Gazing in the Mirror

November 3 - The Determinate of Choice

Our greatest power is
the power of choice;
our greatest freedom
lies in the exercise of
our power of choice.
~ William Curtis

We cannot lead a
choiceless life. Every
day, every moment,
every second, there is
a choice. If it were
not so, we would not
be individuals.
~ Ernest Holmes

In the 365 Science of Mind for Nov 3rd, Ernest Holmes appreciates the Nobel Prize physicist Arthur Compton which led me to take another look at this man. I discovered that he had been head of Washington University in St Louis during the time that my in-laws were attending there. I also learned that he had worked on the Manhattan Project in the early 1940s along with Ernest Lawrence, Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi underneath Chicago's Stagg Field. Yet none of these aspects of Compton's life were what interested Ernest Holmes enough to write about the man, nor even my own self this morning.

It was Compton's 2-stage model of free will which is similar to a concept of William James that catches both Holmes and my own attention today. From his foundation in physics, Compton arrived at an idea of human freedom based on quantum indeterminacy. He had this idea of "amplification" of quantum events with a factor of "chance". He was criticized for the misunderstood involvement of chance as it caused others to believe he was indicating it as the direct cause. In a 1955 Atlantic Monthly article, he explained that there is first a range of random possible events and that humans add a "determining" factor by the choices they make. Here's how he described it –

"A set of known physical conditions is not adequate to specify precisely what a forthcoming event will be. These conditions, insofar as they can be known, define instead a range of possible events from among which some particular event will occur. When one exercises freedom, by his act of choice he is himself adding a factor not supplied by the physical conditions and is thus himself determining what will occur. That he does so is known only to the person himself. From the outside one can see in his act only the working of physical law. It is the inner knowledge that he is in fact doing what he intends to do that tells the actor himself that he is free."

W Clement Stone said "You can always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself". Stone was an optimist that believed that attitudes toward Life are the magic that creates success and he proved that with his very life, having been inspired by Napoleon Hill and Horatio Alger. Stone made the choice to proceed through Life with positive expectations and that was the determinate factor in the success that he achieved.

It can be somewhat daunting to realize that our choices create the destiny that ripples throughout human civilization. That the choices we each make are that important to the outcome. Choice is not something that should be made only on a whim of self-interest even though that can and often does guide our choices. If we were but to truly entertain the full import of each choice that we make knowing that it would prove to be the determining factor in a whole chain of events, we might choose more carefully without being so totally paralyzed by the significance of our choice that we can't make a choice at all.

The freedom to choose is also often called free will. There are some who deny that we have any "freedom" in what we choose but I am not one of those. We each make our own life meaningful or not. Our life is not naturally meaningful and at the same time the fact that we each do make choices and do so frequently over time means that our existence is meaningful to Life and other human beings. Victor Frankl echoes Compton when he says "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and the power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom". Make choices as if your very life depended upon it because what your Life ends up being and meaning does depend upon your choices.

~ perspective

Life is full of continuous
circumstances and only I
can choose how I wish to
interpret them.
My choices are a determining
factor in the outcomes that
unfold from that point on.
In my spiritual practice only
I truly know my intention
and I realize that other people
observing my participation may
see only the natural unfolding
of understandable consequences.
Seeing the impact of our conscious
choices is one value of having a
spiritual practice, yet this practice
is only able to inform us privately
within our own mind of its validity.
There are many factors that have
an impact on the manifestations
around us, however our personal
response, our attitude and our
choices are the only things that
make a personal REAL difference.

#chance #choice #freedom #intention #optimism #outcome #paralysis #physics #response #significance