In recent years some physicists have proposed that quantum mechanics proves that we have free will. Huh? At first I thought they were referring to that pre 20th century debate, determinism vs. free will - personally, I see that was a debate over which fallacy was true... . Certainly, quantum mechanics blew determinism out of the water years ago. However, disproving determinism doesn't prove free will. Surely those physicists are thinking something else, but what? It's difficult to 'think' about the world from another mind's eye. Shoot, it is hard enough sorting out my own mind.

Then, today, I got a glimmer. First, their view boils down to this: Our act of observation determines the state of 'Schrodinger's cat', and thus proves we have free will. Ah ha! perhaps the answer lies in the words "our act of observation", or more narrowly in the word "our". I-we-mine-our, all express the central illusion of self - 'I am'. A belief in free will, implied or explicit, flows naturally once we believe in 'I am'. Thus, in a round about way, the ideas 'I am, I observe, I act', etc., become a 'proof' of free will. I'm fairly certain they all believe in 'I am', and thus by extension, free will. Is it really just that simple? Hmm...? Perhaps.

Both we and all the other animals have a visceral sense of self. Even viruses, though that 'sense' doesn't occur in a brain's hypothalamus and limbic areas like 'higher animals'. Animals are very present in their sense of self. We have an idea of self (an emergent property of our large brain) which 'mirrors' the visceral sense of self. The idea that 'we are' is formed from the remembered shadows of past experience and current needs and fears, which are then projected into an imagined future. This idea of self feeds right back into our emotions (limbic system, etc.) from where those visceral needs and fears arise. Around and around, back and forth, each feeds on the other: the idea re-enforces the sense, which re-enforces the idea, until we learn 'I am, therefore I chose' and 'I am, therfore I am responsible'. It all happened to us naturally. My how nature has hoodwinks us.

*Note: This belief in 'I am' (and indeed all belief) leaves us contending with that which is naturally so (i.e., what is vs. our idea of what should or shouldn't be). The only way to enter the gateway of the manifold secrets is by softening the glare of what we believe to be so.