The Road Not Taken
We all know the Robert Frost poem:
By taking the road less travelled by, the universe was forever changed. There is, in our experience, no going back. We can only go forward. And, by taking the road less travelled by, the universe is and forever will be different than if the road less travelled by was not taken.
The really BIG question is whether free will played any part in the matter of the road not taken. Would everyone choose the road taken because it was grassy and wanted wear? No. Others might not select this road because it was grassy and wanted wear. Some prefer the interstate, other like the back roads. But do they really have a choice?
The easy answer would be that we have no free will. We are, each of us individually, programmed from birth to respond in a certain way to our environment and, as such, have no responsibility for our actions, whether deemed good or bad by others. We, as humans, are just along for the universal ride.
"But", you say, "I do what I very well please, thank you."
OK. Suppose for the moment that you are confined to an empty spherical room in outer space without a time-keeping device, cell phone, or lighting. Further suppose the room is maintained at that temperature the body perceives as neither hot nor cold. In other words, you have lost all sensory contact with the universe around you. How's your free will doing now?
"Ah", you say, "but I am still free to think".
Fair enough. Now suppose you were confined to that room at birth and have never had any sensory contacts. What do you think about? How do you think about it?
Seems to me that free will is something achieved through experience and reasoning. Without experience we cannot have reasoning and without reasoning we cannot have free will. Without free will, neither road would have been taken and Frost would have been left stranded there in the yellow wood forever.
Just like a computer waiting for a "yes" or "no".
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could.
To where it bent in the undergrowth,
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
By taking the road less travelled by, the universe was forever changed. There is, in our experience, no going back. We can only go forward. And, by taking the road less travelled by, the universe is and forever will be different than if the road less travelled by was not taken.
The really BIG question is whether free will played any part in the matter of the road not taken. Would everyone choose the road taken because it was grassy and wanted wear? No. Others might not select this road because it was grassy and wanted wear. Some prefer the interstate, other like the back roads. But do they really have a choice?
The easy answer would be that we have no free will. We are, each of us individually, programmed from birth to respond in a certain way to our environment and, as such, have no responsibility for our actions, whether deemed good or bad by others. We, as humans, are just along for the universal ride.
"But", you say, "I do what I very well please, thank you."
OK. Suppose for the moment that you are confined to an empty spherical room in outer space without a time-keeping device, cell phone, or lighting. Further suppose the room is maintained at that temperature the body perceives as neither hot nor cold. In other words, you have lost all sensory contact with the universe around you. How's your free will doing now?
"Ah", you say, "but I am still free to think".
Fair enough. Now suppose you were confined to that room at birth and have never had any sensory contacts. What do you think about? How do you think about it?
Seems to me that free will is something achieved through experience and reasoning. Without experience we cannot have reasoning and without reasoning we cannot have free will. Without free will, neither road would have been taken and Frost would have been left stranded there in the yellow wood forever.
Just like a computer waiting for a "yes" or "no".
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