcendence of conditioning in the moment. To be clear, I'm not saying there's an interruption in the causal chain (per your post and question), at least not one that we can identify with or claim credit for. I am saying, however, that action can arise from conditioning or from intuition (spontaneously without thought like high alpha/ theta/ or gamma waves vs spontaneously from fear, desire, like high beta).
Andrew—
I asked a very specific question: whether there is ever an actual interruption of action at all.
You didn’t answer it. Instead, you substituted terms like intuition, clarity, the unconditioned, and a part beyond conditioning. Those may be meaningful to you, but they do not address the question I posed.
So let me put it plainly, one last time.
Do you think action is ever interrupted or redirected by something that is not fully accounted for by prior conditions—or not?
If the answer is no, then we agree more than it may seem.
If the answer is yes, then you are positing a remainder—however you name it—and that is the point where our views diverge.
That’s all I’m trying to clarify.
I’ve found that nature is far more influential on a person than nurture. It seems that nurture sets up the conditions but personality/nature determines the outcome.