Back when civilization was first establishing its foothold on Earth, barbarians were those who killed without mercy. Wreaked havoc without guilt. And ruined people’s lives with no remorse.
The passage of millennia has seen the whittling away of these brutes’ populations and considering the quiet forces that must have come into play to supervene their predominance, I find that it could serve, to some extent, as proof that free will exists. A clear choice must occur—even inside a savage person’s mind—to demonstrate consideration for another human being.
Changing the course of one’s actions, because of how it could affect the life of another, involves a decision, oftentimes involving an irrational exercise of freedom of choice. It goes against one of the fundamental laws for the fittest to survive. That of self-preservation. To eat or be eaten. Looking out for number one.
I’m well aware of reductionists who argue that all our actions are nothing more than end results of a chain of physical processes. That we are led to each decision by the firing of neurons in our brain that precede a decision, occurring mere nanoseconds, in fact, before we feel the conscious urge to act. It is as if to say, that each of us goes through unconscious mental calculations that push our conscious selves to simply do what the product of the equation compels us to do. But here’s the thing. Experiments, done by neuroscience researcher Benjamin Libet, have demonstrated that there is a window of one hundred to one hundred fifty nanoseconds that grants us a moment to say no. A chance to exercise our “free won’t.”
In those experiments, people had been instructed to perform an action, and it was up to their discretion when they would choose to do it. What the experimenters discovered is that there is mounting electrical activity within the brain beginning as much as three hundred milliseconds before subjects report their first awareness of an urge to act. But more than that, the results also showed that there is a gap between the time the brain tells the body to act and the action itself. (This remains so even after deducting the nanoseconds needed for the activation of neurons by the primary motor cortex to cause us to move.) In other words, we have a tiny fraction of time in which we can consciously choose to defy.
Life, simply put, is the ability to disobey.Triana Jackson, a character from “a ghost for a clue” (immortology, book 1)
Unfortunately, conscious thought is slow. And thus, perhaps, in the context of infinitesimal time, both free will and won’t don’t have much of a chance to object. But let’s see things in action in real time, or should I say, in real-life time.
Imagine a man named Benjamin out on a picnic by a river with his wife and children, and as one of his kids squeals while being tickled, Benjamin fails to sense what his subconscious mind has detected above the squealing. Perhaps it was a faint cry or a splash of water. In mere nanoseconds, devoid of Benjamin’s voluntary participation, his brain has come to the conclusion that someone’s life is in danger and that, factoring in his age and physique, it would be beneficial to our entire species if someone with Benjamin’s robust health would help one of those in peril. Before he understands what he’s doing, Benjamin dashes off and jumps into the cold and roiling river. Only then—because of a momentary flash of an orange parka before it disappears beneath the surface—does he realize what has caused his actions. Now, consciously, Benjamin concludes, someone could be drowning.
By now, he’s gone way past his one hundred fifty nanoseconds of a window to say no. And as he paddles on the surface, he uses a good portion of a minute as he weighs his options. Do I dive in and risk my own life for some stranger? Do I choose to save myself and make sure my children grow up with a father? Or do I turn around now and tell my children he’d been foolish to jump into the water, and that helping strangers is a stupid notion perpetually clamored for by the weak?
At this point, as far as this article is concerned, it’s immaterial what Benjamin’s final choice is. The purpose of the story is to drive home my argument in favor of the existence of free will (and won’t). Each decision we make is a compilation of everything that leads up to each moment—including the unconscious firing of our neurons that precede our actions. Everything that makes up “you” comes into play putting the consequences of your deeds in your hands—and not just the outcome of an objective equation. Our genes, our upbringing, our present circumstances, and much, much more have to pause and ponder on the surface of life before we dive in (or turn away) with each decision, which makes our fate still largely unpredictable. Everything we know, and don’t even know we know, come into play with every action we take. The brain can issue the order for you to do one thing, but you are also given time to decline. Maybe you aren’t fast enough to say no this time. Or maybe you chose not to abide by modern equations and paid heed to an ancient, barbaric one. This is why we have concepts of remorse, guilt, and regret—for those times when our actions are performed before our consciousness could take over.
But the beauty about having a memory is that it gives us the capacity to learn.
Old world barbarians have dwindled in numbers because, even though they may have relished their power in the violence of the act, their free will—exercised way past the nanoseconds of their instantaneous moment of decision—eventually learned, and came to the conscious conclusion, that it is a far better world where people don’t live in fear.
For the modern times, barbarian is defined in one dictionary as “a person who has no experience of the habits and culture of modern life, and whose behavior you therefore consider strange or offensive.”
These days, obviously, the barbaric are far subtler in their ways. They refuse to wear a mask, or are flighty about washing their hands, or refuse to keep socially distant. Just like their ruthless predecessors, they think they shouldn’t be bothered with the whinings of the cowardly and weak.
These modern brutes seem to have this misconception that being able to mingle and move about as we please are all part of our inalienable rights to be free. They don’t seem to realize how much we have already given up and sacrificed willingly for something more sublime than simple freedom. It is what we call civilization.
It is the civilized who have given up “brutish liberties” such as spitting, walking around naked, talking while chewing, not saying please and thank you, and burping, farting, and blowing our noses without a care. Such simple everyday compromises we have all learned to make, for the love of a society that is civilized and conscious of how our simplest actions could upset another person.
It’s 2021. We’ve come a long way. And yet, one of the most civilized things we can do now—to show we care about the rest of society who no longer want to live in fear as we wait for vaccines to put an end to the pandemic—is to simply wear a mask, wash our hands, and keep our distance.