Between Stimulus and Response Lies Our Free Will
The argument regarding fate vs. free will is one of the oldest philosophical debates known to man
A few years ago, a friend of mine made the argument that free will is a myth and everything in life is pre-determined. I believe they held this belief as a defense mechanism against making any substantial changes in their life, as they were struggling with a variety of mental health issues.
The idea that everything that happens to us is the result of fate is an incredibly limiting belief, one that basically removes the possibility of making any sort of choice in our lives. It is inherently disempowering, as it assumes that we will never be able to make a decision that alters the course of our lives in any meaningful way.
This belief is seductive to those who are afraid of change and who believe they are doomed to be stuck in their circumstances for the rest of their lives. If you think your path in life is already set, you are relieved of the responsibility of guiding your direction.
Free will lies in our ability to respond
There are many forms of stimuli that we are presented with on a daily basis. It may be a co-worker lashing out irrationally at us for something they perceive we did wrong. It might be a news article that triggers an emotional response, causing us to become fearful or angry. It is anything that we see in the course of our day that elicits a response.
We cannot control the stimuli we witness, but our freedom comes in the ability to choose our response.
Victor Frankl, the founder of logotherapy, stated that "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
Often, this space seems to be almost non-existent. Many people react to stimuli without allowing any time for contemplation. Allowing time for thoughtful reflection before responding can be immensely difficult, as the desire to immediately respond can feel overwhelming.
Increase the space between stimulus and response leads to an increase in choice
Is there someone in your life that you find yourself consistently getting into heated arguments with? Perhaps a behavior or personality trait always triggers an emotional response, which inevitably leads to a fight that you didn't intend on having but it felt like you were powerless to avoid.
Allowing space to breathe and contemplate prior to responding can seem impossible sometimes. In the age of smartphones and instant gratification, our attention spans have shrunk to the point where we are often running on auto-pilot.
If we desire more freedom and choice in our daily lives, we must find a way to allow more space prior to formulating our response. Whether through practices such as meditation or other mindful techniques, our ability to choose will only increase when we stop the emotional wheels from turning and leading us down the same path we would like to avoid.
This space is what separates man from animals
When something happens in nature, animals do not have the ability to reflect and make a different decision. They are pure stimulus-response creatures, removed from any conscious decision making or reflection about their circumstances.
Humans have the capacity to contemplate what is happening and make a different choice that can lead to a new outcome. This ability can cause a great amount of suffering, as we can spend much of our days torturing ourselves regarding what could have happened, or what should have happened.
Indeed, conscious awareness can often be as much of a curse as it is a gift. But without this gift/curse, we are no different from the animal kingdom. If we are to increase our freedom, we must do everything possible to increase the space between a stimulus and response.
Like anything, it requires practice and patience in order to increase this space. But as you start to train yourself to create more room for reflection, you will find it becomes easier to choose your response instead of having your response choose your life for you.
And that is an empowering feeling, one that should be cherished and embraced.
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Based on my studies, your general assumptions are on the right path, but it goes much deeper than that. Our responses are highly conditioned. In order to truly exercise free will, you need to undo a large amount of conditioning that comes from family, society, cultural norms, etc. Only when all of these have been undone, can you choose a response based on your own free will. Until then, you will think you are choosing, but in reality you are just repeating a pre-conditioned response you learned at some point.
I often use the example of dancing. When you dance, your body responds to the music by mixing together all the different ways you have seen others dance. Even in the privacy of your own room, it is rare that you move in a way that is completely yours, it is unconsciously made up of what you have seen at some point. But... if you were blind from birth, then you could argue that you express yourself in a pure form of dance, since you are not conditioned by what you have seen from others or what you want others to see from you. And even there, if you watch many different blind people dance (something I have done), many of them move in the same way, which implies that even without vision, there is some type of stream they are taping into. If that is the case, then free will becomes even more difficult to access, since it means undoing not just what you experience in this lifetime, but what may come from previous incarnations or a collective unconsciousness.
Does that mean that free will does not exist? In the philosophy I study, it does, but it is something that we only really exercise one, maybe two times in a life. Can you undo all the conditioning and learn to choose freely? In theory yes, which is exactly what we are here to learn. :)
I completely understand your perspective. Indeed we are molded and shaped by our environment and the people we have interacted with. Our culture and environment shape a great deal of our worldview and responses.
In a pure sense, free will that is completely uncorrupted by outside influences is incredibly difficult to quantify. Someone would have to be totally isolated from others in order to not be influenced by their actions and beliefs.
However, on a baseline level, I believe that our freedom lies in the ability to consciously choose our response instead of merely reacting to whatever stimuli is in front of us. That freedom is increased the more we allow ourselves the time and space to reflect upon what choices are in front of us.
Whether those choices are actually predetermined by our environment is another question entirely. But we do have the ability to choose our response, even if it may be limited.
Thanks for the response!
We are in agreement. I would merge together your second and third paragraphs, saying that while free will that is not influenced by outside forces is difficult to achieve, the way to do it is to become aware of our programming and learn how to consciously choose instead of merely react. I truly believe it is possible, though the hows are part of what my community studies on a regular basis!
Great food for thought on this, thank you for posting!
I think you both are offering things that need to be considered in looking at free will. I would say that we also, to some extent, get to choose what we are conditioned by, both by our practice in response and through choosing what habits, behaviors, practices we regularly engage in.
I don't really think we can choose what we are conditioned by, at least not at a young age. Certainly if you learn how to become fully conscious you can pick and choose what factors influence you, but the Theory of Imprinting would argue that childhood imprinting, especially before the age of 7, is pretty strong and uncontrollable. I think we underestimate just how strong cultural norms and imprinting is, which leads us to underestimate how little capability we have to exercise free will.
That being said, it is not all gloom and doom. I really believe you can become aware, I just haven't yet figured out how. We are working on it... :)
Im ready to start steaming buddy!
So do you believe, if this space between is what creates free will, that animals do not possess free will?
Generally speaking, yes.
Depends on the animal I suppose. If we follow that logic then I believe there are many humans who have less free will than most dolphins, apes, and even some octopi~~~ ;-)
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Wow! I found your post through @juliet92 resteeming and let me tell you man! I share this belief identically. I have many psychological beliefs of this kind, I'd love to see more content like this!
Just wow man, I'm so happy steem is capable of making individuals find like minded people around the world.
Through your post you have reminded me that I must work on increasing this limbo between that allows us to decide appropriately. Patience, think first, act. Reacting is the instinctual response to environmental stimuli. Learn to respond. Keep it up dawg.
Hello. Wow, what a nice post - really appreciate this. I hope my followers will resteem that too. Thank you for your contribution.