on changing shapes

 Why would anyone choose to be a serial killer?

 

I mean, consider how stressful that would be: sneaking around, killing people, hiding bodies, evading police, pretending you're just a normal, everyday dude in social situations. Even if we assume the serial killer doesn't feel anxiety about any of these things, think of all the mental effort involved in just doing them to begin with. It just doesn't seem worth it, especially when considering that, if you get caught, you’re socially ostracized, kept in a cell your whole life, or just flat-out killed by the state. So then why do it?

 

One can only assume that, for whatever reason, the serial killer enjoys doing what he does. This is a chilling thought. But again, why?

 

You and I both know that, for quote-unquote “normal people,” even the very thought of killing another living person makes our stomachs churn and our skin crawl. Killing people just feels wrong. Yet, there are some people out there who kill their own children. What the hell is wrong with those people? Doesn't that fly in the face of almost everything we know about human behavior and biology, killing your kids? If, by some evolutionary urge, we are driven to reproduce, to make new little versions of ourselves, to propagate the species or whatever, then why would anyone ever, on purpose, kill their own children? It just doesn’t make any sense. So why? Why would anyone choose to be a serial killer? Why would anyone choose to kill their own children? Why would anyone choose to do something that so flies in the face of both evolutionary biology and societal norms?

 

Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer, but I have a few guesses, and my main guess is that, well, these people are just fucked up. I know this isn’t a very scientific answer, so please forgive me, but this seems to be the most logical conclusion. For the serial killer, the child murderer, the pedophile, and so forth, something has just gone horribly wrong in these people’s brains. I might even go as far as to say that these people just can’t help themselves. That’s the only explanation. They are driven by some insatiable Mephistophelian urge to kill.

 

Of course, this begs many questions, all of which fall squarely within the realm of philosophy. Meaning, today I’m going to talk about free will and determinism.

 

Determinism is this philosophical idea that everything, including human action, is determined by prior causes, or “antecedents,” and because of this, literally everything is predetermined, meaning “free will” is an illusion, i.e. it does not exist. Think of a ball rolling down a hill. Once the ball starts rolling, we know what’s going to happen next, it’s going to keep rolling until it loses momentum, as per the laws of physics, which should be noted are also outside of the ball’s control.

 

So now you may be thinking, “OK, but I’m not a ball,” and my response would be, “Well, are you sure?”, and then you’d look at me like I’m a crazy person before trying to find some way to leave the room as quickly as possible. Because, yes, a human being is not a ball, that’s true. Fair. But consider this, maybe we are, though? We may not physically be balls, but perhaps our actions are not so different from balls rolling down hills? This is certainly something to consider.

 

Most learned individuals in the field of psychology seem to agree that something has gone terribly wrong in the serial killer’s brain. But where and when did this “wrong” happen? When the serial killer popped out of the womb, was his brain already fucked up, or did it happen later? This is where some doctors or philosophers or whatever seem to disagree with each other. Some believe that, due to genetics or whatever, the serial killer’s brain is just fucked up right from the get-go, they’re just screwed right out of gate. Others believe that the serial killer’s psychology is molded through their environment and upbringing. And some believe that it’s a mixture of both of these things, that maybe certain people are born with certain brain chemistries that make them predisposed to becoming a serial killer, but also that their environment and upbringing sort of fosters this predisposition toward serial-killerdom, meaning, if you have a serial-killer-leaning brain, you may not end up being a serial killer after all, or maybe you will, based on a number of environmental factors.

 

If I had to pick, I’d probably land in the latter bucket, i.e. serial-killerdom is probably a mixture of both nature and nurture. Now one may assume that, if this is the case, a combination of both nature and nurture, then the serial killer is not predetermined from birth to be a serial killer, that there’s some level of outside control over them becoming a serial killer. Perhaps there is even some level of free will involved in choosing to become a serial killer, too.

 

But is there, really? Remember: ball, hill.

 

Let’s say you’re born with a predisposition toward becoming a serial killer. What that means is there’s already one strike against you having free will, or having a choice in the matter. The ball has already been pushed down the hill, so to speak. Now let’s say your father is an abusive asshole, and his abusive behavior rubs off on you in some way, and since you’re already predisposed to psychopathy or whatever, you start abusing people yourself, until eventually you do indeed become a serial killer. Or let’s flip it around, let’s say you’re born to a loving family, and they foster you in such a way that sort of “suppresses” the psychopathy, therefore you don’t become a serial killer. The problem is, in both of these scenarios, serial-killer disposition or not, you didn’t have the luxury of choosing your brain or your parents. None of us did. I mean, we didn’t even choose to be born, right? What this means is that, regardless of nature or nurture or both, whatever happens still seems to be predetermined, you don’t have much say in the matter. Your biology, your parents, the environment around you, these are all parts of “the hill,” so to speak, the hill that the ball is rolling down, “the ball” being “you” in this hypothetical.

 

So, basically, it’s looking really bad for “free will” here. It seems like everything is predetermined. It seems like we’re fucked.

 

But I think we’re doing one thing a disservice here, that thing being your choice in the matter.

 

You and I both know that, in the present moment, we are thinking about stuff and making choices about things. For example, you have chosen to read this journal entry, you have made it this far, and that seems like a conscious choice on your part, does it not? Yes, I may have influenced you to read this, maybe you saw the link posted somewhere, or maybe this entry popped up in your RSS feed, so perhaps your seeing this entry was not entirely your choice, but you did not skip over it, you chose to read it. That was your choice. It seems intuitively true that, at least in the present moment, we can make choices that determine our immediate outcomes. It does not seem like our choices in the present moment are controlled by our abusive fathers or whatever, for example. And if that’s true, that seems to suggest that “free will” is actually safe, that we can choose our own destinies, so to speak.

 

But if we examine this closer, perhaps this sensation of “choice,” or “free will,” or whatever you want to call it, is actually just an illusion. Let me explain.

 

I wrote a short story recently, and in that story, there’s this concept called “The Devil Gene.” It’s this plot device from this one game, Tekken 3, where the main character, Jin Kazama, is born with this “Devil Gene,” and it sometimes takes control of his mind and body. To quote the short story, “He had the Devil Gene. He was born with it. He couldn’t control it. When he’d get really mad, his eyes would go dark red, he’d sprout feathery black wings, and he’d shoot lasers out of a third eye on his forehead.” The reason the Devil Gene is important is because, well, I think we all have the Devil Gene inside of us, on some level. Obviously, we don’t sprout wings and shoot lasers, but we all experience unwanted bouts of rage, envy, despair, and so on. And when these emotions pop up, they often feel uncontrollable, as if we’re possessed by some ancient evil, as if we have the Devil Gene.

 

But it's not just the Devil Gene that feels spontaneous and uncontrollable: less-extreme emotions, minor annoyances, simple pleasures, random wants and desires, these all seem to flash in our minds without our express permission, which begs the question: are we really in control if we can’t fully control our own thoughts and feelings?

 

The immediate counter to this is, “Well, even if I do feel spontaneous emotions sometimes, I can still choose to respond to those emotions in different ways.” And yes, that seems true. For example, let’s say your friend makes you angry, so you choose to punch him in the face, or maybe, instead, you choose to leave the room, sit down in the lotus position, and practice your breathing, to calm down. It seems like we have a choice in the matter here. But the problem with this is that however we respond to the anger, we are still having to respond to that anger to begin with, meaning we are still being controlled by that anger. So whether you choose to punch your friend or sit in the lotus position, either choice would have been inspired by an emotion that popped up without your express permission. The emotion, which was outside of your control, was the antecedent to your behavior, and therefore your behavior, regardless of whatever that behavior actually was, was outside of your full control. So, even when we’re quote-unquote “controlling” our emotions, we’re still being controlled by them, otherwise we wouldn’t have to “control” them to begin with.

How this relates to you reading my journal entry is sort of tangential, but basically, you had a desire to read this entry, and then you chose to read the entry, but the initial desire was sparked by my posting of the entry to begin with, therefore your decision to read my journal entry was not entirely of your own choosing. I’m sorry to say this, but you were manipulated into reading this journal entry, at least on some level.

 

This reminds me of this one great lyric from one of my favorite songs, and it goes, “Does the body rule the mind, or does the mind rule the body? I don’t know.”

 

To answer Morrissey’s question with something better than “I don’t know,” perhaps the mind and the body are not separate things at all, perhaps they are one and the same? I realize I just answered a question with a question, which is probably bad form, but again, I don’t really know the answers here, and I don’t want to pretend like I do. This is just philosophy, after all, which is pretty much just semantics and metaphysics and language games, i.e. pretty much bullshit, so you, reader, are free to disagree. Perhaps that’s your choice. That’s fine.

 

However, if we choose to believe modern science, which claims that there’s gray matter up there in our skulls, then that gray matter is certainly part of the biological construct we call “the body.” So if our thoughts, and by extension our “minds,” are simply the result of synapses firing off in the ol’ gray matter up there, then “the mind” would indeed just be another part of “the body,” similar to our hands and feet. To deny this, we’d have to reject modern science and instead take a religious or spiritual approach, which would be fine, there’s no judgment here, but these alternative approaches come preloaded with their own deterministic quandaries, for example, look up “theological fatalism.” My point being, "free will" is beset by challengers from all sides, regardless of whatever ideology you might subscribe to.

 

When it comes to “free will,” most of us like to believe that the mind rules the body, that we are in full control of our actions, that we hold fate in our hands and can mold it like clay. This belief gives us purpose, meaning, and drive. If we were to hold the opposite belief, i.e. that we’re solely driven by uncontrollable thoughts and feelings, life would seem pretty meaningless. After all, if we have no control, if everything is just biologically driven, then what’s the point? If whatever is going to happen happens regardless of whatever we say or do, then why should we even care? This is a depressing thought, which is why the majority of us believe we have some choice in the matter, some sort of “free will.” This belief shields us from despair, sometimes even suicide. But the problem is, there’s a conflict here, because we have a vested biological interest in holding this belief. If this belief were not hardwired into us, we probably wouldn’t make it very far in life, we’d just waste away or kill ourselves or whatever. And according to modern science, “evolution” doesn’t like organisms just wasting away and killing themselves. Life must go on, I guess. So, considering this and also everything else we’ve discussed so far, it seems possible that this belief in what many of us call “free will” might just be a biological illusion created for the express purpose of self-preservation.

 

So let’s recap what we’ve discussed so far. First, some people might be born with brains that predispose them to being serial killers, and these brains were not of their choosing. Second, the would-be serial killer’s upbringing and environment, both of which are outside of the their control, may have an impact on them becoming a serial killer. Third, although it seems like we can make choices in the moment, many of these choices are driven by prior antecedents, like me linking this journal entry to you in some way or all the seemingly uncontrollable emotions, thoughts, wants, and desires we experience on the daily, so, regardless of how we respond to these things, it seems we are still being controlled by them to some extent. The conclusion here seems to be that we are just balls rolling down hills, and therefore "free will" is an elaborate biological hoax, does it not?

 

But what I keep coming back to is this: I cannot shake the feeling that I have some sort of choice in the present moment, or at least I feel a sensation that seems like “choice.” Even if some of my thoughts and emotions are unwanted and often influenced by other people, how I choose to respond to those thoughts and emotions seems to be within my control, at least to a certain degree. I cannot shake the feeling that there is something more to this. It may be the case that many, if not all, of my choices might be in response to some external stimuli, some prior antecedent, but I’m still choosing how to respond. I guess, maybe, this could all be some sort of biological trick, but that just doesn't feel right to me.

 

Another thing I can’t shake is the sense that viewing “free will” through this “free will vs. determinism” lens is an overly dualistic perspective. It seems very black or white to me. I don’t like black or white. I am morally opposed to black or white. Why does it have to be all or nothing? Why can’t we have some “free will” and some “predetermination?" Why can't that be the case?

 

I was talking to my friend the other day about this same topic. He’s much smarter than me. He’s got a something-or-other in philosophy and teaches literature and writing at a high school. And when I asked him about free will, specifically bringing up the ball-hill thing, he said, “You know about the cylinders, right?” And I’m like, “What? No. What about cylinders?” And he’s like, “There's this one Greek philosopher, I forget his name, but he says that, yes, at the beginning of our lives, we may be balls rolling down hills, but he says we can change our shapes. The hill is like all the external stuff, how you’re born, how you’re raised, how others treat you, the world around you, that sort of stuff. But the ball is you, and through self-reflection, meditation, and how you respond to things, you can change your shape, to a cylinder, or a square, or whatever you want. He says that we may not have control over everything, but we do have control over our shape. And when we change our shape, we roll down the hill at a slightly different angle.”

 

This struck me as incredibly poetic and insightful. I thought to myself, yes, this seems true, it’s not black or white, this or that. It’s not “you either have full control or you don’t,” instead it’s “you have some control, but not full control.” And when I thought about this further, I came to a weird realization.

The realization was, hypothetically, if we did have free will, that would mean we’re 100% accountable for everything we do, since we would have complete control over our own actions, obviously. But if that’s the case, then why would anyone become a fucking serial killer?

 

The answer is, no one would become a serial killer if they were in full control of their own actions. The social consequences of being a serial killer would be too great. It wouldn’t make any sense. It’s obvious that serial killers, and other deranged people, are dealing with the Devil Gene, they have fucked-up brains, and they sometimes have traumatic upbringings, and these antecedents have changed their shape, molded them into something dark. Therefore, they are not 100% accountable for their actions. Then, I started looking at things in terms of hills and paths. For example, at the beginning of a serial killer’s life, they were pushed down a certain hill, and at that point they started rolling down a certain path, and they’ve been rolling down that path for a long time. It’s a dark path, but it’s a path nonetheless. You and I, we are also on a path. We are on much lighter paths, but our paths are still paths nonetheless. We did not choose our paths. In a way, we lucked out. We weren’t born with fucked-up brain chemistry, for example. Our paths are easier than a serial killer’s path. It’s easier for us to change our shapes into a cylinder or a square or whatever, but some paths make it much harder to change shapes than others.

 

When I thought about this, it filled me with a sort of universal empathy. Instead of looking at certain people as being “monsters,” I started thinking of them as unfortunate souls who were pushed down a dark path. And no, I don’t think this means that serial killers should get a free pass, they have still broken the mortal laws, committed the highest of moral crimes. They’re fucking dangerous, so of course they should be dealt with accordingly, but I wonder sometimes, since we’re so focused on treating these people as monsters, maybe that treatment is just putting them further down their dark path? When we dehumanize people, are we really surprised when they start to behave like monsters?

 

When you throw away this notion of “free will” and accept that nothing is fully within our control, that all of us are influenced by external stimuli, this fosters a certain level of compassion that is absent when we solely believe that everyone makes their own decisions all the time and that they are in full control, because that belief encourages us to reduce people to their worst actions and hold them wholly responsible without considering the conditions that shaped them, their paths.

 

To me, the empathetic path is the one without “full control,” because when we view people in terms of their biology, their upbringing, and all the other prior antecedents that influence their behavior, we start to see the root causes of that behavior, and this fosters a level of compassion that is absent when we simply assume everyone is in full control of their own actions. And taking this further, if we consider the fact that we are part of a larger system, that our actions may influence the actions of others, we begin to be more critical of our own behavior, because in a world without full control over our outcomes, we quickly realize how our own behavior may carry long-term deterministic consequences for the people around us. This encourages a greater sense of responsibility, not just for what we do, but for how our actions ripple out, impact other peoples' paths, like a small pebble thrown into a large body of water.

 

I realize I’m using a very inflammatory example here, that being “serial killers,” and perhaps that’s a rhetorical mistake on my part, as I imagine it elicits a sort of immediate “Treat murderers with empathy? What the fuck? Try saying that to a serial killer, they’d just stab you in the throat” type response from some people. And maybe I will get stabbed in the throat, perhaps that’s the price we must pay for being universally empathetic, who knows? But I could replace the term “serial killer” with a more down-to-earth example, like “Trump supporter” or something, and still make the same case.

For example, let’s say, hypothetically, you have an aunt who’s a huge Trump supporter. Let’s say you’ve distanced yourself from this aunt, because you don’t agree with her politics or whatever. But do you really think she had full control over her decision to become a Trump supporter? Do you not think that, perhaps, her upbringing had something to do with it? Or maybe the media, with all their insidious propaganda? Or her friend groups? Social media? Maybe, if we’re being a little mean here, maybe your aunt was just born with a very low IQ. Maybe she’s frankly just a dumbass. Maybe that’s why she’s a Trump supporter. She can't help being a dumbass, she just is. Now, considering all that, do you still feel good about shunning your aunt? When looking at your dumbass, Trump-loving aunt through a more deterministic lens, does that lens not encourage a little more empathy than viewing the situation through a lens of free will where everyone is 100% accountable for their own actions?

 

Your aunt, she’s on a path, just like you or I. So maybe, instead of shunning her, instead of treating her like some sort of leper, maybe you should try to help her change her shape?

 

I’ve found that many people believe themselves to be empathetic, but more often than not, their empathy is selective, reserved only for those they deem worthy of it. But as long as empathy remains selective, cruelty and division will continue to fester. Only universal empathy can save the world.
 

So, that’s why I used the “serial killer” example, because if you can have empathy for a serial killer, then you can have empathy for literally anyone. In a way, having empathy for a serial killer is the final boss.

 

We must never forget that everyone, including you and me, is on a path. Through empathy and compassion, we must encourage others to change their shape.

 

So I’m an empathetic cylinder now, hopefully I don’t get stabbed in the throat.