Casey had had this sort of experience before, but never quite like this. It wasn’t a panic attack,
per se, but certainly somewhere in the same vein of experience.
A moment where everything he understood and felt to be true started to crack and peel back,
the world shedding its skin and revealing an entirely new image of itself to him.
Casey had just finished watching another video on the topic of free will. Or more specifically,
the lack thereof. Up until more recently, Casey never really paid much interest to this
or any similar kind of topic. That sort of stuff always seemed distant, abstract, and
unnecessary to him. Of course he had free will. He felt it in every moment. What could possibly
be the issue or question? But more recently, as he had become slightly older and more curious,
he found it a bit harder to see things so simply and find meaning so easily.
Consequently, he had become more interested in topics of philosophy, looking further
into different ideas in attempts of better self-understanding and ways of life. And now,
after having finished this last video, Casey began to question the obviousness of his own free will.
Specifically, the video was about the concept of determinism, which argues that all events,
including human actions, are determined exclusively by prior causes.
It argues for this by claiming that since all particles and phenomena in the universe
operate off of cause and effect patterns, in which there is always continual chain of preceding
explanations, then, like all other things in the universe, so too are human action and choice
subject to the same deterministic system. Logically, this made complete sense to Casey.
He did not choose the parents he was born to, where he was born, the brain or genetics he was
born with, nor the first thoughts and experiences he had. And yet, these things directly affected
and led to every thought and experience he had thereafter in an unbroken, linear sequence of
cause-and-effect; a cascading of forces and circumstances that he was not in control of
nor totally aware of at any point. And thus, every new spur thereafter–everything that felt like his
choosing–was yet another product of some causal, fixed thing that he didn’t choose beforehand.
As a sort of cliché attempt at a witty example, the video he just watched even said within the
video itself how he clicked on the video without choosing, all as a result of the sequence of
events tracking back to and beyond his birth, the advent of the internet, the invention of
the computer, the formation of the earth, all the way back to the beginning of the universe.
Fundamentally, Casey agreed with this premise of determinism, but he struggled to see how
its implications could possibly be true. He struggled to agree with the idea that he himself
did not have the free will that he felt in every moment. And in this, Casey experienced
the intense, disorienting dissonance that occurs when a truth that one feels intuitively
confronts and contradicts with a truth that one knows logically. And his intuition fought back.
He wondered to himself what could possibly be the point of life if this were true? The video he just
watched seemed to claim that he could still choose to enjoy life and find meaning in it.
But how? What sense did this make? How could he choose anything now? How can you reconcile
the belief that all of existence is deterministic with the belief that you can find your own meaning
in the absurdity? It mustn’t be completely true then, Casey rationalized in his head.
Over the following several days, Casey considered and tried a number of different things in a
hopeful effort to prove this to himself; to find a flaw in the argument against free will.
On the Tuesday of that week, on his way home from work, Casey stopped at small park not far from his
apartment to get some fresh air and relax for a little. He sat on a bench, looking out that pond
and people flow around the park, ruminating to himself. Eventually, still struggling to shake
the topic off the surface of his mind, Casey found himself thinking about the concept of free will
again. He considered how, in this moment, he and he alone WANTED to stop at the park. There was
no specific reason or event that caused him to do so. No biological or physiological necessity. No
external force. Nothing other than his own willful desire. He wanted to stop at the park, and so,
he chose to. And since he chose to, he did. “How was this not free will?” He wondered to himself.
While continuing to think back and forth, a parkgoer’s dog happened to run up to where
Casey was sitting, sniffing the ground around him profusely. After circling around Casey a couple of
times, the dog went on in the other direction, continuing to sniff and follow its nose.
As Casey amusingly observed the dog, he considered to himself if the dog had any free will. Clearly
the dog wanted to find what it was smelling, and it was choosing to follow what it wanted,
but was it choosing to want what it was smelling? No. Casey obviously concluded.
It was being pulled by a desire that it had no say in. Of course, Casey knew that he was at
least some good amount more conscious than the dog, but did this fundamentally allow him to
decide what he did or didn’t want any more than the dog? He could choose to do what he wanted,
but could he choose to want what he wanted? Sure, he chose to go to the park because he wanted to.
But why did he want to? He reflected on where this desire came from and couldn’t find anything
other than a void. It simply emerged into his conciseness from some unknown stream of events
and information and thoughts and desires that he was mostly unaware of and did not control.
If he could have wanted to want to go to the park, wouldn’t he have also had to have wanted
to want to want to; and then he would have had to have wanted to want to want to want to,
and so on and so forth into infinity, which of course, he did not and could not have done.
In truth, he concluded, he was no different than the dog being pulled by its nose, conditioned by
the treats it finds along the way. He was sitting at the park under no free will of his own.
Three days later, on Friday night, Casey was out getting dinner and drinks with a few friends.
Once they were sat at the restaurant, Casey decided fairly quickly what he wanted to order.
Honey BBQ chicken wings. While he waited for the rest of the group to decide what they wanted,
Casey ruminated in his head about this and that. At some point, of course, the topic emerged again,
and Casey suddenly had the idea to try something; to choose to order something else that he didn’t
and wouldn’t ever actually want to eat. “Surely,” he thought to himself, “since I’d be doing what I
don’t want for no reason, without being forced to by anyone or anything other than myself,
I’d be acting on my own free will and overriding any deterministic sequence.” Logically, in this
moment, this made great sense to Casey, and so, when the waiter came, he ordered a completely
different fish meal that he had no desire to eat. When he did, knowing that it was something Casey
didn’t like, two of his friends reacted with surprise. One asked him if he liked fish now.
Casey, trying not to sound too crazy, briefly explained to them why he ordered what he did.
Inevitably, he sounded pretty crazy. After briefly discussing the idea together,
casually, one of his friends said, “But technically, didn’t you still do what you wanted?”
This simple question shut the whole thing down for Casey. He immediately realized his friend was
right. In truth, he wanted to prove his sense of free will to himself more than he wanted to order
a meal that he would’ve otherwise wanted to eat. This, although convoluted, was just another want
that he didn’t ultimately choose. Why he wanted to prove his free will in this moment more than
getting the meal, Casey could not say. It emerged the same way as all other desires;
a result of all the information and thoughts and qualities of his temperament
leading up to that moment, going all the way back to his birth and beyond. And so, this
attempt to escape the cause-and-effect sequence was itself determined by the very same sequence.
In trying to escape the system and prove he had free will, Casey only stepped forward
right into it, revealing that he did not. The only difference was now he had a meal he didn’t want.
On the following Monday, on his way to work, Casey stopped at a local coffee shop.
Upon ordering, the barista asked Casey if he wanted cream or sugar in his coffee.
For some reason, this question suddenly spurred an insight and idea in Casey’s mind. Somewhat
awkwardly, he replied, “I don’t know.” And then waited to see what would happen. Naturally, the
barista paused and waited in confusion, assuming Casey would follow through and make the decision.
Casey did nothing. After a few extra-long seconds, in order to finally cut the moment,
the barista spoke up and said, “Wait so you don’t want them, or you don’t know if you want them?”
After another brief pause, Casey replied, “Yeah, you just pick.” “It doesn’t really work like
that,” The barista replied with a somewhat impatient confusion. “You either want cream
and sugar or you don’t.” Casey, thinking about how foolish this statement sounded to him now,
took a coin out of the little tip container on the counter, flipped it into the air,
and caught it. He saw that it landed heads on his hand, and then clumsily said, “No cream or sugar.
Sorry. Thank you.” And put the coin back into the container.
While waiting for his order, Casey considered how since he had left the decision up to chance,
the outcome was totally random. Not determined by any cause-and-effect sequence,
nor any internal or external force leading up to outcome. For the moment,
he felt an excited sense that he was perhaps on to something. A breaking of the whole system.
During the rest of his drive to work, Casey drank some of his coffee, wishing he had gotten cream
and sugar. It didn’t take more than a few sips for him to realize the absurdity of what he just did.
He wanted cream and sugar but got black coffee. Where was the free will in that? He had no say in
the random outcome of the coinflip, and so, sure, it was random, but how could there be any free
will in randomness? If anything, he realized this encounter with the barista was only an elaborate
example of even less free will, with just some additional awkwardness and no cream or sugar.
As more days passed, Casey found himself incapable of finding any loopholes–any
cases where he could conclusively find examples of the free will that he once felt and knew he
had. He watched countless videos, read books and essays on the topic, and so on. At this point,
he found it nearly impossible to deny. The sense that he was the controlling force of his life,
it seemed, was in fact an illusion. And this was no longer some abstract idea.
Now, he felt it clearly and totally. The switch clicked and the world looked different.
The weight of this troublesome truth hit Casey fairly hard as it fell down onto his shoulders. He
now found himself in the unfortunate position that afflicts all human beings: he couldn’t unknow what
he now knew, even if he wanted to. He couldn’t go back to ignorance. Ignorance is certainly not
a choice. One cannot choose to truly be ignorant of what they already know, for this would require
they didn’t know it to begin with. And Casey realized now that he never even really had a
choice in knowing what he did or didn’t at all. That night, he experienced what can only be
described as one of the hardest existential crises he’d yet experienced in his life. He struggled to
see any point anymore. Any meaning. This built up so heavily, that later that same night, Casey
decided to essentially stop caring. Stop trying. Stop doing anything really. Afterall, since he
was never really doing anything to begin with, “What difference would this make?” He thought.
For the rest of the night, he sat on his couch and stared at the wall with no intention of
intentionally doing anything else. A renunciation of his life in a radical act of complete fatalism.
After several hours of sitting, around midnight, Casey got kind of hungry. Naturally, after
tolerating the hunger for as long as he could, he got up and made himself a grilled cheese sandwich
with a little pizza sauce. Then, he returned to the couch and ate it. He enjoyed it thoroughly.
At around 12:55, he felt that he had to use the bathroom, and, naturally, after no longer being
able to tolerate the feeling, he got up and went. Then, he returned to the couch, feeling
much better. Eventually, at around 2:45 AM, Casey became sufficiently tired and dozed off to sleep.
Over the next couple days, he continued on sitting, trying to do nothing, scrolling through
his phone most of the time in between staring at the wall. It took no more than a day and a half
to begin to feel the absolute absurdity of what he was doing. Still weighed down by his
sense of pointlessness, though, he stayed put, acting as passively as he could. Eventually,
the boredom and desire to do something became so bad, he took out a video game, which he couldn’t
even remember the last time he played. Any video game for that matter. He was surprised
the console even still worked. He started playing and quickly fell into the game, starting the story
mode from the beginning, enjoying all the various tasks and challenges along the way.
Before he even realized how long he was playing for, he finished the game. Granted he had already
played and beaten the same game when he was younger, but nonetheless, it still felt nice.
The time seemed to fly right by. As he watched the final scene of video game’s story conclude,
in the sort of corny, typical video game tone, one of the characters said, “Everything is mostly
sorted out now. Couldn’t have done it without you. Not a total happy ending, but good enough.”
Between all the time Casey had to think over the last two days and this line in the video game, in
this moment, it hit Casey. The missing piece that put the whole thing back together. He realized he
had just thoroughly enjoyed a video game that he knew was fake and had already played. All of the
challenges in the game were pre-determined and pre-coded, and the game operated with specific
borders, rules, and controls that all worked towards a story that essentially had just one
single path to one single predetermined end. Casey fundamentally had no control over how the
game was played and where it went. He was just following the storyline as it already existed,
experiencing the illusion of him actually creating and performing it. And yet, despite this and his
knowledge of it, there he had been, totally and fully immersed, enjoying and finding meaning
in it the whole way through. And his active participation was entirely necessary to the
experience and the game playing through. Casey realized to himself,
there was no other way to live. There was no escaping the illusion if the illusion was him.
But there was no need to. Knowing something is an illusion does not stop the illusion from working.
Illusions are illusions BECAUSE they work. “I am not my perceptions,” he thought to himself,
”not my choices, not my actions, but I am still the experiencer of the whole.
An observer of a consciousness that can observe and navigate and find meaning in the world.
The greatest and most beautiful illusion ever created and experienced.
And I have a front row seat to it. Nothing changes. The illusion is real.”
Not too long after this moment, one of Casey’s friends called him and asked if he wanted to meet
him and few friends at a local bar. Casey said he did and within the hour, he got ready, left his
apartment, met up with his friends, and enjoyed the rest of the night, the same as he always had.