And that's that !

So now that we understand that individuals are not the author of their thoughts and hence actions, let us look at how understanding that free will is just an illusion affects people and their lives. For thousands of years, we have concluded wrongly that every person is freely making decisions and choices based on our incomplete understanding of folk psychology and various religious texts. The common folk psychology view is that everyone acts freely in the world based on the ability to make free conscious choices bestowed upon humans by the creator of the universe and hence it is every person's duty to act in a good and moral way. Any deviation from this principle is seen as a dysfunction on the part of the human and the individual is solely held responsible for his/her actions as if they could have done otherwise. Once we start to understand the nature of human consciousness and actions, this practice of contributing blame to a single individual about his/her actions begins to erode. This knowledge could have serious implications on how individuals act in their own daily lives and how we learn to understand and interpret the actions of others in a more understanding manner. The debate over free will has societal, as well as scientific and theoretical, implications.

First, we can look at some studies that directly study the effects of teaching humans that they are simply robots following some complex algorithms and their actions are mostly predetermined with maybe a hint of randomness. The results were not great- 

This first study (1) published in 2008 showed that encouraging the belief in determinism increases cheating. The study consisting of 2 experiments showed that in experiment 1 Exposure to the deterministic message increased cheating on a task in which participants could passively allow a flawed computer program to reveal answers to mathematical problems that they had been instructed to solve themselves. Moreover, increased cheating behavior was mediated by decreased belief in free will. In Experiment 2, participants who read deterministic statements cheated by overpaying themselves for performance on a cognitive task; participants who read statements endorsing free will did not.

This other paper (2) titled Disbelief in Free Will Increases Aggression and Reduces Helpfulness consisted of 3 experiments.The study was designed to study the hypothesis

that  Laypersons' belief in free will may foster a sense of thoughtful reflection and willingness to exert energy, thereby promoting helpfulness and reducing aggression, and so disbelief in free will may make behavior more reliant on selfish, automatic impulses and therefore less socially desirable.  In Experiment 1, induced disbelief in free will reduced willingness to help others. Experiment 2 showed that chronic disbelief in free will was associated with reduced helping behavior. In Experiment 3, participants induced disbelief in free will caused participants to act more aggressively than others

In a paper published in 2014 (3) titled You Didn’t Have to Do That: Belief in Free Will Promotes Gratitude included Four studies testing the hypothesis that a weaker belief in free will would be related to feeling less gratitude. In Studies 1a and 1b, a trait measure of free will belief was positively correlated with a measure of disposition gratitude. In Study 2, participants whose free will belief was weakened (vs. unchanged or bolstered) reported feeling less grateful for events in their past. Study 3 used a laboratory induction of gratitude. Participants with an experimentally reduced (vs. increased) belief in free will reported feeling less grateful for the favor. In Study 4, a reduced (vs. increased) belief in free will led to less gratitude in a hypothetical favor scenario. This effect was serially mediated by perceiving the benefactor as having less free will and therefore as being less sincerely motivated. These findings suggest that belief in free will is an important part of being able to feel gratitude.

It is here I think it is necessary to discuss a few certain definitions of truth. One of them is the obvious definition would be something that is factually verifiable. A statement that is scientifically accurate. But then there is a different definition of truth towards which most philosophers lean towards, that would be the Pragmatic Truth. The idea is that if you look at the etymology of the term ‘Truth’ It is supposed to mean something that is reliable with faith and consistency. For example, an arrow shot from the bow will go straight, It will ‘stay true’. According to pragmatism, any reliable piece of information that helps in a person’s survival is regarded as true. This idea of metaphorical truths can be supported by the following example. People who deal with guns know about the saying - ‘Treat every weapon as if it is loaded’. Now, this statement is factually obviously false, every weapon is not loaded. However, Treating every weapon as a loaded one goes miles in proving to be a great safety tactic that significantly reduces harm and chances of an accident. If you are dealing with weapons and guns on a daily basis, you better regard the statement as true as it will aid in your survival. The pragmatic version of truth turns out to be way more efficient and useful in the survival of an organism, regardless of what the facts suggest. It goes to look at the practical implications of a statement than a theoretical one.

So does that mean all the information discussed in the last few blogs have been elaborate lies in the pragmatic sense which add little to no value to our everyday lives and in fact might even work negatively, making us worse human beings as the evidence suggest? Does that mean we HAVE to regard the existence of free will and as true and the contrary scientific evidence needs to be contained so that society does not deteriorate into indifferent philosophers, which are aggressive, less helpful and rabid ungrateful cheaters?

I think the problem is not in the science but in shallow thinking people who don't fully understand the implications of this conundrum and wrongly use the science to free themselves of their moral responsibilities. The experiments reveal to me the breathtaking stupidity of the common folk armed with an incomplete understanding of the ideas of determinism. people didn't really understand the concept. The problem is, even if we don't have free will, we certainly act and function as if we do. These people as per their subjective experience chose to act immorally but that is simply not what the science suggests or advocates. Because of this low resolution thinking people don't grasp the extent of the positive impact this scientific truth can have in our lives. I argue that if looked at closely and deeply this might be one of the best pieces of information about reality that came out of the scientific revolution.

Understanding that the idea of free will is just a farce should make us more forgiving and empathetic towards all life. Take the example of a murderer. You should understand by now that if you replace the killer with yourself but identical, atom to atom, there is no extra part to you that would change the course of history. If you had the exact same family, childhood and experiences, same genetics you would most certainly do the exact same thing for the exact same reasons. This changes our assessment of the situation form a horrible person decided to do some heinous act TO a poor soul being made to act in a heinous way simply due to the laws of nature. you can no longer hate , only love. You can dislike but hate is something completely different. Emergence of someone like Hitler or Stalin fundamentally not very different from the emergence of a hurricane. They worked the same way a hurricane that destroys and uproots thousands of families or an asteroid that causes mass extinctions on a planet; Collections of atoms, forming and behaving however the universal laws command them to. The only difference here is the difference in our sentiment towards the agent. Blaming the agent alone, inspires hatred. The perpetrator in some sense is also the victim of the crime. All the forces of nature conspired to make someone commit the heinous act. This ignorant hatred inspires vengeance. 

What is interesting to note is that we seldom feel vengeance against an animal. A mother bear that brutally dismembered a deer is excused in a way a human is not. A domesticated cat when plays with a bird , slowly ripping it into pieces , is never subjected to the human standard. The torturous acts are simply declared as the cat being the cat. If an escaped circus elephant that gets nervous and tramples people is hung and lynched (something that actually happened), It is seen as some sort of moral dysfunction on the part of humans. Only if people would have understood the situation and thought about the elephant with love they could have maybe tried to rehabilitate or even send away the humble giant. This would have been a far better strategy than to violently hanging the elephant as a result of the sentiments of vengeance. Hatred inspired vengeance stops us from intelligently accessing the situation and finding the best and appropriate ways to deal with the threats. I am not proposing reform in rehabilitation techniques for criminals or murderers. Do whatever is necessary and works best. All I am proposing is do it from a place of understanding, hence love rather than a place of uninformed, insensible hatred and vengeance.

The understanding of the absence of free will, not only affects our attitudes towards others but also towards ourselves. Once we realize how we bound to the laws of nature and hence bound to the past, we look at ourselves from a completely different and new perspective. Thousands of people suffer every year from horrible psychological disorders and debilitating distresses due to their obsessions about some decision they took in the past. Constantly berating oneself about not making a particular choice in the past and forming regrets is a sure way to lead to misery , contempt which causes feelings of anxiety and depression. 

Understanding this simple fact that the decision or choice was not actively made by us nor could we have done otherwise, people can begin to forgive themselves for the past and simply use the knowledge of whatever horrible events that transpired to make better (automatic) judgments in the future. People not being able to forgive themselves for some past action is a burden that most people carry to some extent. The idea that only if they had chosen otherwise, they would have been in a much better position now, is simply wishful thinking about a fantasy world that was never supposed to exist in the first place. Only if more people understood that the decision was inspired and caused by all the factors outside of one’s control, can a person fully move on righteously realizing the fact that the event was simply a learning experience or a training exercise for all future events. Acceptance of things as they are or a situation as it is is very important for numerous practical and psychological reasons and the science of free will helps greatly in achieving this state.

It is true that we are all robots and certainly all act like one but this does not free us from our moral obligations and the duty to do good. The important distinction is that we are robots open to internal and external influences. We are not fixed systems designed to act very precisely for a fixed task, like an automatic room cleaning vacuum. Our domain of actions is very vast and complex. Human brains and minds are complex systems with the ability to achieve great things for themselves and others. The biological reality is that illusion of free will is just as strong and true as the fact that it does not exist. The discovery does not exonerate you from your wrong doings, only gives you the prism to look at all the colors constituting the white light of your final decisions. My advice is to strive towards making more informed choices for the betterment of all sentient beings and always coming from a place of understanding and a loving curiosity will, in most cases make sure that your predetermined decisions are good.

And that's that.