The idea of free will is an illusion. Our feeling that we are in control of our actions, our social encounters--even our thoughts--is misplaced.
MS. ThatÆs a statement so radical you might as well say that our physical sense of being present is also an illusion.
PH. I havenÆt said that. I do say that we do not ask to be born we have no control over our physical presence in the first instance. Moreover, material experience works on us, not the other way around. We are all subject to the laws of the universe, and the universeÆs physical conditions determine the whole of our experience.
MS. By that logic, it makes no sense for the human being who has figured out what you seem to have figured out to bother with the world at all. The only act of the will would be to opt for suicide.
MS. But what other conclusion can I draw?
PH. I am not advocating suicide. I am arguing that we must be realistic about humanityÆs position in the cosmos and the basis on which human experience takes place. Everything that happens to us comes from somewhere. Every decision we make and every action we take is caused by something. We have an impulse, and we act on it. We are motivated to do so by some cause.
MS. Or we donÆt act on it. ThatÆs simply an act of will.
PH. No, no. When we act on impulse that has a cause, our motive is a consequence of some set of reasons that make our action inevitable, or necessary. If we do not act on the impulse, ôit is because there comes some new cause, some new motive, some new idea, which modif[y our] brain in a different matterö and create some new impulse (418).
MS. Why is it so necessary for you to consider that whatever happens is somehow ônecessaryö? How do you account for the behavior of persons who are placed into situations not of their own making?
PH. They will act in a way to conserve themselves (419). I give the example of the thirsty man who can choose to take a drink or not, and...