The Psychonauts
This is simply a collection of my musings on free-will and existentialism. It originally started off as something of a synopsis for a story I’m working on and I got kind of carried away so I just fashioned it into an essay, and then figured I spent way too long on it to not post it somewhere so here it is.
Free will is an illusion. If we are to believe the universe began as a singularity which expanded and is still expanding today, that singularity, on a subatomic level, was the blueprint for the universe. Every single body, every single event; all of it has already been written. Every second of the universe has been accounted for, and there is nothing that can change that. Hypothetically, if a single subatomic unit in that singularity had been an infinitesimally small measurement to the left of the one in the singularity that created this universe — would that universe be identical to this one? Perhaps the Milky Way would be several million light years in another direction. Maybe it wouldn’t exist at all, and consequently, we wouldn’t exist. Or maybe we would, but we’d have six fingers or no tongues. We’d certainly have a completely different history, and Earth would not be the one we know. Or maybe this theory is completely off the mark, and the difference would be so miniscule that it would be unnoticeable. But a miniscule difference could grow into a monumental one over a period of billions of years. What if there were no difference at all? This is just speculation, after all, but it would stand to reason that if the singular cause for the universe were structurally different, the resultant execution would also be different, surely? If you alter a programme’s code, the programme will run differently to its previous iteration — this is both logical and factual. Why should the same not apply to the universe’s origin?
The overarching point is: if you can alter the code, which in turn alters the programme, where does free-will fit in? Is everything we say, do, think, not just the product of a script that has already been written and is currently running? It is easy to think we have free-will, because we exist within the framework that has already been created and resolved. We have no perspective other than from within the system because that’s all we’ve ever known. Should we be able to see the universe from outside, at its point of origin, perhaps we would be able to easily see the threads of effect from cause; we could predict any event with perfect accuracy. Within the universe, we simply lack the knowledge and perspective to be able to do so; not that that stops us from trying, in vain, to understand what can never be understood to us. It’s like trying to translate a language no one speaks, and that we couldn’t physically speak even if we knew how.
Perhaps the only feasible, possible argument against this predeterminism is that something outside the space-time continuum would logically not be constrained to its laws. Something with an origin external to the universe would be fluent in the aforementioned hypothetical language, a language which for all intents and purposes for this scenario is essentially the way to access free-will. If an entity knows the future of every single atom, it can essentially act as a chaos agent if it were to act in opposition to the determined future. But that opens up another argument entirely: has the agent been determined by a different external force? By stepping into the universe, does the agent become constrained by the laws of nature and itself become a determined object, as lacking in free-will as all other entities? Can the universe account for external agents from its inception, and by extension, control events and material outside itself? Is what we see as outside the universe, merely just more of the universe, in a different state and inaccessible to us? Perhaps there is no outside at all, and as scientists postulate, it is pure nothingness; timeless and spaceless, a vacuum of nonexistence. As has already been established, these are absurd questions we will never be able to answer. Not in this state.
Perhaps, though, the human mind can offer a solution. The phenomenon of the soul is stamped throughout human history, regardless of time and culture. Its name varies and its abilities are disputed, but the general consensus remains that within humans, beyond the flesh and blood, lies a more supernatural power, and perhaps supernatural may here be taken literally. If anything in this universe can lay claim to outside its apparent boundaries, it’s surely this power. Should that be the case, does that mean there are eight billion chaos agents disrupting the established equilibrium? Do animals factor into this? This even discounts the possibility of alien life with souls of their own. Maybe the universe is home to billions, even trillions of chaos agents all roaming around interfering with the natural order. But then, inhabiting physical bodies — would that remove our “power” to bypass the system? In being physically within it, are we inextricably a part of it? Perhaps what we perceive as the mind and soul really is nothing more than a series of electrical impulses in the brain, and we, in our pridefulness and pompous self-assigned divinity, have collectively deluded ourselves into believing we are more than just animals reciting our lines.
Each question asked spawns a thousand more equally impossible to answer, creating a sprawling mystery as labyrinthine as the universe it attempts to decode. In essence, every question asked is utterly meaningless on an ontological level. We are only asking these questions because we have been instructed to do so. We are merely the product of a system desperately trying to understand itself, but failing miserably because it does not possess the components necessary to do so. We are the universe’s failed attempt at introspection. Humans, and our endless research and philosophical prying: we are nature’s sick, twisted joke. Or perhaps we’re a miracle. Our own introspection is evidence of our consciousness, so are we to be seen as proof of the universe’s own consciousness? Even if we are only a failed attempt, perhaps we are a prototype; the first in a string of machinations of the universe’s devising to understand itself. Maybe we’re far from the first, and likely far from the last.
This all assumes the stance that the universe itself is more than just a vessel containing all of existence, but rather a sentient being. In that case, is the universe as susceptible to being part of a predetermined narrative as we are? Until now, these musings have positioned the universe as an amoral, unquestioning, unconscious yet omnipotent, unconquerable machine, but what if it is, or has been, as enslaved to the laws of determinism as we? Is the universe’s venture into self-awareness a marker of its derivation from its own course, and if so, who or what determined the universe’s trajectory, if not the universe itself? The very argument between free-will and determinism implies the existence of some kind of external agent if determinism is believed to exist in any capacity. Many of the arguments in favour of free-will stipulate that the mind is the very reason for our ability to choose freely and defy determined conditions. Based on this, are we part of the universe’s mind, or perhaps even the entirety of its mind? If the universe is capable of free-will, and we are the psychonauts responsible for its self-exploration, should that also mean that we are exempt from the bonds of predestination? Of course, if we are to accept this, we must apply to the universe the same arguments and questions which have already been asked throughout this essay of human free-will. What appears initially as a potential push towards answers instead adds a whole other dimension to an already incredibly convoluted spiral, becoming almost paradoxical in nature. Ignoring the potential issues with likening the universe’s “mind” to the human’s, an understandable constraint given it is our only real model of truly (ostensibly) autonomous consciousness, the assertion that self-awareness is an automatic indicator of a triumph over determinism is an inherently flawed argument. It ignores the probable likelihood that the advent of introspection is just another chapter in the novel. The “mind” argument for free-will is steeped in spiritual, preternatural, wishful notions that simply do not serve the logical basis upon which the observable universe is founded, though quantum mechanics would seem to blur the line of what is seemingly logical, and of course, “logic” is just a fabrication. There does also seem to be a lot of evidence that the soul can defy logic, or rather our conception of logic, such as by traveling astral realms that may or may not be within our physical universe. Is such a space excluded from the narrative our physical bodies are confined to? Much of these arguments are founded on the basis that phenomena outside the universe are free of its control, and it is a fairly understandable conclusion, but ultimately it is simultaneously unfalsifiable and unprovable considering an empirical test of anything outside it isn’t exactly possible.
In all our toiling, our cries for greater meaning, our unending quest for survival; is it not all just an absurd play? Though, that would imply that there is an audience for whom our incessant struggle is a source of mild entertainment, but there is no audience here (at least not to our knowledge). What is it all for in the end? Is it not much kinder on the soul to believe, even in the face of piling evidence to the contrary, that we are in control of our lives? That we are not just avatars dancing away haplessly to the cliff’s edge, no sooner on this plane than off it? Many people do, or at least have done, and it is so incredibly easy to do, which begs the question: if we can’t tell the difference between thinking we have free-will, and being instructed to think we have free-will, does it ultimately matter? And yet, this human propensity for seeking control at every turn is, ironically, the most constraining of our traits. We have, for some reason, been programmed to equate a lack of free-will with a depressing relinquishment of power and control, letting up our fate to an invisible hand. The very notion that everything has already been decided is, to most people, an offensive notion, but why should it be? Should it not be freeing to know that everyone and everything is a story playing out in real-time? If not a single thing is without its own predestined future, then the playing field is even and we should be able to walk hand-in-hand to the edge of the cliff with our heads held high, grateful for the experience, fleeting as it may be. But then also comes the daunting truth that not a single thing in this universe is with meaning, if all are just stationary components of a running narrative. Sisyphus is the quintessential icon of a life without meaning, and perhaps the most succinct way I can summarise this thinkpiece is to designate a person’s basic stance on existence with their response to his myth, which generally falls into one of three categories, and which, of course, they have been assigned by no power of their own; a complete rejection of Sisyphus as a metaphor for life; an acceptance of Sisyphus’ punishment as a metaphor for life; and an acceptance of Sisyphus as a metaphor for life, but envisioning him as happy in his loop. Despite how bluntly tenebrous much of the content of this essay may appear on the surface, I would situate myself firmly in the third category.
That said, fate is no saint. Not everyone is dealt a nice hand, and not everyone can relate to the third option. Fate is without morals, without a code, without empathy, without malice. Its modus operandi is unfathomable to us, and perhaps that’s by design. The puppetmaster lurks in the shadows, and we, the puppets, are none the wiser. Maybe in that sense, the puppetmaster, whoever or whatever it is, is merciful in sparing us its appearance. As much as one can argue that the release of control is freeing if allowed to be, part of that freedom undeniably lies within not being able to identify a concrete entity with the knowledge that they hold the keys to existence. Such a notion is perhaps too Lovecraftian to comfortably accept. Of course, we ultimately have no choice in how we react, but that does not change the fact that much of this story has been crafted around artifice. It is without question the greatest mystery ever written, and cruelly, we will not be around for the reveal, should it ever come.
The idea that we can waltz off the cliff with smiles on our faces is nothing but a dream, and a manufactured one no less, because such an idea necessitates that people are able to step off their path. Such postulations, along with the entirety of this essay, are nothing but shouts into the void. The only way such a dream could become reality is if it were by the puppetmaster’s design. I have ultimately achieved nothing and effected no change by wrestling with such primordial matters. Everything I have said has only been said because I was programmed to, and ironically, is likely paradoxical and contradictory in nature; such is the universe’s understanding of itself. All that is left for me to do is to be grateful that I can see the joy of Sisyphus, or in other words, continue, unavoidably, down my predestined path.
