Tag Archives: choice

Beliefs, facts, and free will

I’m not sure that I’m going to do this topic justice in a short daily-ink, so I’m just going to mind dump and see where this takes me.

I’ve written about the Bell Curve of Free Will, where I stated,

If we have free will then I believe that how much choice we have will be influenced considerably by our circumstance and by how virtuous we are.

I won’t try to explain this too much further here, visit them post if this idea interests you. The image I added tried to do too much with a single chart, but my main points were that 1. You have more choice when you have more wealth (better circumstances); and, 2. You have less free will when you are more virtuous. Example: A very virtuous person can’t choose to take advantage of someone for profit the way a less virtuous person can, but the less virtuous person can make the choice to do so, or to not do so, or to maybe be 1/2 ‘generous’ and take advantage for less profit than possible, because they consider themselves as being nice.

But where do beliefs fit in? And what does this have to do with facts?

I think we might have less free will than I originally thought because our belief system alters our view of what truth is. When you believe that your religion is the only path to your salvation, then the information that led you to this belief are going to seem like facts… and these facts limit your choices and free will. If you follow Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Judaism, you have beliefs about the world we live in that are different from the other faiths. Based on your interpretation, there are things you can and can’t do, such as dietary restrictions. In many cases, your choice of partner are limited, by faith, or even by gender.

But I’m just using religion as an example. We have many beliefs that affect our perception of facts, and that affect the choices we make. Conspiracy theories work like a religion. They paint the picture of a world that limits our choices and our ability to see alternative views. If you wholeheartedly believe the world is flat, you need to build a whole world model around how international flights arrive on time, and you have to construct entire belief systems around space flight and images of round stars and planets, and how gravity works. And when you do this, you literally create ‘facts’.

Other constructs of our beliefs alter the way we look at at facts, and how much free will we have to make choices. Because if we construct a world where we also construct the facts we choose to pay attention to, these created facts then limit the choices we can make.

If we don’t share the same beliefs then we don’t share the same truths. We alter facts to fit our beliefs.

How does someone on the political left vs the political right define the following:

  • Communism
  • Socialism
  • Fascism
  • Democracy
  • Social welfare
  • Liberty
  • Freedom
  • Religion’s place in politics

The definitions of these terms are very different on the political spectrum. Beliefs alter facts. Interpretations of these so-called facts limit our choices, our free will.

We don’t perceive the world as it is. Our beliefs define our world, define the things we are willing to accept as facts, and determine the choices we believe we have to make. Beliefs alter what we perceive as facts and limit our ability to make free choices.

Either-Or-And

Sometimes we make things an ‘Either/Or’ when it is actually easy to be an ‘And’. This morning was a simple example: one daughter wanted pancakes, the other wanted French Toast. To do both was just a few minutes extra prep.

Two eggs, a bit of milk, some garlic powder and black pepper mixed together and the French toast was prepped. Then quickly make the pancake batter while the large electric frying pan heated up with some oil. Then it doesn’t really matter if I’m flipping pancakes or French toast, and both meals are ready at the same time.

This is just a simple example, but it speaks to the idea that sometimes we don’t have to choose between two options, we can do them both. We can eat healthy and enjoy our food. We can be busy and also take care of our health. We can do a good job at work and find time to spend with family.

We don’t have to create as many dichotomies as we do… we can be more thoughtful and we can think in terms of ‘and’ rather than ‘either/or’.

Choosing not to act

There are moments in your life when doing nothing is better than doing something. These are seldom moments when nothing feels like the right thing to do, but then time and reflection allow you to see that you made the right decision. Here are a few examples:

  • You are in an incident where someone is displaying road rage. They get out of the car and want to confront you. You keep your windows up and doors locked and drive away.
  • You own shares and the whole market does a dive (not just your stocks), and rather than selling low, you do nothing. A week and a half later your stock prices are where they were before the crash.
  • Your child tells you about a very bad choice they made, but they chose to tell you rather than to hide it from you. You want to punish him/her but know that this could cost you the relationship where they feel they can come to you.

Choosing not to act is different than passively doing nothing. That’s the fundamental difference: One is a choice, the other is a lack of choice. Knowing and understanding the difference, that comes with experience, and a good dose of reflection. Because choosing not to act doesn’t always feel right, and only after looking back at the experience later can you truly see if non-action was the best, or at least a good, choice.

Choosing to share

Yesterday I wrote ‘Choosing or observing?‘ In which I said, “How much time do we spend being observers of this world, mere victims of our circumstances, versus creators of our world, choosing our path and seeking out new experiences, new things that our senses can take in?“

On LinkedIn, Kelly Christopherson responded, “…I definitely need to be more active and choose to create and share more.”

I hadn’t though of creating and sharing at all when I wrote that post. I was thinking about time, focus, and attention, but not about the choice to share our work and what we do. I have an educational blog that I’ve barely contributed to these past few years; a podcast I keep wanting to, but rarely, add to; and a monthly email subscription that I haven’t written in over a year. I’ve also drastically reduced my sharing on social media. I’m not sure if this is just a phase I’m going through or if social media just feels less social these days?

That said, since July 2019 I have written and shared a blog post daily. That’s a year and 3/4 now of sharing something every day. I won’t lie, it has been a challenging commitment. I’ve written a few later than midnight and back-dated the post… I was still awake and consider this part of the day before, since I haven’t gone to sleep yet. Beyond that, I might have missed one or two along the way, but I don’t think so?

So, my educational blog and podcast have been pushed aside, and maybe I’ll try to get that monthly newsletter out starting after this summer, but I’ve shared something here on this Daily-Ink for well over 600 days in a row… and I don’t see myself changing this habit any time soon.

So, why did Kelly’s comment strike a cord with me? For a while he and I, along with Jonathan Sclater, shared our fitness adventures with each other. Recently, I’ve been going through the motions with my workouts, struggling to push myself, and I wonder if I shouldn’t start connecting with these guys again to help push me. I think it’s time to share a little more. To not just engage but interact, be more social, and share.

Choosing or observing?

How much of our lives are passive?

We observe the world, watching through our eyes, hearing through our ears, feeling through our skin, and tasting in our mouths. Each of these senses giving us feedback about the world around us. But how much time do we spend really choosing what those senses share with us, versus passively accepting what those senses are exposed to?

It is our action or lack of action that determines what our senses observe or endure. Is there a hobby you’ve always wanted to try? A food you’ve always wanted to taste? A place you’ve always wanted to visit? (Maybe somewhere you can walk or hike to, while travel is restricted.)

How much time do we spend being observers of this world, mere victims of our circumstances, versus creators of our world, choosing our path and seeking out new experiences, new things that our senses can take in?

This is a choice. Not realizing this is also a choice.

Red pill - Blue pill quote - David Truss

Red pill, blue pill

The Terms Red Pill and Blue Pill refer to a choice between revealing an unpleasant truth, represented by the red pill, or to remain in blissful ignorance, represented by the blue pill. These terms are in reference to the 1999 film The Matrix. ~ Wikipedia

We are living in a red pill/blue pill moment, except people are colour blind and everyone thinks they are taking the red pill.

Reciprocal influence

After a discussion with my Uncle Joe (Truss) last night on the topic of free will, I’ve reread my posts:

The Bell Curve of Free Will

And:

What does in mean to be conscious?

Joe said a couple interesting things, “Freedom comes with restraints.” And, “We influence the world and the world influences us.”

I speak of restraints on freedom in my bell curve post, but I don’t say this explicitly. I think restrictions to our freedom of choice can be circumstantial, or based on how virtuous we live our lives, or by things like our physical and emotional health. These restraints to our freedom can make us feel like we have less choice.

The simple, yet profound statement that, “We influence the world and the world influences us,” is one that I’m interested in deconstructing. When we react to the environment or situation we are in, we ultimately change that environment or situation. There are many experiments that prove the observer changes the experiment. We don’t live in a vacuum, and our interactions with the world alter that world, which alters our future interactions.

An example I’m thinking of is a crisis situation where the person in charge is calm and thoughtfully responsive vs the same crisis situation with a panicked and frantic leader. The crisis can be well handled or escalated. In both cases the leaders work in feedback loops that can help them deal with the situation at hand appropriately or have the situation become unmanageable. The leader’s actions (or inaction) changes the situation, which in turn influences their next action or reaction.

How often do we get stuck in a feedback loop of reciprocal influences between what we feel we can do next and how the outside world reacts? We move through situation after situation feeling like we lack choice and freedom because the restraints on us limit our responses… which in turn limits what we believe can happen next, and what our next actions can or need to be.

There are times when we do what we need to do, or feel obligated to do, and don’t recognize that we are in a feedback loop that continually limits our choices and decision-making. This can be especially true in work and family situations where past relationships and patterns of interactions influence our likelihood of reacting similarly the next time.

“I better do it this way or Peter will be upset.”

“Amy is going to complain about this no matter how hard I try.”

“My brother won’t want to join us, I won’t bother asking.”

We get into pattern ruts, habitual grooves where we get stuck limiting our own choices and freedom to do things differently.

I realize now that my thinking is less about free will, and more about how our habits dictate our future thinking. Our habits influence our world, our world changes and we react by reinforcing the same habits that can ultimately limit our future choices. In some ways we construct a limited future based on our habits, which emboldens our choice to keep these limiting habits. (You can also replace the word ‘habits’ with ‘addictions’.)

“We influence the world and the world influences us.”

Is this a reciprocal relationship, or is it one where we can choose to have more influence? I think there are countless self-help books written to suggest that we have more influence than we believe we do… we just need to make conscious choices rather than letting our past actions and habits limit our ability to influence the world around us.

A simple question

I’m always intrigued by the questions we ask ourselves. We worry, and fret about things that could, but don’t happen. We ask stupid questions like, ‘Why me?’ So that our brains fill the void with reasons that make us feel like victims of our own circumstances. We ask for advice, but then we don’t listen to the advice given to us.

Here is a good questions to ask:

What can I say or do to make today better for another person in my life?

It’s a simple question that can bring as much joy to yourself as it does to someone else.

Any colour

“A customer can have a car painted any color he wants as long as it’s black”– Henry Ford

There is a lot of folklore about this quote, but if I were to summarize it in a sentence: Henry Ford wanted to minimize options and maximize production, and every choice reduced efficiency.

Today our schools are all about choice. And our universities are all about differentiating themselves from the competition. People don’t just go to MIT Media Lab or Stanford d.school for the name, they go for the reputation, the proven success, and the opportunity to collaborate with other elite students. They go for the experience. People want to walk the halls of Yale or Harvard.

I know a family in the US who pay as much as my yearly salary for their two kids to go to University every year… And those kids are home taking online classes. It doesn’t matter what car people bought in September, they are all driving the same colour now.

How will this change people’s view of these schools? How much value do the hallways have? The Ivy schools will survive, even in a depression there is always a market for luxury items. But not all universities and colleges will survive post pandemic. Some schools will become fast food chains… All online year-round service, or half the price and double the students. Others will specialize. Others will partner with big business.

Universities are having a Henry Ford moment. They’ve been reduced to the same choice for all. It will be interesting to see what options come out of this.

In the shadows

I had a conversation yesterday with someone who carries very strong negative memories with them from something that happened many years ago. It wasn’t violent, and didn’t cause any trauma to their body, but it did to their mind. It was essentially an emotional bullying issue, one that especially hurt because it came from someone believed to be a friend. It hurt more because it wasn’t just a one-time thing, it was repeated.

As I listened, I was taken back by the hurt that was still carried. They say ‘time heals all wounds’, but I think sometimes ‘time wounds all heals’. Sometimes the passage of time does not separate us from emotional pain, rather time bathes us in it.

I think that’s why people end up self medicating. It’s easier to numb the pain than it is to face the pain that lurks in our memories, haunting us. The memory, the upset, the anger, or the pain, can seem as present and as relevant as things happening to us daily.

I’m not a psychologist, and I don’t play one on tv or the internet, but I asked this person a question.

I asked, when recalling the incidents, if they saw the experience through their own eyes or if they saw themselves in the memory as if they were watching a movie? The answer was ‘it’s like a movie’.

Aren’t our minds amazing things, that we can recall a memory and see ourselves in that memory! How does that work? We aren’t really reliving it if we can see it happening to us. It’s more like we are watching our own history. This gives us more power than we might think we have:

  • We don’t have to review our memories up close.
  • We don’t have to recall our memories in full colour or at full speed.
  • We can create new endings. Rewind and replay it.
  • We can literally put the memory into a television screen.
  • We can recall memories as still, black & white, blurry photos in old frames.

We can move memories into the shadows of our minds rather than have them fill our brains in full technicolor and splendour. We don’t have to get rid of them, (I’m not sure we can), but we can reduce their power over us. We can relegate the memories to less significance.

It’s similar to controlling anger. When something upsets us and makes us mad, how long do we hold on to that anger?

Let’s say you are driving to work one morning and someone cuts you off. I mean really cuts you off, you have to break hard and swerve into the curb lane to stop from hitting them and getting in an accident. You slam on the breaks and your horn simultaneously, but the other car drives off, seemingly oblivious to what they just put you through. How long do you hold on to that anger?

Is 5 minutes appropriate?

What about for the rest of your commute?

What about until everyone at work has heard your story?

How about until you’ve told your spouse when you got home.

How about the following week?

How about you recall the incident every time you pass that spot on the road on the way to work?

How long is it acceptable to hold on to that anger, to build up that moment in your mind? How long do you let that that angry moment in the past control your emotions in the present?

We have many memories that belong in the shadows of our mind, rather than in full colour and right in front of us.

If we can learn to not let the anger of a jerk that cut us off minutes, hours, days, or weeks ago control our present state or well being, couldn’t we do the same for something years in the past.

Maybe we can let time heal our wounds .

It may take practice, but if we’ve already changed the memory into a movie, seeing it from a perspective that we didn’t experience, then haven’t we already made changes that have removed us from the original experience? And if our minds can do that on their own, maybe we can choose to ‘see’ those memories in more distant and less angry ways. Maybe we can alter our past so that it interferes less with our present.