David Hume, Session 3: Free Will and Life's Deeper Meaning
If the story of your life is not ultimately about the small, separate character you identify as me, then what more meaningful story might you actually be a part of?
In this final session on David Hume, we consider free will. (Next week we begin our sessions on Adam Smith.) You may have anticipated Hume’s position that we have less free will than we think. Yet Hume’s views, as ever, are nuanced and carefully presented.
To help us understand Hume, I will be introducing you to one of the brilliant philosophers and scientists of our age, Bernardo Kastrup, who holds a PhD in both philosophy and computer engineering. Kastrup has much to say about free will, and together with Hume offers us a way to understand the meaning of life that liberates us from the imagined self-concept we met in Hume, Session 1.
From 1957 until 1993, the Motorboat Cruise was a ride in Disneyland. On the ride you piloted a boat down a dangerous waterway. You never hit the rocks or other obstacles because you were not really steering. Sooner or later, you made a wrong and even dangerous turn; but the boat kept going in the right direction. Nevertheless, it could take a child quite a while to realize they were not steering.
Wayne Liquorman, in his book, Acceptance of What Is, relates this Disney ride to our lives:
Now, is it not extraordinary, that through this whole process, it never occurs to you, the thought never enters your mind, that this wheel isn’t connected to anything? Despite all the evidence to the contrary! You look at your life, all your intentions, all of the times that you were absolutely certain of what it was that you wanted to do. And then you worked so hard and diligently to do them. And your life went that way. Time and time again, your best efforts did not yield the desired results. And yet you say, “I’m the master of my destiny. I choose what I want to do.” But your wheel isn’t connected to anything! And yet you don’t see it! How is this possible?
Hume and Kastrup believe our wheel is connected to something, and once again, their nuanced understanding can change our lives. Notice how much mental energy goes into pseudo-steering. Are we willing to take our focus off our imagined steering wheel?
Yet, the effort we spend is understandable. From the viewpoint of our ego narrator, it seems we are separate beings operating in a dangerous world. My world revolves around me, and yours revolves around you. Sometimes we cooperate, and sometimes there is conflict. With that view of the world, a lot of effort goes into controlling our path through life.
From the viewpoint of our inner narrator, it seems we have a lot to decide and a lot of free will to exercise.
Not quite, Hume would say. Philosopher Julian Baggini, in his book The Great Guide, has a helpful summary of Hume’s ideas on free will: