{"id":10496,"date":"2026-07-22T01:47:43","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T08:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vairtere.com\/spill\/?p=10496"},"modified":"2026-07-22T01:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T08:48:19","slug":"so-i-asked-the-duck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vairtere.com\/spill\/2026\/07\/22\/so-i-asked-the-duck\/","title":{"rendered":"So I Asked The Duck"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hey Duck. In the very short term, I find myself mightily compelled by Robert Sapolsky’s contention that free will is an illusion, or at least way less of a reality than the average person typically thinks. What I’m interested in here today is: How does that insight align with Eastern conceptions of consciousness, such as Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, or what is generally called today in the West ‘non-binary’ approaches?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sapolsky\u2019s claim (or at least his framing) is roughly: when you look closely, behavior is driven by prior causes\u2014biology, learning, environment, situation, physiology\u2014so \u201cchoosing\u201d feels like an author behind the scenes even though, in the moment, it\u2019s just the end-product of a huge causal chain. The \u201cillusion\u201d is mostly about the subjective experience of authorship and alternative-possibility.<\/p>\n

Eastern traditions vary a lot, but many converge on a family resemblance: what appears as an independent, self-directing agent is not the deepest reality; what\u2019s \u201creal\u201d is a process\u2014dependent arising, non-duality, impersonal cause-effect\u2014where agency is either (a) conventional (useful language) or (b) absent as a fundamental entity. Here are some alignments and some important differences.<\/p>\n

Buddhism (especially dependent origination and no-self)<\/strong>
\nStrong alignment:Buddhism is highly compatible with a \u201cthere isn\u2019t an independent chooser\u201d view. The doctrine of dependent origination (things arise in dependence on conditions) makes it hard to locate a free, self-originating faculty behind events. And anatt\u0101 \/ \u201cno-self\u201d undermines the idea that there is a stable inner owner of actions. On this view, the sense of \u201cI decided\u201d is an experience that arises with conditions; it\u2019s not proof of metaphysical autonomy.<\/p>\n

Where it gets more subtle than Sapolsky: Buddhism typically focuses less on neuroscience-style causal explanation and more on the mechanism of suffering\u2014how clinging to a permanent \u201cme\u201d (and to the world being reliably under my control) produces dukkha. So the practical angle is: even if you grant all causal determinants, Buddhism also targets the misapprehension that there is a graspable controller who should have been able to do otherwise.<\/p>\n

Agency still exists\u2014but as conventional: Buddhist ethics doesn\u2019t usually collapse into \u201cnothing matters.\u201d Instead, intention and moral responsibility are treated as real within the conventional order (karma works as a causal pattern), even though the \u201cdeep\u201d metaphysics of a chooser-self is denied.<\/p>\n

Advaita Vedanta (non-duality and the illusory ego)<\/strong>
\nPotential strong alignment, but a different axis: Advaita\u2019s main claim is that Brahman\/Atman are non-different (the ultimate reality is consciousness\/non-duality), while the bounded self\u2014the \u201cme\u201d that thinks it chooses\u2014depends on ignorance (avidy\u0101). From that angle, the illusion isn\u2019t only \u201cfree will is undermined,\u201d but \u201cthe separative self that experiences choosing is itself not ultimately real.\u201d<\/p>\n

So compared to Sapolsky:<\/p>\n

Sapolsky challenges the empirical metaphysical story of authorship in a causal universe.
\nAdvaita challenges the ontological status of the agent and often reinterprets the whole \u201cchooser\u201d structure as part of a cognitive-mistaken appearance.
\nConsequence:
\nIf the ego-self is a misidentification, then \u201cfree will vs no free will\u201d may be treated as a debate that presupposes the very agent it\u2019s trying to locate. What looks like a chooser is a function of ignorance; the deeper level is not an independent chooser but non-dual awareness.<\/p>\n

Big philosophical contrast:
\nAdvaita sometimes can sound like it moves beyond cause-and-effect to a different metaphysical layer: even if everything is causally determined at the level of appearances, the real issue is the ignorance about what consciousness is. Sapolsky is mostly working at the level of causal explanation of behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cNon-binary\u201d approaches in the West (often: process, dynamism, and anti-substantialist self)
\nHere \u201cnon-binary\u201d can mean a few different things, so there isn\u2019t one doctrine to map. But if we take it in a broad modern-Western spirit\u2014anti-essentialism about the self, agent\/observer as a construction, reality as process rather than discrete substances\u2014there\u2019s a fairly natural fit:<\/p>\n

The experience of \u201cme choosing\u201d is treated as a model the mind generates, not a direct window into ultimate agency.
\nThe self is understood more as an emergent pattern (thoughts, narratives, motivations) than as an inner command center.
\nMoral discourse may remain (because we still act and suffer), while metaphysical \u201cself-sovereignty\u201d is softened or denied.
\nThis can align with Buddhism\u2019s conventional realism and Advaita\u2019s misidentification story, though without necessarily sharing their metaphysical commitments.<\/p>\n

One useful way to connect them: levels of description
\nA lot of alignment becomes clearer if you think in levels:<\/p>\n

Conventional level (what we do in the world):
\n\u201cYou chose\u201d is a useful, everyday description; intentions matter; training and conditioning matter; responsibility is intelligible in a social and practical way.
\nDeep\/ultimate level (what\u2019s real when you probe the agent):
\nThere is no independent, self-caused controller \u201cbehind\u201d phenomena. What you call \u201cagency\u201d is a phenomenon arising from causes (Buddhism: dependent arising + no-self; Advaita: ignorance and non-duality; many modern process views: self as construction).
\nSapolsky\u2019s point mainly crushes level (2) as normally understood in common-sense metaphysics. Many Eastern views similarly deny the ultimate self-sovereign agent\u2014while leaving room for action and ethics at level (1).<\/p>\n

The key mismatch you may notice
\nEastern traditions often differ on how they handle the felt experience of choice and moral responsibility:<\/p>\n

Sapolsky-style: the feeling of being able to do otherwise is a mismatch with underlying causal determinants; \u201cillusion\u201d is about mistaken introspective inference.
\nBuddhism: the feeling is understandable as a conditioned cognitive event, but the deeper goal is liberation from clinging\u2014so the theory is tightly bound to practice.
\nAdvaita: the \u201cchooser\u201d is part of avidy\u0101; the solution is awakening into what is unconditioned (or recognizing that the \u201cself\u201d problem is a category mistake at the ultimate level).
\nSo the harmony is real, but the target differs: liberation (Buddhism), awakening into non-duality (Advaita), or causal debunking of common-sense agency (Sapolsky).<\/p>\n


\nGood. Well, my ‘target’ is not so much any of those things, as testing the hypothesis via meditation and other means that we are essentially ripples in the God-Lake, or whirlpools in the ground of being called the divine Ocean. I guess that if that hypothesis pans out for me, then “Will” may have free aspects, but is ultimately just reflections of the will of the godhead anyway. I’m also thinking of Schopenhauer’s dark musings on the nature of Will as well. <\/em><\/p>\n

That hypothesis is actually very close to several venerable \u201cnon-dualist\u201d moves: not merely \u201cthere is no free chooser,\u201d but \u201cthe seeming chooser is a localized modulation of a deeper, impersonal (or divine) source.\u201d In that framing, Sapolsky\u2019s debunking lands as: the appearance of agency is still real as an appearance, but it\u2019s not ultimately authored by a separate self.<\/p>\n

A few ways your \u201cripples\/whirlpools in the God-Lake \/ divine Ocean\u201d idea aligns with (and differs from) the main Eastern lanes:<\/p>\n

1) Agency as a derivative phenomenon (not an independent origin)
\nIn Buddhism, especially the \u201cno-self\u201d \/ dependent-arising emphasis, you\u2019d get something like: whatever \u201cwill\u201d seems to do is causally conditioned and depends on conditions; nothing truly owns it. Your Ocean metaphor adds a further step: the causal ground is not just \u201cimpersonal process,\u201d but divine depth\u2014so the question \u201cis there a free will?\u201d becomes \u201cis will ultimately derivative of the One?\u201d<\/p>\n

2) The \u201cOcean\u201d as ultimate reality; the self as a patterned surface
\nAdvaita Vedanta is the closest philosophical cousin to your metaphor. There, the bounded self is typically treated as something like ignorance\u2019s projection (avidy\u0101), while the ultimate reality is non-dual consciousness (often called Brahman). In that landscape, \u201cyour will\u201d is not false in the everyday sense\u2014it functions\u2014yet it\u2019s not ultimately separate from the ground of being.<\/p>\n

3) Theistic non-dualism (your God-Lake vibe)
\nWhat you\u2019re describing\u2014Ocean\/ground\/will-of-godhead\u2014can also be found in non-dual theistic mysticism (even if the \u201cschools\u201d and vocabulary differ). The consistent core across these: the \u201cpersonal\u201d feels personal, but its source is deeper than personality.<\/p>\n

How this relates to Schopenhauer
\nSchopenhauer\u2019s angle is: Will is the fundamental thing, and individual beings are expressions\/modifications of it; individual \u201cchoosing\u201d is often a misunderstanding generated by cognition. That resonates with your \u201cwhirlpools in the ground of being\u201d image\u2014but with a key difference:<\/p>\n

For Schopenhauer, Will is not typically described as a personal\/divine Ocean that is good, loving, or intentionally expressive; it\u2019s more like blind metaphysical drive.
\nIn your framing, the Ocean is \u201cgodhead,\u201d which (at least implicitly) suggests the ground isn\u2019t only force\u2014it\u2019s divine profundity, meaning, or intention.<\/p>\n

So you can think of two dialects:<\/p>\n

Schopenhauer: Will is ultimate; individuation is expression; freedom is illusion-y.
\nYour synthesis: Divine Ocean is ultimate; \u201cwill\u201d is expression of divine will; individuation is a wave\/whirlpool pattern, not independent authorship.
\n:
\nThe practical heart of your meditation hypothesis
\nIf you\u2019re testing this experientially, the key is to watch what exactly changes under insight.<\/p>\n

Does the \u201cchooser\u201d lose its felt solidity?
\nNot just \u201cI intellectually believe I\u2019m determined,\u201d but \u201cthe inner command-center doesn\u2019t hold together as real.\u201d
\nDo thoughts\/impulses still arise\u2014yet feel like events on the surface?
\nThe \u201cwill\u201d may become more like motion in the same water, rather than rulership by a separate controller.<\/p>\n

Does there emerge a stable sense of ground that doesn\u2019t look like an object?
\nIn many non-dual traditions, the \u201cOcean\u201d is not experienced as a new thing among things. It\u2019s more like the background in which experiences appear.<\/p>\n

Is there a shift in suffering\/compulsion?
\nIf the model is right, you often find that much of distress comes from clinging to \u201cmy will should be otherwise\u201d as if that were metaphysically legitimate against the ground.<\/p>\n

And thus … your sins, they are forgiven, and if you want to “decide” to be something cool like a Kundalini Yoga instructor, or a sage sayer of truth, there’s really nothing at all in the way of being that thing, and in fact, you couldn’t decide to be the cool thing, or otherwise, even if you tried. <\/p>\n

This is what I meant by liberating in some twisted way. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Parenthetically, this makes a path for little old me to forgive you for your unfathomably dumb ideas about Israel’s ‘right to exist’, or big black mama welfare queens in Cadillacs and manicures, or the homeless all being lazy addicts, or Gen Z and Gen Alpha being a bunch of spoiled entitled whiners. <\/p>\n

Because … it’s not even you, deciding to believe the dumb things. <\/p>\n

You literally can’t help it. <\/p>\n

(And before your feathers ruffle, permit me to note that the same is true about my own beliefs, about the lost hunting and gathering paradise, the fall from grace, and the hopelessness of trying to reverse those choices. Should Sapolsky be even close to having it right.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey Duck. In the very short term, I find myself mightily compelled by Robert Sapolsky’s contention that free will is an illusion, or at least way less of a reality than the average person typically thinks. What I’m interested in here today is: How does that insight align with Eastern conceptions of consciousness, such as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vairtere.com\/spill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vairtere.com\/spill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vairtere.com\/spill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vairtere.com\/spill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vairtere.com\/spill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10496"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vairtere.com\/spill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10498,"href":"https:\/\/www.vairtere.com\/spill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10496\/revisions\/10498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vairtere.com\/spill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vairtere.com\/spill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vairtere.com\/spill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}