Our motivations are the lights that lead us to action. They draw us in and illuminate our way toward better or worse.  

Our greatest life motivation, whatever it may be, is our personal sun. It is light that drives us, sustaining the blessing or bane that grows in us. Our life purpose, our prime motivation inscribes our orbit.

If we cannot easily identify our prime motivation, then doing so is long overdue.

Even with worthy motivations to light our lives, it seems we too often find ourselves in darkness. We find our enlightened motivations dimmed by a fog of exhaustion or hidden by clouds of boredom. 

In these moments of clouded weakness, OTHER motivations grow brighter and hold our attention, usurping all else and causing growth toward lesser lights. The habits grown in these moments of darkness invite an internal war and our happiness is the first casualty.

All humans are conflicted. Some more often than others, some for longer than others, but the threat of clouded vision, darkened skies and conflicting motivations is a real and present danger for us all. 

This threat makes it all the more important for us to know our motivations and, most importantly, the environments in which they shine.  

We may not have the ability to remove our hardwired motivations by sheer willpower, but if we can identify our motivations (good and bad), then in moments of light we can choose a path that is free of future choices contrary to our better selves.

If we wish to no longer do “Action A”… then we must choose a path in which “Action A” is an inconvenient or impossible choice. 

This rule seems to assume we are free to choose. Are we?  Without an answer to this question our conversation short-circuits and we can go no further with confidence. We must pause and attempt to answer the question of free will.

This is not an easy question. We could approach the question from multiple angles, but the simplest approach is to define what it is we are questioning.

What does the “free” in free will mean?

Total freedom is defined as action or choice that is entirely free from outside control without any restraints. Such a concept is just that… a concept.  In the same way we might conceive of a flying horse with one horn and call this concept a “unicorn” we can also conceive of Total Freedom… but just because we can conceive of such a thing and talk about it does not mean this thing exists or has ever existed.  

Total Freedom, if it existed, would be the domain of a First Mover, a god, something outside of time and physicality because anything with a beginning in time is dependent on the conditions that brought it into being and thus is constrained in some way by those conditions and thus not TOTALLY free. 

To possess TOTAL free will would also seem to be beyond the reach of gods, for even they would not be free to do ANYTHING… at the very least they would not be free to choose to have never existed.

So unless we think we are gods, we can say with confidence that the “Free” in free will is not TOTAL Freedom.

Is this free a lesser freedom?

Is anything free at all if everything is limited by the laws of the universe? Are the laws themselves free?

1+1=2 is not a designed law nor is it free to be anything other than what it is… it is simply a brute fact.  

What we call “freedom” is a term of convenience. Choice is no more “free” than rolling dice is “gambling”. A human’s ability to perceive, measure, and calculate the physical forces acting upon a die is not sufficient or quick enough for us to calculate the die’s final score but our unknowing does not mean it is unknowable and our ignorance does not give birth to chance from nothing.

Every roll of the dice can be calculated precisely if the initial states and forces are known. For an intelligence equipped both with sufficient perception and the neural hardware required to make the calculations throwing dice is not a game of chance. Though we know that rolling dice is not truly a game of chance, it is effectively a game of chance to us.

We label our ignorance of the underlying causes and forces involved in the toss of dice as “gambling,” not because it is truly chance but because it is a convenient way to describe a process too complex for us to understand.

Knowing that dice is not technically a game of chance does not make the game less fun nor does it remove the requirement to roll the die in order to advance the game.

Knowing that the images on a movie screen are not real does not destroy the joy of watching a movie. And while the final frames of a movie were long ago developed and set… this reality does not mean the frames that come in the middle of the film are without purpose. Each frame in our film is as necessary as the first and last.

Knowing we are fated to die does not lessen the point of living or cheapen the value of life, rather it makes life all the more important and valuable.

Some part of ourselves may object that a world without free will somehow disempowers us but we cannot be disempowered of a power that was never ours to begin with. Free will had never been within our grasp. We are all fated, but having a fate does not mean our actions are unimportant or that we cannot take actions that will improve our lot in life.

We said that if we wish to no longer do “Action A”… then we must choose a path in which “Action A” is an inconvenient or impossible choice. 

We now see that the use of the term “choice” here is not meant to suggest Total Free Will but is a term of convenience used to describe our actions.  If we wish to avoid the consumption of large quantities of sugar then we shouldn’t set up house in a candy store. This advice may seem trivial and obvious but how many times have we not heeded our own good advice and instead put our faith in the lie of free will and pretended we would just choose differently next time?

If you no longer wish to roll sixes, quit playing with six-sided dice.