Is choice an illusion?

[Joan Marie]

In his wondefrfully titled play, The Plebians Rehearse the Uprising Günter Grass tells this story, which was based not so subtly, on fellow playwright Bertold Brecht who famously took a "wait-and-see" attitude during a revolt in East Berlin in 1953. In it is the story of the man who said no:

There was once a little man who lived peacefully in a little house and one day a powerful official came to his door and said, "Will you serve me?" The little man did not say a word but he let the official into his house and for 7 years he fed him and served him. Finally the official grew so fat and indolent that he died. The little man quietly wrapped the official's body in a blanket and threw it out of the house. Then he washed the bedstead, whitewashed the walls, breathed a sigh of relief and answered, "No."

You could say this is a story of hypocrisy, of thinking yes, but doing no. Or maybe it is just meant to be funny. Or maybe, as one of the great functions of literature, it is meant only to express complexity.

People seem to have a lot of trouble just living with complexity though. It is not a neat little box. It explains how we all tend to twist ourselves into knots to explain our decisions to other people.

When asked about his father's decision to go to East Berlin after the war, rather than the West, Stefan Brecht replied,

"Was there any choice? There's never a choice. When people think they have a choice, they're mistaken." You can't just pick one or the other. "That's all metaphysics and I'm talking about experience. If you can't understand what I'm saying there's nothing I can do about it."

Clearly, he was not interested in twisting himself into any knots.

We are all constantly asking the Tarot, "Should I do this or that?" There is a great 2 card spread where the first card tells you what will happen if you do and the second what will happen if you don't. And though it may ease our minds some when the cards seem to be agreeing with what we wanted anyway, or giving us a good picture to work with, is the choice really real or are we mistaken?

I don't think Brecht Junior was talking about fate. It was something else that he was unwilling to elucidate for our benefit.
Could it be that mysterious complexity that we are all so reluctant to give it's due?

He mentions metaphysics but it sounds more to me like physics, newtonian to be specific, about the laws of motion and inertia.
And according to those laws, things were set in motion a long time ago.

And we are constantly acted upon by circumstance that is completely out of our control. We know those things limit our choices, but are they in fact creating a path that combined with our basic character and immediate needs give us the illusion of choice but not an actual one?

So I asked the cards, Is choice an illusion?
Card 1 tells us what happens if the answer is yes, and card 2 if the answer is no.

The Tarot never fails me....

Card 1: If choice is an Illusion then we are guided by The Ferryman (six of swords). This card would say that we are guided (if we just realised it) from choppy to calmer waters. The Ferryman provides us with the gifts and skills we need for the journey. There is clearly a risk here.

card 2: If choice is not an illusion, if it is real, then we are in thrall of The Sharpshooter (eight of scepters). We scope out the landscape, put our eye on something and take careful aim. But, clearly we could be wrong. There is risk.

Card one is passive and card two is active. Yet, both require the sense of a choice being made. Is the choice to "go with the flow" what feels right, or to (fool yourself into?) thinking that you have some control.

Would you end up doing the same thing either way?

I forget how this game works. Am I supposed to make a final determination here or just wait for your comments?

I'll go out on a limb here and say, choice is an illusion because we always follow our hearts in the end and our hearts are gigantic complex places that even we often don't understand at all and could never explain if we were asked to.

Life is a jest, and all things show it.
I thought so once, and now I know it.

from the gravestone of John Gay, 1685-1732
author of The Beggars Opera
(the inspiration for Brecht's Dreigroschenoper, a.k.a. The Threepenny Opera)

[dodalisque]

It strikes me that your two cards are trying to tell us that the idea of free will and choice has something to do with the notion of speed. The 6 of Swords, the suit of Air or the mind, thinks that decisions are made slowly and methodically, like a boat drifting slowly along a meandering river, by assessing the pros and cons of a situation before deciding to act. The Sharpshooter on the 8 of Wands/Scepters fires her arrow with the speed of a sudden intuitive insight.

Certainly when choices need to be made we invariably have a feeling of urgency. The agonising torture that often accompanies making difficult decisions results from the fact that no matter how much we try to reason and think things out logically, because the ego feels as though it is the master of our consciousness and is the only thing to be trusted with the job of coming to a sensible decision, we are actually just killing time until our intuition makes the choice for us in an instant.

The "illusion" around free will is that it is the intellect that makes the decisions that reflect our will, when actually it is a mysterious, complex, unconscious process that is hidden from us. The boat is moving to the left, towards the past, because the intellect is constantly rehashing past experiences in search of guidance in dealing with the current situation, and also constantly replays the same old arguments in a frustrating cycle of repetition. The Sharpshooter is firing to the right, into the future.

The great English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, who was a famous cynic, claimed that a human being has about as much free will as the fingers of a classical pianist. I suppose in this analogy, the God (or the Soul) is the pianist and man's individual fate is the melody being played. The fingers, caught between these two other forces, don't have any choice about what notes are played.

But I think you have put your finger on a key tarot issue here. The moment of spiritual liberation represented by the dancing figure in the centre of the World card celebrates the dawning of actual free will. Decisions made by the mysterious unconscious process represented by the Sharpshooter are mostly the result of past conditioning. Until an advanced state of actual inner spiritual liberation is achieved we are like puppets being manipulated by external events or internal compulsions, such as the survival instinct or the pleasure principle. I think that is what Brecht Jr. is saying, except that as a good Marxist he refuses to accept the existence of airy-fairy metaphysical states. In his world there is no such thing as choice or free will, just materialist pragmatism.

The Gunter Grass story is not really about choice but about servitude, I think. The old man who does what the tyrant wants is no slave but is cleverly staying alive while giving the tyrant the means to destroy himself. This is far-sightedness, not capitulation. There is a difference between running away and escaping. To escape from the path of an avalanche is wisdom, not cowardice. The old man's strategy is similar to Christ's when the people come to him to ask whether they should refuse to pay taxes to the Roman invaders. Christ replies something like, "What is Caesar's, give to Caesar." Christ is taking the long view. He is basically saying, "Concentrate on spiritual matters and forget politics. When you and all humanity achieve God-realisation in several million years time then there won't be such things as invaders and politics and all will be well." The old man in Grass's s story is taking a long view, "7 years" to be precise, waiting for the ruling class to self-destruct and choke on its own greed, but Christ is taking the long, long view. Both are acts of faith actually - to resurrect one of our earlier discussions - a deep seated trust in the healing and balancing mechanisms that rule the universe.

But the idea of choice does come up a lot in tarot readings: the client wants help to make a decision and uses the cards to get a better idea of arguments for or against a certain course of action. The pros and cons are often so finely balanced that clients often want the cards to make the choice for them, to absolve them of the responsibility of choice.

To exercise actual free will we need to be open to the promptings of our "deep will", which is a completely different experience from "figuring things out" in order to make an "informed choice". Our intellectual ego likes to believe it has free will and can determine our path through life, but making important choices is invariably an unconscious process, and we often find ourselves halfway down a new path before we even realise a choice has even been made.

[Joan Marie]

I've been meaning to comment on this for some time. But I can't really add anything to what you've said here dodslisque.

Could it be that the role of the ego is kind of like the "volume control" of our choices? I mean to the extent we over-react or under-react.

Just throwing that out there. Maybe I can elaborate later or maybe someone else can pick that up.

EDIT- and by the way, I dont think under reacting is necessarily a bad thing. Like the guy in the story, sometimes it's just playing the long game. Sometimes you gotta do that because the short game is suicide, a no-win situation.

[dodalisque]

Could it be that the role of the ego is kind of like the "volume control" of our choices? I mean to the extent we over-react or under-react.

EDIT- and by the way, I dont think under reacting is necessarily a bad thing. Like the guy in the story, sometimes it's just playing the long game. Sometimes you gotta do that because the short game is suicide, a no-win situation.

Yes, I like that about the ego being like volume control. Intuition does seem sometimes to have a very quiet voice, when we are straining to hear what it is trying to tell us and often get it wrong. But sometimes we get a rush of intuitive certainty that is just stupid - as when writing poems while stoned or lines that occur to us in dreams and seem to make perfect sense at the time - and then we're very glad to have the ego around to say, Whoa. So the intellect is there as a sort of brake on the process. It reminds of that thing Robert Graves says about facts and truth: "Facts are not the same thing as truth, but have the power to veto untruth." I think the intellect reserves the right to veto. The intellect and intuition have a kind of Laurel and Hardy relationship.

[chiscotheque]

what strikes me when i see the 6 of swords here is the experience of being taken away, perhaps by Charon, over the waters of forgetting toward death. In the RWS image, the suggestion is resignation, retirement, and remove from the conflict. therfore, the over-riding sense i get here is something Plato said, that the only real choice we have is to not choose.

with the eight of sceptres (wands?) i see a person swimming against the current - as opposed to going with the flow as above. this suggests to me that humanity is dead set on acting in defiance of what is. they choose to believe what they want to believe, which is not a choice because it's a proclivity and what they believe isn't even a choice because it's the result of the person's empirical experience and genetic ability to perceive. this isn't to say our proclivities don't accomplish things - the sharpshooter's arrow may effect change - but to deduce from this causation that choice was involved is fallacious. still, accidents of a sort happen - the sharpshooter's arrow may pierce a sceptre and so save their life or someone else's - suggesting believing in false beliefs may be just as good as believing in truth (which just amounts to believing you're believing in truth) or not believing in anything - including choice - even though to do so would be true. in other words, choice doesn't exist; the closest one can get to choice is not choosing; but too much not choosing can be moribund; therefore, choose to not choose not choosing now and again so that, if nothing else, you either accidentally achieve something or - failing that - you at least feel good about trying.

[dodalisque]

believing in false beliefs may be just as good as believing in truth (which just amounts to believing you're believing in truth) or not believing in anything - including choice - even though to do so would be true.

So true. And false. Or so I believe.

[Charlie Brown]

Is illusion a choice?

[chiscotheque]

Is illusion a choice?

Get with the program, Charlie - we already determined that there is no choice, except to not choose. Therefore yes, illusion is a choice, if one chooses to believe it.

[Charlie Brown]

YOU can choose from phantom fears and kindnesses that kill.
I will choose a path that's clear,
I will choose free will.

[Joan Marie]

YOU can choose from phantom fears and kindnesses that kill.
I will choose a path that's clear,
I will choose free will.

is that Rush?

[chiscotheque]

wise men say, only fools rush in...
(Elvis)

[fire cat pickles]

"I don't even know why fools fall in love!" —Dorothy Zbornak

[Charlie Brown]

[dodalisque]

I'll just throw this into the mix, the last word on the subject of choice, surely one of the greatest poems ever written in English, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. Notice the repetition of the verb "taken" in the title and "took" at the end. Are choices really consciously "taken" or do they just happen to us at some mysterious prompting from our unconscious? How you deliver the last line in your reading of it can change the narrator's life story from self-congratulatory to sorrowful. The more you think about this damn poem the more of a puzzle it gets. The two "roads" are "really about the same", so why is he having a difficulty in making a choice? Does it matter which choice we make in the big scheme of things. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood" - why "roads" not "paths" or "trails" - do "all roads lead to Rome"? Will we end up celebrating or regretting each choice in later life whatever happens? Making it into the "story of our lives" as if we had consciously actually chosen it or planned it? How do we make decisions anyway? Where inside us is the decision made?

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, 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 traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

[Joan Marie]

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood" - why "roads" not "paths" or "trails" - do "all roads lead to Rome"? Will we end up celebrating or regretting each choice in later life whatever happens? Making it into the "story of our lives" as if we had consciously actually chosen it or planned it? How do we make decisions anyway? Where inside us is the decision made?

Thanks for bringing this poem into the discussion.

I'm probably not breaking any news to add that it is one of the most misunderstood poems of all time.

As you point out, he says that both the roads are basically the same. And it is later in life when he's explaining his choices, he'll add a romantic, although untrue, detail that the road he chose was in fact, the one less traveled by.

But it's not a poem about rugged individualism, it's about the self-deception we practice when examining our lives.

As we are living our lives we make hundreds, thousands of choices from what to do to how to feel, what grudges to carry, what risks to take, who to trust, what to believe in, and on and on. And at the time, it just feels random. Life comes at you and you deal with it as it does. It feel chaotic and like we are just navigating through the chaos sizing up every situation as it rises, evaluating and making decisions using whatever tools we have to work with at the time.

But later, when we look back at the whole thing, it doesn't look random at all. It appears like a well-crafted novel where you can easily explain the protagonist's motivations and logic. Part of the trouble here is we think we remember those things.

So maybe our assessment of our own choices isn't exactly accurate, especially the further we get from them. I think we'd all be pretty shocked to find ourselves back in the actual head of our xx-year-old self.

But you ask very good questions about how much we actually participate in our own decisions and how much of that is just a function of the "road" we walked down. And this is the significance of the word "road" as opposed to path, or trail or whatever. A "Road" seems like more solid to me. Not so easily gotten off of. A path can be easily abandoned, but when you choose a road, you are choosing a destiny, not that you can know what that means exactly. You think you do though. In fact I think a lot of us think we are choosing a path or a trail but it turns out to be a road.

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.

Making a choice, like which road to take, is an illusion. But it isn't the choice that is the illusion. The illusion is that you have asserted control in your life with your choices. But there is one thing you will have control of eventually; the narrative as you explain your choices.

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 traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

[Ciderwell]

I like his use of the words 'diverged' and 'difference' in the last stanza. Whether or not he intended to imply death (diverged and difference) it certainly creates a feeling of divergence. Where perhaps we can, through our leaps of faith, leave the well trodden path and escape 'the illusion of choice'.

[dodalisque]

I'm probably not breaking any news to add that it is one of the most misunderstood poems of all time.

A New York critic called David Orr wrote a terrific 200 page book devoted entirely to an analysis of the ramifications of this little poem - "The Road Not Taken" (Penguin, 2015). He brings in all sorts of subjects from the manipulation of choice by the advertising industry to split brain research to American party politics and foreign policy - a compendium of ideas about the subject of choice and free-will. Apparently Frost originally wrote the poem as a joke for his best friend Edward Thomas the English poet. Thomas desperately wanted to show Frost the very best sights that the English countryside had to offer, and no matter how beautiful a spot they found,Thomas was always convinced that the path they had chosen wasn't as good as the path they didn't take. It was a joke poem but Thomas never realised that he was the subject of the joke - which is funny in itself - and Frost never put him straight on that. The two of them only ever discussed the poem from a philosophical rather than a personal point of view.

[Joan Marie]

It was a joke poem but Thomas never realised that he was the subject of the joke - which is funny in itself - and Frost never put him straight on that.

So this poem also holds the distinction for being the world's most famous subtweet? Brilliant.

[dodalisque]

the world's most famous subtweet

That's because there must have been a bird or two tweeting in the yellow wood where the roads diverged.

[Juperkocom]

It's fascinating to explore the idea of choice as an illusion and the complexities it brings. The story you shared and the Tarot cards you drew shed light on different perspectives. The Ferryman (Six of Swords) suggests being guided through challenging waters, while The Sharpshooter (Eight of Scepters) implies actively aiming and taking risks.

Both scenarios involve making choices, whether it's going with the flow or seeking control. Ultimately, our hearts play a significant role in decision-making, and they are vast and mysterious places that defy easy explanations. It's a reminder that life is a complex journey, and our choices are influenced by various factors.

While the discussion is open-ended, it leans towards the idea that choice may be an illusion because our hearts often guide us in ways we can't fully comprehend or articulate.