The following claims may or may not be true, but they’ve become intuitive to me and have been useful models for my own understanding of self.

Key take-aways

At the root of the self, approaching a perspective that could be called “pure awareness”, there is so little “self” left that one may consider it non-self, or one may alternatively consider it to be true self or core self. The distinction between “non-self” and “true self” is not necessarily very helpful or meaningful, and so one may declare a kind of conceptual “non-duality of self” at this low-level core of one’s experience.

The “self” is a kind of “scale-dependent” idea; the self is very real at certain scales, but the concept becomes less useful at the more fine scales of experience. One could say that the self is not really an illusion, but that the sense that one’s idiosyncratic personal self is at the core of one’s experience and being *is* an illusion. That higher-level self is real but not fundamental.

One critical aspect of the non-dual or non-self perspective is that one’s will, which is a critical aspect of higher-level self, is viscerally observed to be “externally” determined and outside of the core self of pure awareness.

(I think some of my writing here is a bit sloppy, since I’m not always talking about awareness itself but a particular experience when sufficiently detached-from and non-absorbed-by the higher-level processes/perceptions of self. Keep that in mind.)

Context

One form of wisdom is self-knowledge. Misconceptions about the self in general and oneself in particular can be part of a network of unhelpful or false thoughts that perpetuate a tremendous amount of unnecessary mental suffering and unwise action. Self-knowledge can potentially bring more effective behavior, better relationships, and greater peace and self-acceptance.

Knowledge of oneself can be gained in many ways, including seeking out a variety of experiences alone and with other people, along with careful observation of one’s own feelings, thoughts, and behavior over time to notice patterns and discover better mental models of oneself and the world. But one important avenue for exploration is to examine the meaning of the concept of “self”, and one’s concept of oneself, and see how the concepts inter-relate with one’s own experiences, both in the past and interactively as one considers “self-ness”.

In my own investigation of the concept of “self”, I’ve found that the self is not usually a well-defined idea; it is vague and can be analyzed and defined at several different levels. This vagueness and ill-defined-ness in general usage of the term leads people into confusion and blocks them from clear communication and understanding.

Levels of self

I see the concept and experience of “self” as many-layered and many-faceted; and I imagine a physical “self” as a many-layered and many-faceted physical process. At the highest, most superficial levels, I see the idea of self as incorporating all the things that make each of us as a person unique: our body, history, memories, personality, character, quirks, etc. But at the deeper levels, I see there are certain processes that are common to all of us, perhaps the most fundamental being the process of awareness itself.

Awareness can focus on many different kinds of things, and there can be many levels of “filters”. Some top-level filters are very personality- and condition-oriented, and will cause whatever is perceived to be interpreted within stories that can become helpfully or harmfully entrenched in our lives. Lower-level filters can take perceptions of something (say, light) and turn in from a collage of light and color into a layout of trees, rivers, mountains, etc — a landscape. These are perceptual and conceptual filters.

In meditation, or any time the mind is calmed enough to get out of the mental chatter and incessant thoughts, concerns, and emotions that tend to absorb the mind, one can have experiences from the perspective of a “deeper self” where fewer filters are being applied or are only partially being applied. Experiencing the deepest level of self, without the higher levels taking one’s immersed attention, can be explained as “losing the self” or experiencing “non-self” or “true self” (depending on one’s notion of “self”) and maybe a visceral realization of “non-duality of self” — or non-usefulness of the self/not-self distinction. This deep level of awareness can be seen as a kind of empty space in which the world appears, including the phenomena of the mind, which one ultimately has no control over.

The ideas of intention and control, of will and self-induced causality, make sense at the higher levels of self. But upon closer examination and detached observation, we see at the root of our awareness, the awareness has no intention or control. Perceptions are simply there and changing all the time. And we can examine the crucial question of how much control we have over our own intentions. At the higher levels, there are some kinds of control on some intentions, but at the lowest levels, we have no such control. Our intentions themselves are yet another arising and dissipating phenomenon in our field of perception.

This lowest-level perspective yields a visceral observation of the determinism of will and the rest of the changing, conditioned self. The observation and realization that will is not part of the core self, that it is determined and uncontrolled, can be shocking and enlightening. It seems to be a very low-level aspect of self that people presume to be at the core.

Non-Duality of Self

One’s awareness, or rather the contents of one’s awareness — one’s field of perceptions — seems to be unique and different from other people’s awarenesses. That uniqueness sets apart one’s awareness as essentially part of the “self” concept. Awareness, in this sense, has some self-ness. Awareness also seems to be completely necessary for a self to even exist. So awareness can count as a root of the “self”. However, awareness, considered as the lowest level self and root of the self, or “true self”, has very little of the qualities associated with the most broad conceptions of the self. One might even go so far as to say that awareness itself contains no self, especially given that it does not “contain” will. This rhetorical position is solidified by the conception of awareness as a kind of emptiness in which perceptions appear. Alternatively, one can even do away with the notion of awareness and simply “be” the perceptions. Boundaries and perceptual filters can dissolve and everything “becomes one”. Which of these perspectives makes most sense? Experiencing these things directly may lead to a notion that taking a solid stand any-which-way is not necessarily helpful. And trying to draw a dichotomy between self and not-self may not always be useful.

The concept of will is perfectly valid, but “free will” can be troublesome.

Will and Freedom

Will refers to desire, choice, intention, and determination. Inherent in the idea of will is some “actor” or “agent” that has, in some sense, a human-like internal experience of mind with which it experiences will, whether that experience is more or less rudimentary than a human’s. Such an agent can be said to have the property of will; the agent has will. We do not have extremely rigorous means of measuring will as of this writing; we generally observe behavior of an organism and compare it with our own behavior to infer whether something has will or not. Perhaps someday we’ll have a rigorous theory of physical mind instantiation (probably involving complex network dynamics) where we’ll be able to measure organisms’ bodies to reveal different degrees and kinds of mind, internal experience, and will. Or, another extremely unlikely hypothesis, given the evidence we have, would be that mind is separate from the body and somehow decisions get “beamed” to the body while the thinking and “willing” goes on somewhere else.

Freedom refers to a lack of constraint on some thing. Anything instantiated in reality must have some constraints in order to exist at all, so freedom is a relative term, referring to lower levels of constraint with respect to some higher level of constraint.

Free Will

What could it mean to have free will or freedom of will? And what does it mean to have a constrained will? It seems obvious to me that a (willful) mind instantiated in reality must be constrained and determined by whatever physical (or “non-physical”) processes are allowing the mind to exist in the first place. Perhaps freedom of will could refer to a relatively greater range of theoretically possible or experientially actualized desires held and choices made by one organism with respect to another organism. I think the common notion of “free will”, however, refers to the intuition that, given a specific choice made by someone, that someone *could have* made a different choice, and that person was “free” to choose among the possibilities. The person making the decision was not aware of any influence that “forced” the decision inevitably one way or another. However, this is completely indistinguishable from completely determined (“pre-destined”) behavior, where one’s desires and choices are a direct inevitable consequence of the events and processes that precede the choice. When the decision process itself is determined, there is no sense of external pressure. The feeling or actuality of “freedom” does not conflict with complete determinism in behavior. It is the ignorance of which decision is the inevitable one that leaves open the question of which of the available options will be chosen. This is a “compatibilist” position that proposes no contradiction between “free” will and behavior and determined will and behavior.

The word “free” here may simply be unnecessary and adding confusion to the concept. I tend to think and communicate in terms of “will” rather than “free will” whenever possible, since it may make more sense to think of a (predetermined) will that is, to some degree, unpredictable. The idea of will is sufficient. There is no need to postulate a counter-factual option that could have been chosen. There was, in actuality, a consideration of different options, and an option *was* chosen, even if that choice was determined and inevitable. No contradiction.

The concept of “freedom” seems to be more useful in the context of social and political freedom and lack of pressure, force, and threat from other beings, rather than some abstract, metaphysical, counter-factual, “absolute”, or impossible freedom.

Cases for Consideration

Let’s consider some more concrete cases to investigate will and freedom of will.

Consider four children. The first child is lacking in imagination and originality, easily swayed away from any self-directed behavior, and is very obedient, following instructions and suggestions with no resistance or consternation. The second child is more imaginative, passionate, independent, stubborn, determined, and disobedient — that is, more willful — yet thon seems unfazed and equanimous in struggles of will and when taking of punishment. The third is just as imaginative and passionate as the second, but very obedient, and willing to shut down thon’s own pursuits whenever asked or told to do so. The fourth is equally imaginative and passionate as the second, and very obedient like the third, but is tremendously anguished about putting off thon’s own pursuits when following requests and orders.

Which of these children’s wills is most free? Or is “freedom” even an appropriate metric to be used here? Would a better question be, which child has more will or stronger will than the others? Are these meaningful questions?

It seems that the latter three children have “free-er” wills in the “considered options” or “possible options” sense of freedom. They have more “powers of will”. It seems that the fourth child has the least “free” will in terms of being constrained and put-upon by social and/or physical pressure and force. Is the second or fourth child exerting the most “will power”? Which has the “stronger” will? Although the second child’s will seems to be “winning” more, the fourth child’s will seems to be fighting against a greater internal opposition. Perhaps a comparison is not really possible (without some rigorous science of mind and measurement of these children’s wills).

If a person desires to have a new desire (say, to crave healthier food) or get rid of a current desire (such as an addiction), some people can accomplish these goals through intelligent and persistent action. This is a particular kind of freedom, to shift desires and habits. But what separates those who manage to accomplish these goals and those who don’t manage? It seems that it comes down to a combination of inherent qualities of the person and sometimes (or perhaps always ultimately) unexplainable instances of follow-through versus non-follow-through. Even a generally conscientious person may have certain times when thon doesn’t follow through, and it can be difficult or impossible to figure out why there wasn’t follow-through in that particular instance.

Conclusion

Before I wrote this, I thought I might be able to show that “free will” is a contradiction and nonsense. However, I’ve shown to myself that there does seem to be some room for sense in the phrase, even if many people use the phrase in nonsensical ways. Still, I think in many cases it may help to replace the idea of “free will” with “will” and move on.