The physics of freedom

A non-dual manifesto

What is physics? What is freedom? Physics involves the scientific study of fundamental things such as energy and matter. Basically it involves being axiomatic: assuming very little and building a useful map from there. Freedom is something more subjective. It’s an ideal, but also an unfolding experience. It’s something we want but also something that follows certain laws. It can be understood via its opposite: Stuckness.

Logically: Something that is not free, is stuck. And something that is free, is not stuck. With this definition of freedom, we can develop a fundamental “physics” of how to become unstuck, or free. That is, we can think like a physicist about the principles underlying stuckness and how to let go of some of that stuckness. Let us also imagine this like a continuum rather than a duality: A stuckness spectrum, where freedom is just the absence of stuckness.

We can assume that the universe is in some sense ‘already free’ and that only minds seem to get stuck. So to develop a physics of freedom we need to understand the human mind. Therefore, at least part of this work is making sense of what minds do.

We also cannot ignore lived experience, since stuckness is something that (appears to) happen to living beings. This means that we need to draw on science but we can’t get stuck on it. Stuckness can’t bring about freedom, after-all. So to develop a physics of freedom we can’t overlook the power of poetry, feeling, and relationship. All these are necessary for a physics of freedom that involves living things.

What’s an example of being stuck? An example of being stuck is being caught in a particular loop of thought. If you’ve spent more than a day having the same thought, such as: “Why am I such a failure”, or, “wow, I’m so special”, you’ve become stuck. Another way we might get stuck is on a belief system, a feeling, a behavior, a spiritual state, a drug, or a perspective. Addictions are of course very sticky states.

We can also become stuck on a person, a practice, a theology, a job, or an identity. That doesn’t mean that stuckness requires one to always change, only that one is free to change. Being stuck on change can also happen. We all inhabit a point somewhere on the stuckness spectrum.

I have experienced, as many others have, that breaking out of stuckness and dissatisfaction (which are highly correlated), requires two things: knowing the mind and an experiential transformation. Knowing the mind is self-awareness. The experiential transformation is awakening.

Knowing the mind allows us to see the process of stuckness and the subtle ways that minds bind themselves up. Awakening begins the process of deeply undoing the very tendency of getting stuck. It cuts away at the root of the tree. Understanding the mind is a technical thing, whereas awakening is a pragmatic thing. Hence, a physics of freedom is both technical and pragmatic. To be pragmatic is also to be occasionally surprising and a bit unusual.

Knowing the mind is a conceptual and experiential thing. We aim to get better beliefs, more accurate models, and hopefully a more helpful mind. On the other hand, awakening is a non-conceptual thing. It’s not really even an experiential thing. That is because it involves a rewiring of the mind itself. It’s a transformation, a refinement, and a liberation from unnecessary inner tyranny. It is a phase-transition into a new mind. And because experiences are affected by belief, a new mind gives rise to a new world.

This transformation leads to an organism that is less stuck than it used to be. That is obvious when it happens. It may not become completely free, but it becomes a lot less prone to stuckness. It becomes more resilient and satisfied. So a physics of freedom has to pay careful attention to awakening. This is not a fluffy thing at all: Computers can also get viruses and ‘freeze up’. They also require software updates. Minds are no different in this regard.

Here’s another way to put—writing here is about offering what I’ve learned through many years of straddling the deep ends of both meditation and science, applying one to the other, and observing the pitfalls and strengths of both. But really what I’m trying to do is reach into a space before or underneath both meditation traditions and the scientific worldview.

I’m trying—and I may fail—eventually to propose a kind of physics that is inclusive, axiomatic, and in a principled way helps us understand both our materialistic observations and our deepest spiritual and psychological experiences. It is certainly what we ought to try and do, because the dualism between matter and spirit, objects and subjects, has got to go. It is time for it to go. It is absurd and it does not stand up to any logical or deep spiritual investigation. It also splinters us into a very funny (and unfortunate) state of polarity, where an apparent subject tries to control things that cannot be controlled, including the (existence of the) subject itself. The humour of it is truly its saving grace.

That’s also why my writing here is not really academic. The traditional way of communicating within science is slow (albeit for good reasons), unnecessarily complex, and painfully self-conscious. Academic writing doesn’t care much if you, the reader, really get it. Whereas I recognize that your life could end at any moment.

So here I try to be more direct and less apologetic. Whenever we are gesturing to something fundamental we have to use all the tools in our belt. That’s because we have all adopted certain viewpoints about things—certain assumptions. And so my work is not just in positing a new way of looking, but also in nudging you towards letting go of what you currently believe. To this end, stories help. Intuition helps. Poetry helps. Hopefully that also means that this won’t be such a boring ride.

So what then, is my approach?

Technically, you could say that my approach to writing is a kind of embodied computational neurophenomenology. Embodied in the sense that it draws on my own lived experiences and what I’ve personally encountered. Phenomenology in the sense that it draws on patterns of experience across different people and what seems to have worked for them. And computational and neuro in the sense that it draws on cutting edge science.

As you’ve probably gathered if you’ve spent some time here, I’ve been particularly inspired by a new physics of living organisms known as active inference and the Free Energy Principle. I’ve also been inspired by traditions of contemplative practice, such as Buddhism, Advaita, Taoism, Sufism, and Christian Gnosticism. I have felt, as many of my colleagues have, that there is a way that these visions—spiritual and computational—complement each other and perhaps even resolve each other. I hope to contribute towards that resolution.

But I’m not going to get myself stuck on old traditions or on scientific models. Since we’re working on a physics of freedom, the purpose is not to offer a rigid set of concepts. The map needs to be as flexible as the territory: It has to have space for creativity. It has to abide somewhere between direct experience, science, and poetic knowing, and dance on a razor’s edge where words roam free. In allowing them to do so, they are given the best chance to usher in freedom.

A physics of freedom has to be multifaceted and flexible because it is about living organisms that are blessed with such strange things as selves, consciousness, art, wisdom, love, play, spirituality, and a longing for mystery. Freedom therefore cannot be easily boxed up, it has to always leave space for something new.

Chao-Chou, an 8^th century Zen master put it like this: 

A monk asked, “What is meditation?”
The master said, “It is not meditation.”
The monk said, “Why is it ‘not meditation’?”
The master said, “It’s alive, it’s alive!”

The first law of the physics of freedom (and there won’t be many) is: Leave room for something new. If there isn’t room for something new, then there is no possibility of change. You’re effectively dead! Without the possibility of change, we are stuck, and therefore not free. Life is fundamentally creative so any physics of freedom must ensure that life can continue to be surprising.