Free Will and Human Evolution

The will underlies human motion, mental and physical.

As motion is interpreted in terms of the time concept, we are always moving into the future.

The future is undetermined until a choice is made giving direction to this motion.

One can drift or choose not to choose, but this too is a choice.

The action that follows from any given choice expresses the will.

The will can be observed, analyzed, and understood.

Considering what I have done, I can ask: Why did I do A? Considering a possible action, I can ask: Why do I want to do B? Through memory and retrospection, I can understand not only what I did in the past, but why I did it. Through imagination, I can examine action-possibilities before I choose and act.

Motion into the future is inevitable, as long as one is living. The specific character of that motion is determined by the individual will, which is free within the context of existence.

Human beings are not existentially concerned about ultimate causation but about immediate causation. Although one can ask questions about ultimate causation - if one has the will to do so - such questions cannot be answered. Such questioning, if overindulged, merely removes one from the sphere of practical activity, and may be existentially harmful, producing confusion and/or practical impotence.

The question is not, “Where did our desires come from?” The question is, “Do you or do you not identify with your desires?”

The first question is theological. The second question is existential. The first removes us from the practical reality of self-governance. The second is at the heart of it.

What matters in the human and existential sense is the practical use of the will, achieved through experience and self-knowledge. The individual is free to make choices, manage his own living processes, and work toward the realization of self-determined objectives. This what is meant by free will.

Practically understood and utilized, free will is the basis of self-development. It is therefore, also, the immediate cause of human evolution.