Freewill is a controversial concept. What is it? Does it even exist? While a libertarian freewill suggests every choice is the result of pure, conscious intent, determinism flips this on its head, suggesting that consciousness becomes a justification after the fact for one’s behavior, turning, “I think, and therefore I am,” into, “I am, and therefore I think.” As a chain of inevitable cause-and-effect, behavior is determined by the universe – its physics, chemistry, and biology. In a sense, life happens, and we’re all just along for the ride. The Novel Universe Model stands in opposition to either point-of-view, proposing that freewill is more than just the idea of having a choice, but the idea that it’s not freewill if it costs nothing.
Absolute autonomy, as a concept, is a contemporary convention – the average person across the planet throughout history would have had some divine model to account for their actions (or inaction). It is only with advent of American culture that most modern actors, most often, believe they are making conscious choices every day about everything. However, when we dig into the science, we find both points of view miss the mark. Instead, biology and environment play outsized roles in our decisions, and those determinists have a real point, if not the whole picture. It all comes down to desire, and creating a new preference is a dance between biology, environment, and intent. If an internal bias is useful, it sticks around, if not, it fades away. Of course, this doesn’t mean we never act against our biases, just that it’s hard to do so.
Long-held preferences are largely ingrained in our biology, physiology, and psychology, requiring limited effort, what’s known as the “free energy principle.” Models that fit reality predict reality, thus streamlining the effective use of our mental energy. When the model doesn’t fit, we’re surprised, and forced to deal with reality. Like cats racing from the corral, our mental energy breaks free, and as we attempt to fit our old model to a new reality, we’ve gotta spend the effort to reign in all those surprising deviations – a situation that can both feel like herding cats, but also, be the source of unparalleled joy, depending on whether we prefer the surprise or not. Higher free energy signals the need for learning, while lower free energy confirms the effectiveness of what we’ve learned. The argument is often made that the brain’s entire job is to lower the body’s surprise (free energy) though allostasis – not reacting to incoming sensation (homeostasis), but predicting it, and then using the differential between actual and predicted sensation to refine the model. We try and fail, at least to some degree, but it is that failure we require to adjust the settings and fine-tune the model. We do not learn, so much, from getting things right, as the degree to which we get them wrong – how surprising something is, aka, its novelty.
Freewill is not a switch but a spectrum, ranging from a minor tweak to an outright reshaping of one’s entire point of view. One might delay an action, say, put that cigarette off until next break, or change course entirely – stop cold turkey. Either way, those underlying preferences might only be altered with effort, as following in one’s grooves is easier than plowing new pathways.
Suffering is the inability to express preference. Effort is varying degrees of self-inflicted suffering, spanning from irritation to grit to downright agony. The NU Model defines freewill as the emotional motion of effort, from an intentional suspension, to a complete reordering of preference. Mere hesitation would be the least alteration, while the greatest, a wholesale change of framework (Love and Power). While we might modify our preferences in large or small ways, it always requires us to suffer the effort.
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