On Free Will, and Dating (successfully!)

On my third date with my now-wife, I might have accidentally broken someone’s faith in meaningful life.

Philosophy and free will came up somehow. That may seem weird as a casual conversation topic, but I believe I was taking a 200-level course on existentialism that semester. It may also seem weird as a date conversation topic, but I asked her out after we had a lengthy discussion of The Last Picture Showby Larry McMurtry (may he rest in peace), so this was really par for the course.

But for whatever reason, I explained a conclusion I had reached a couple years before.

“Free will is a myth,” I opined.

“Oh?” she said. Or maybe she just raised her eyebrows, I don’t know… this was 18 years ago.

“We make decisions based on our brain chemistry and experiences,” I explained. “The first is largely out of our control. The second would seem to be a guide toward making a choice. But the thing is, we develop experiences that shape our personalities long before we have any influence over our lives. When we’re babies, we’re already experiencing love, or hunger, or pain, or colors or water or whatever. We accumulate a lot of experiences in those first couple years that will guide our choices, but we have absolutely no say in any of it. That means that when we finally arein a position to make choices of some sort, and we draw upon our experiences and feelings to guide us, all of them have been predetermined. We feel like we’re choosing among possibilities; really, we make the inevitable choice based on the inputs provided to us. That determined choice itself becomes one of our experiences, and the ball just keeps rolling from there.”

“Huh,” she said, which really meant, “you’re a ridiculous nerd and you’re adorable.” (I think we were around two weeks from realizing and stating we were in love.)

“None of that really matters, though,” I said. “We’re all in the same position, and to function in our individual lives or in society, we can’t just throw up our hands and cry ‘determinism’; that would be pointless. We just make our choices, which all feel real enough, and we evaluate others’ choices too, even though they don’t have free will either. But we still need to determine who’s good, who’s bad, who should be our friend, so we do. Saying “free will is a myth” is a bit like dividing by one. Whatever crazy equation you’ve got, you can put it over one if you feel like it: the answer doesn’t change. It would be a pointless extra step, but you’re not technically wrong to do it. So yeah, it changes nothing, but free will is a myth.”

“WHAT?” said a voice from behind the dorm room’s divider. Her roommate appeared. I’d say she looked like I had kicked her dog, but I think she would have preferred me to have kicked her dog. “We don’t have free will? How does any of what we do matter!” There were tears. We spent some time talking her down.

And that was the last time I discussed anything vaguely philosophical without looking very carefully around the room.

And then I posted this story on the internet for strangers.

Epilogue: I later conducted a half-hour AOL Instant Messenger debate with that same roommate about whether it was better to have the sauce baked in your calzone or left separate for dipping.

Yep – I was a really cool college sophomore.