In Praise of Free Love

by Ken Brown

In the comments on my post about free will, doctor(logic) made a statement that I don’t want to fall off the main page unnoticed. Arguing that accepting determinism would not adversly affect our experience, he provides the following example:

If we could explain the details of a love affair in terms of chemistry, that wouldn't really make much difference to the experience. We still "feel free" to weigh our options and decide according to how we feel.

I think this example itself illustrates the danger of deterministic thinking. What is “love” anyway? Is it a rush of emotions? Attraction? If that’s all it is, then I could make his statement even stronger: we already know that this is essentially a chemical phenomena. Truly, the fact that we can tie our emotions to certain hormones doesn't change our enjoyment of the sensations they cause. In that sense, determinism does not impact the experience.

But note that we have now redefined love in terms of chemistry. In the process, we have lost the very thing that makes it valuable: choice. Love is not infatuation, though such emotions can strengthen it. Love is the choice to treat another “as you would treat yourself,” to “consider another more important than yourself,” to “put someone else first.” It is the choice that makes it love, not the chemically induced emotions sometimes associated with it, nor even the actions it produces. Selfless action without choice isn’t love, it’s slavery -- whether chemically or socially induced.

In love as in life, choice is inherent to our experience. To leave it out is to leave love out, and that seems a poor trade for determinism.

Comments

[doctor(logic)]

"It is the choice that makes it love, not the chemically induced emotions sometimes associated with it, nor even the actions it produces."

Hi Ken,

What is weighed when we make such a choice?

You cite infatuation as one variable. Practical considerations and predictions about what a future would be like with this other person are also variables. As are the opinions of those we trust. So, it seems to me that, if anything, we fail to choose when our choice is not a "determination." Either we have reason to choose as we do, or it is random.

Your last post at my blog got me thinking. "Free" seems to be a relative term. A decision can be free of constraint by a particular variable, but can only be 100% free when it is independent of all constraints, and in that case, it's random.

In normal usage, we say a choice is not "free" when we cannot choose the option we want most. When agencies external to our present selves force a decision we would not pick otherwise. The deterministic forces that made us who we are today are often regarded as non-coercive when we talk of free decision-making. For example, my history and upbringing may have provided me with a preference for romantic comedies. I don't usually consider that history to be coercive of my decision to like certain films, despite the fact that it determines them. Instead, I regard my history as, er, character-building. :)

Yet, there are certain events in my past that have shaped my present character in ways I don't like, and I wouldn't mind being free of them.

Thus, freedom and coercion seem relative to the super-ego. We don't feel coerced when we get what we want, even if what we want is deterministic.

[Ken]

doctor(logic),
“"Free" seems to be a relative term. A decision can be free of constraint by a particular variable, but can only be 100% free when it is independent of all constraints, and in that case, it's random.”

Yes! Absolutely! Freedom is not independence from all constraints (which could rightly be called randomness), it is independence from various *external* constraints, and it is most definitely a relative concept.

There are certain things that I am free to do and others that I am not. I can choose whether to breathe or not; I cannot choose to live off carbon dioxide instead of oxygen. I can choose to circumvent gravity in an airplane; I cannot choose to ignore it all-together. Due to the resources and gifts available to them, different free agents might have different (or different degrees of) freedom -- it doesn't have to be absolute to be real.

It seems clear to me that our universe is a mix determinism and contingency (which is not to say, “randomness”). This, I think, is the philosophical implication of quantum mechanics and non-linear dynamics (i.e. chaos theory). In that context, one of he key features of life is the ability to find the proper balance between these two aspects of reality, and exploit it. Part of being alive, then, is being able to *make use* of various contingencies -- to impose a determination on various events that are not *pre*determined –- for one’s own ends.

Various species have managed to do this to varying extents. A single human can quite obviously impose its own determinations on a great deal more contingencies than a single amoeba can, even while other contingencies remain beyond our reach at the present time (which opens up the question: is there a being capable of exploiting *all* the contingencies of our universe?).

Biological and technological advancement can also open up new areas of contingency. The genetic code provided vast new realms of possibility not available to non-living things. Multicellularity opened up yet more. Human language opened up even more, engineering, still more. The hope some hold for transhumanism is that it would open up yet further contingencies not currently available to us (and, it hardly needs to be said, each new freedom brings a new responsibility to use it wisely).

Life’s ability to open up and then make use of various contingencies is, to me at least, patently obvious. As I said on your blog, this freedom is not an escape from causality, it is the ability to choose which cause will be decisive. The contingencies inherent in our universe will work themselves out in one way or another –- the gift of life is the ability to guide (to a greater or lesser extent) how that will happen.

We have the opportunity to impose a determination on certain events that have been left open to us; I hope we won’t waste the chance.

[doctor(logic)]

Ken,

After reading this, I was going to criticize you for spoiling all my fun by agreeing with me. Then I read your response to my last comment on your last thread on this topic, and I'm not sure where we stand.

Let's standardize our terminology.

"Physical determinism" means that final states are constrained by initial states by the laws of physics. Total physical determinism would mean that, in principle, you could have predicted what I am typing now a million years ago. Assuming, that is, you could have measured and simulated all the matter and energy within a million light-year radius. The antonym of physical determinism is "physical randomness".

"Psychological determinism" refers to those events that would have occurred independently of mental states. That is, it refers to events beyond the control of our decision-making. Earthquakes are psychologically deterministic. What we eat for lunch is generally not. The antonym of psychological determinism is "psychological freedom".

Well, my claim is that the two kinds of determinism are largely independent. The universe could be 100% physically deterministic, yet psychological determinism would be * less * than 100% because there would be events that can be changed by our mental states.

Therefore, Cmdr. Data can be fully physically deterministic, yet psychologically free. So can we.

Are we in sync?

[Ken]

doctor(logic),
I think your definition of physical determinism is workable, though I don't know why you continue to contrast it with randomness rather than contingency.

Your definition of psychological determinism leaves me a bit puzzled, however. You say that we could have psychological freedom even in a fully physically deterministic universe. I can grant this as a logical possibility because I believe in the soul, but I'm not sure how you propose to explain it in a closed universe (and even I'm hesitant to embrace the kind of Cartesian dualism that would probably be necessary even in an open one. As an aside: Classic Christian orthodoxy is *not* dualistic, rather it affirms that humanity is fully physical *and* fully spiritual -- there is no part of us (not even our minds) that is not fully a part of this universe, even while transcending it). You say:

“The universe could be 100% physically deterministic, yet psychological determinism would be * less * than 100% because there would be events that can be changed by our mental states.”

How can it be true that I could predict your precise actions one million years in advance *and* be true that you are psychologically free, as would seem to be required by this position? A Calvinist might disagree, but it seems to me that psychological freedom requires at least some contingency in the laws of nature. Since I don't think it is too difficult to show that such contingency exists (at least in principle), I'm not sure why we need to claim that these two kinds of determinism are fully independent.

That said, I think there is a real category difference between contingency in the non-living world, and the way life makes use of it, which it now sounds like you accept as well. If that is so, I'm not sure what about my comment about Cmdr. Data bothered you.

If you still intend to distinguish such "psychological freedom" from classic free will, I'm curious what distinction you see.

[John]

I quite like these related references on emotional-sexual understanding which is the essential key to love altogether.

www.beezone.com/AdiDa/sex.htm

www.dabase.net/twoarmc.htm

www.dabase.net/beyoedip.htm

[doctor(logic)]

Okay, Ken, I think I see where I am confusing you. :)

Let's assume that Cmdr. Data's mental states are totally physically deterministic. We know what his mental states are - they are patterns within his brain. Patterns for various concepts are encoded in various places, and Cmdr. Data is aware of his own thoughts because he uses some parts of his brain to observe the operations of his own brain. Data knows what his desires are because he has self-awareness. As with humans, Data's desires are not fully fixed by his initial programming because he has the ability to alter his desires based on experience.

When Data claims that he is "free" to choose what he will feed his cat, he means that he has two or more foods he can feed his cat, and it is within his power to compute which food he will prefer to give Spot, and then carry out the physical operations that will act out his will.

Data is not psychologically free to conquer the Romulan Empire single-handed because he lacks either the mental capacity to know how to do so, or he lacks the physical ability to act out his will to do so. The continued existence of the Romulan Empire is psychologically deterministic for Data.

Everything I have said here applies perfectly well to Data, even though he is a physically deterministic machine. Indeed, the whole world could be fully physically deterministic and all of the definitions I have used still apply. Psychological freedom has a very specific definition that applies equally-well to physically deterministic systems.

Finally, let's apply this to humans. When we say we are "free to love the person of our choice," what do we mean by that? Do we mean that we have the freedom to change history that made us who we are, or that we are free to alter history throughout time to arrange that certain possible lovers existed or failed to be conceived? No, we are not free to affect the things outside our control, like past history. Yet it is history that determines our very desires and present thoughts. We don't choose our desires, they are imposed upon us by causality and history. Where we do have a choice is in applying those desires to the selection of lovers we have at hand. That is the part of the choice which is free, and which we experience. However, in a physically deterministic universe, that choice is 100% pre-determined.

Just another refinement on the term "choice". Choice is a feeling of weighing options and selecting an option based on values. Modern computers make choices of a kind, but they don't * feel * themselves make choices. That is the difference between conscious experience of decision-making, and just plain decision-making. Of course, it is an open question as to whether machines will one day have consciousness like we do. Likewise, it is an open question as to whether humans are deterministic machines. That we feel ourselves make decisions is not a test of determinism.

Conclusions:

1) Some physical determinism is necessary for choice to make any sense.

2) Total physical determinism is irrelevant to psychological freedom. Psychological freedom does not measure physical determinism. It measures the ability of perceived brain states to choose and act on perceived physical states. It doesn't matter whether those perceptions were pre-determined.

[Ken]

doctor(logic),
Before going on, let me make sure I understand you. Are you saying that psychological freedom is nothing more than the *perception* that things could turn out more than one way, independent of whether they actually could?

Does that mean that in a fully physically deterministic universe, psychological freedom would really be a position of ignorance, a lack of full self-awareness? For instance, if Data were fully physically deterministic, then his “psychological freedom” that he *could* feed Spot one of two different things, would be nothing more than a failure to fully consider his own past history/desires/programming/etc., which would inevitably combine to force him into one and only one choice. Whereas if Data were *not* fully physically deterministic, then his “psychological freedom” concerning what to feed spot would be a true insight into reality; he could fully consider his own past history/desires/programming/etc. and come to the conclusion that either option remains open to him.

Is that what you’re saying?

[doctor(logic)]

Ken,

Very close, but not quite. I'm also saying that to claim that physical determinism renders psychological freedom defunct is to redefine psychological freedom in a question-begging fashion.

I'm saying that psychological freedom is a perception that * always * derives from a decision (conscious or otherwise) to ignore certain causes and focus on others. Because the perception of freedom necessarily ignores a broad class of deterministic causation, it is blind to whether or not the universe is 100% deterministic.

Therefore, it is a confusion to claim that our feeling of freedom derives from some lack of causal determinism, when the feeling is intrinsically blind to whether or not determinism is complete.

You ask whether, in a deterministic universe, psychological freedom would be a position of ignorance. The answer is no because in judging freedom, we are only considering a subset of causal connections. For example, suppose you state that "the government leaves me free to decide which books to read." You can verify with high precision that fact that the government does leave you largely free to read the books you want to read. This knowledge remains perfectly valid whether or not the universe is 100% physically deterministic. Even if what you want was physically determined at the Big Bang, it wouldn't matter - that wasn't the question you were asking.

You are assuming that the term "freedom of choice" can apply without cordoning-off certain causative factors for consideration. I'm saying that this is taking the term "freedom of choice" out of context (out of its Wittgensteinian word game). If you ask whether the entire universe is deterministic, you can only speak of physical determinism, whose complement is randomness.

"Whereas if Data were *not* fully physically deterministic, then his “psychological freedom” concerning what to feed spot would be a true insight into reality"

Again, it is only as true for non-deterministic Data as it was for deterministic Data.

Remember, if the universe is not 100% deterministic, then it has randomness to fill up the complement. 98% determinism means 2% randomness. That's just a mathematical truth. Either the present depends on the past or it doesn't. That which doesn't depend on the past is utterly random. To deny this, we have to reject the claim that we can model the universe with mathematics, i.e., we have to reject the consistency of the universe.

[Ken]

doctor(logic),
Sorry about the delay. I have to admit, you’ve forced me to think more deeply about this issue than I have before (I hope I’ve done the same for you). I’ve spent the last few days rereading some old discussions of free will and determinism (yay for intro to philosophy textbooks :P) and while I think I have a clearer understanding of the issues, I’m a bit less sure where I stand than I thought I was. I'm not completely comfortable with any of the usual answers, so treat the following as tentative thoughts rather than an ironclad system:

I think we agree that whatever our “freedom” is, it cannot mean that the self or its effects are *uncaused* -- such “indeterminism” is no answer to the problem of free will. Yet I don't think the version of compatibalism you seem to be defending is sufficient either, compelling though it is. If I understand you correctly, you would define a “free” act as one resulting from volition, irrespective of whether our volitions are themselves caused (and, in effect, assuming they are).

That's all well and good, but I think it leaves out a major aspect of our experience of freedom. To my eyes, contingency is just as essential to our understanding of the world as causality (though neither is directly observable). Unless there is a real possibility that things could turn out differently than they do (not in some other world, but in our own) based on our choices, much of what humanity values would disappear as an illusion -- the distinction between love and slavery mentioned in this post is just one example -- and many of our common experiences, like deliberation, would become nonsensical.

I don’t think this means we must abandon causality for freedom, though, for I’m not convinced the former requires every cause to have only one possible effect. How would it violate our experience to imagine certain situations where Cause A could result in Effect B *or* Effect C, given *all* historical factors? Indeed, do we not assume this to be true whenever we *do* deliberate? If this were the case, then finding A, you could not be certain in advance whether B or C would result, without taking into account something more than the normal rules of physics (and sometimes, it might be impossible to predict at all). On the other hand, if you found either B or C, you could be sure that it resulted from A. In short, I am suggesting that the universe need not be predictable to be consistent, as in fact seems to be true at the quantum level. Let’s call this “Open Causality.”

Quantum mechanics is the stereotypical example of such contingency; but in other ways, life itself creates countless more. For instance, the genome is a chemical structure, but the rules of chemistry are tangential to its contingency and do not explain its specification. These contingencies are real (and Vast), yet they are *not* filled with randomness -- something more than chemistry is pushing them down particular paths. Whether this additional kind of determinism is intrinsic to earth life or external to it is a valid question, but an open causality in the laws of physics could leave room for it without violating the coherence of the universe.

This might seem far-fetched, but consider rationality: When we decide how to act, it is ideas and values -- in a word, *reasons* -- that we weigh, and reasons are not physical things themselves (doubtless they are stored and manipulated by physical structures in the brain, but they themselves are independent of the media in which they are expressed). Reasons do not cause physical reactions directly (their “weight” is purely metaphorical) and they hold no inherent causative power. And yet the conscious will makes them effective through action -- my hand grips a glass (one of the countless possibilities available to it) because *I* choose at this moment to give particular weight to the desire to drink iced tea, by reason of my enjoyment of its flavor. Of course, reasons do not arise ex nihilo, but they do seem to have a real independence from their own history (it doesn't matter why I like tea, only that I do), allowing each individual to shape and combine them at will. You could say my enjoyment of iced tea is the “cause” of my grabbing the glass, but that reason only became effective because *I* translated it into action.

Now you could join the psychoanalysts and take this to mean that the connection between reasons and action is an illusion -- a smokescreen for our-subconscious -- but is that not to abandon rationality itself (including, of course, knowledge of psychoanalysis and determinism)? It seems that the substrate-independence of reason forces us to admit to a different *kind* of determinism when we consider the the actions of the self.

In effect, this new determinism would fill in the randomness left over by physical determinism (e.g. compare the random walk of evolutionary design with the direct choice of human action). If my understanding of open causality is true, then such an independent determinism could be effective without violating the consistency of our universe –- it would simply choose which of the physically possible outcomes will actually result.

[doctor(logic)]

Ken,

"I have to admit, you've forced me to think more deeply about this issue than I have before (I hope I've done the same for you)."

Yes. Every time.

"To my eyes, contingency is just as essential to our understanding of the world as causality (though neither is directly observable)."

I tend to think of contingency as a situation not forced by laws of physics, but still subject to those laws. We tend to think of the locations of billiard balls in a physics problem as contingent, while regarding the laws that govern their motion as being fixed.

However, this view of contingency just disregards the randomness and determinism that led to the balls being where they were at the start of the problem. Contingency, like psychological free will, ignores the physical determinacy (and randomness, if any) that led to the initial state. In that sense, I would regard contingency as analogous to psychological free will for non-sentient systems.

Do you have another definition of contingency?

Your "open causality" idea is okay, but I don't see how it bypasses randomness. The fact that neither B nor C would happen without A means that something in A in conserved into the final state. Not everything is conserved otherwise A could only lead to B and not C. This is the partial determinism of quantum mechanics. Again, that which is not determined is random. If either B or C could happen from A, then the outcome is random.

In case it helps, I'll describe positronium. Positronium is like a Hydrogen atom with the proton replaced by an anti-electron. After some period of time, positronium decays with the electron and anti-electron annihilating one another and producing two gamma rays that exit in opposite directions. Seeing two gamma rays with this particular energy leaving a given region means positronium decayed (A). However, whether the photons leave in northwest-southeast directions (B) or northeast-southwest directions (C) is apparently random. There may be a preference towards more polar or equatorial trajectories, but the actual direction is random.

I don't see what open causality provides vis-a-vis free will. Can you elaborate?

Finally, you discuss reasons as non-physical things. A priori, that might be reasonable. I think the evidence is clear that they are physical, but let's suppose that they aren't.

We should then ask whether immaterial reasons are subject to rules of consistency. Here's where it gets a bit hairy. I'm not talking about whether it is possible for thoughts to be illogical (they obviously can be), but whether it is possible for thoughts to take place and yet not take place, or to reach one conclusion and yet not reach that conclusion. That is, is rational thought like history? The Battle of Hastings could not both happen and not happen. Likewise, my thoughts of love for someone could not simultaneously happen and not happen. Similarly, I do not dream of electric sheep without having seen electricity and sheep. There appears to be causation in rational thought. Well, this implies that rational thought is subject to the determinism-randomness complementarity also. Note that we do not demand that uncaused thoughts do not occur, but we have to face the fact that uncaused thoughts would be random.

Thus, you end up with two parallel systems, one physical, one rational, both subject to determinism and randomness. Escape seems impossible.

Again, let me know if I'm not understanding your concept here.

[Ken]

doctor(logic),
I actually agree with most of what you have said, but you are consistently missing the way I’m trying to tie this discussion with the common experience of love. I suppose I need to be more explicit (therefore I apologize in advance for the length of this comment):

I do not think that free will can be the conclusion of any deductive argument from first principles; it is certainly not necessitated by the laws of physics! My goal is not to prove free will, but to prove that there is *room* for free will. I take this backwards (and admittedly dangerous) approach because I think a certain kind of “freedom” is necessary to explaining the difference between love and slavery.

As far as I can see, the most important attributes of “free will” necessary to this distinction are: 1. our actions are caused by “us,” our volitions, etc; and 2. our volitions operate within an environment of real contingency. I think we agree that 1. is true but disagree on 2. Thus my goal in discussing contingency and open causality is to make room for 2. Of course, there is no logical reason why love and slavery must be anything other than illusions, but neither do I think we should lightly throw aside a distinction so central to human culture and self-awareness, unless the evidence leaves us no other choice. After all, I’m not a logical positivist. :)

Now, I think open causality can provide just the kind of contingency needed for 2. Don’t get me wrong, I rather doubt quantum mechanics itself has much to do with free will; it’s just a useful example that shows contingency can be a real thing, and not *merely* a relic of ignored causes. True openness to the future cannot be ruled out of the universe, though it remains to be seen whether it has anything to do with our topic.

Thus, while it is true that “contingency, like psychological free will, ignores the physical determinacy (and randomness, if any) that led to the initial state” this might not always matter, because those causes themselves could leave the relevant variables *open* to one degree or another. It seems to me that certain systems evidence an immunity to their own starting conditions, giving them a kind of “built in” contingency. That being so, this contingency might only be filled with randomness, but it also allows for a higher *level* of determinism, and that, I think, is what makes room for free will. I have hinted at this several times but haven’t made it explicit before now.

Consider a large and disperse gas nebula. It makes almost no difference where the atoms came from or how they got there; the laws of physics will ensure that given no external stimuli, they will continue to disperse until they reach maximum entropy. Now, within the realm of possible configurations for such a gas cloud (i.e. contingency) it is theoretically possible that all the atoms could clump together in one ball, though given the starting conditions, this would be highly unlikely. A sphere is within the realm of contingency for a gas nebula, but this arrangement is no more likely than countless other possibilities, indeed much less so.

But what if a nearby supernova disrupts the system just enough to allow gravity to kick in? Now the gas cloud *does* contract and form a sphere – a new star. Neither the particular details of the supernova nor of the arrangement of atoms in the original cloud make all that much difference to the final result (all stars have the same basic structure); but they do set the stage in which gravity works. For this reason, I would say that the nebula was contingent for star formation, but that this particular result only came about because gravity itself provided a “new” kind of determinism in the system. This determination was always possible, but only became actual when certain conditions were met.

Now consider DNA, it is nothing more than an aperiodic crystal made up of four different kinds of base pairs. While it doesn’t happen often, under certain non-biological conditions short strands can form spontaneously. When this happens, the sequence of base-pairs is contingent in the same sense that the arrangement of atoms in a gas cloud is contingent. It holds the capacity to store biological information (as a nebula holds the capacity to form a star), but the random arrangements arising from a “chemical soup” are vastly unlikely to do so (far less likely than the chance of a nebula reaching critical mass!). And yet, with the further conditions present within living things, this contingency is provided a new determination: the coding necessary to build an amazing array of biological structures.

It makes little difference in this context how life came to have the ability to impose this determination onto DNA. As long as certain conditions are met, there is a certain immunity to prior conditions here as well. Non-biological chemistry leaves a great deal of contingency with regard to the sequencing of DNA, while the various processes of life provide a new kind of determinism to fill in that randomness with order.

Now consider a human being. The arrangement of its atoms also leaves a great deal of contingency. It doesn’t much matter how the mouth and vocal cords form; once they do so they leave open the possibility of speech. If you’ve ever listened to an infant’s babbling you know that this contingency can be filled with randomness, but the conscious mind of an adult can also impose its own determination on this system, filling in the randomness of its contingency with words and sentences.

Finally, what of the human mind itself? It too has certain contingencies inherent in its organization that hold a kind of immunity to the causes that formed it. Here’s the key point: As in each of these other examples, the origin of our reasons -- through doubtless a mix of determinism and randomness -- still leaves a great deal of contingency (as is shown by the immensely varied use of them we all make). Since this is the context in which volition acts (and imposes its own determinations), it seems to be that there *is* room for a genuinely free will.

Thus, we can say that we are “free” to love (or exploit) not only because the choice is made by our volition, but *also* because the constructs within which our volition operates leave substantial contingency -- if our will turned a different way, there would be room for it to produce a different outcome, and that is all that is needed for free will. Our personal histories might make one outcome more likely than another, but they do not make choice impossible.

You can ask if our volition is itself contingent or determined by something else (our subconscious maybe?), but that is a question I can’t answer, and it may be irrelevant anyway. Like I said, I am not trying to prove that the will is free, only to give it room to be so. You can reject that as an illusion or unfalsifiable, but then (it seems to me), you must also reject the distinction between love and slavery as an illusion. Some might insist that logic requires such a conclusion, but if the choice is between an iron-clad logic and the reality of love, I suspect few will be willing to embrace that kind of “rationality.”

The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.
-Blaise Pascal

[doctor(logic)]

Ken,

You say

"As far as I can see, the most important attributes of “free will” necessary to this distinction are: 1. our actions are caused by “us,” our volitions, etc; and 2. our volitions operate within an environment of real contingency. I think we agree that 1. is true but disagree on 2."

and then

"As in each of these other examples, the origin of our reasons -- through doubtless a mix of determinism and randomness -- still leaves a great deal of contingency (as is shown by the immensely varied use of them we all make)."

I think I disagree with your first statement, part 2, and instead claim that we agree across the board. Determinism and randomness are complementary and complete categories, yet free will is not a measure of these things. Free will, in every ordinary use of the term, is as real as gravity.

The term "illusion" usually means that we are mistaken about something. However, I don't think my free will is an illusion. It is not a mistake for me to think that I am weighing options, then taking an action that has consequences. The weighing and deciding are all as real as anything, as are the resulting actions. I would only be mistaken if I confused free decision-making with some alternative to determinism and randomness. That is, the feeling that free will is in opposition to these physical necessities is what is illusory, not free will itself.

So, I think we agree on free will. Love may be the result of determinism and randomness, but it is proximately the result of free will.

Of course, this doesn't present the same moral or theological dilemma for me as it may for others. :)