If there is ever a question most asked, it is: Why? Why should I, why would I, why did you, why aren’t you, why is it, why? In this work I will strive to, as many have before me, define the answer to “why.” In a cold, indifferent universe, what is the reason to act? What reason is there for agency? Is there any agency altogether?

To begin to answer “why,” first must be defined “what.” In the beginning, spontaneously, the universe began. The start to our universe was, according to the most reputable knowledge humankind has gathered, the genesis of time and space. Consider the Big Bang to be the origin point on a three-dimensional graph. Time runs horizontally, in a sheet, while space runs on the other axis. The points of intersection are called moments. A moment is an event, the product of space and time meeting in a reconcilable manner, and we call the sum total of the moments comprising the known universe: existence.

So, it is established that there was an origin point, at which began space and time, and moments are what existence is comprised of. Every empty space, every vacuum, every star, comprised of trillions of moments. We tend to think of moments in terms of time, but consider, there is no “time” without a space for it to exist in or be relevant to. So, therefore, a moment is an interaction between the fabrics. Action is first and foremost a product of energy and matter. Matter and energy exist within moments. There is an exact amount of both at the Big Bang, and they can be equivalently exchanged according to known laws of thermodynamics and the world-renowned equation of E=mc2. Working with these laws, it can be posited that, because there cannot be creation nor destruction, according to every known universal law, the universe will be of the same constituent information at its start as when it concludes. Moments containing interactions, in which matter and energy change in some aspect, started occurring immediately following the Big Bang. Logically it follows that because there cannot be lost universal data, there is a string connecting one sequence of time/space points of interaction to another from the Big Bang to the final state of the universe.

As humans, we tend to perceive time linearly. Our perception of it can be altered, as our brains are fallible processors, but for the most part, in the majority of human cultures[1], language is structured around a past, a present, and a future. Time is given a sense of tandem uncertainty in the past and ultimate permanence in regard to the past. The past is defined as moments that have affected the present and our ideas of the past are the product of memory. Human perception, whether it be via instrumentation, physical senses, or memory, is limited to the past. The arbitrary lines drawn between the past, the present, and the future become obsolete when considered in the context of the universe. The past is considered immutable, and nothing done in the past is without impact and nothing done in the present can affect the past, only one’s perception of it.

Imagine you are in an art studio. In front of you is a canvas, a palette with a rainbow’s worth of oil paint shades, and a brush. Choose a color, add it to the brush, and create one stroke in whichever direction, thickness, or length you desire. Now that you have done so, you have the awareness of possibility. Possibility is the concept of having an array of options, the potential for choice. In this universe, according to cause and effect, due to your strings of sequenced interactions between particles and permanent results of quantum fluctuation, and every choice “made” by the synaptic firing of your neural system, there is one course this universe is on. As soon as the stroke is made, you exist in a universe in which the stroke is of its exact properties. There is no longer possibility. Because the past is immutable, this version of you cannot exist in a reality where that brush stroke is not exactly the color, shape, and direction it is. The paint molecules are now arranged precisely in one way, and their position at the end of the universe is fundamentally changed. All that to say, the universe is comprised of points. Each point, whether it be a miniscule passing interaction between a neutrino and a lead molecule, or the instant a star runs out of fuel to burn and begins the process of a supernova, is an interaction, and fundamentally changes the rest of the universe, and as space expands and time runs, there are increasing numbers of interactions.
To accurately visualize this complex set of interactions, take the Big Bang to be a dot on the matrix of space and time. From it stems lines, from the origin point to the first set of interactions. From each original interaction stem paths of reality, the actual occurrence, the moment and interaction following. From each of these, more. The universe, as conceptualized by moments, is an ever exponentially expanding web of interaction points. Humans exist inside this matrix of time and space, and are a part of this web.

One could argue that humans have the power of agency, and life is fundamentally different from the rest of the universe, changing this web to a will. In rebuttal, I offer the fact that consciousness has been proven to be unaware of the decision the physical brain is about to make. Neurons fire in the brain making a “choice” before study participants even start to indicate consciously that they are going make a decision. Therefore, if there were a non-corporeal soul essence to consciousness, not abiding by the laws of this universe, it would not be aware of its own intentions, and therefore cannot make informed decisions. The biological brain composed of neural cells and electrical impulses makes decisions based on an informational experience database comprised of every moment and interaction it has experienced, including the moments leading to its existence, the string leading to the genesis of the universe. The position of every subatomic particle is informed by the past of the universe, and when the present is past, it is immutable as well. Not humans, nor any life, seen as having “will,” is above the mechanical working of the universe and the strings leading to every interaction in the body of a living organism. As we are slave to our past, there cannot be a decision made without it, and the result of a choice is the direct result of past interactions, which is by definition not free.

A foreseeable argument to this is randomness. The human concept of randomness seems to run counter to the very heart of this argument. We perceive some decisions as without motive, no precedent, and think the brain to have the capacity to generate information utterly without relation to anything else. This is, at base, an assumption without proof, in fact, the opposite is true, statisticians are fully aware of the fact that humans cannot even generate purely random digits, so computerize randomness to make up for this fallacy. Whether it be digits or type of bagel, there is some basis, rational or not. Nothing can exist in an experiential vacuum, because without a past, nothing can exist according to the laws of this universe, of conservation of matter and energy.
So, then, free will. In a universe lacking even the potential for deviation from a path set thirteen billion years ago, how can we believe our choices to be free? Here I would like to make a distinction between the capacity for choice and “free will.” As you walk aimlessly along a path and come to a fork, you have the mental moment of choice, where your motivation, your past, your mental state, and many other factors contribute to an active “choice” that you, in that moment, feel as if you make. That being said, the you that continues to the left is and always has been the you that went left. In your choice you follow the path of a version of yourself, essentially following a trodden path. We shape the timeline we exist within, but we can never be free of it. To look back at the history of the universe from the end point, at zero sum kinetic energy, one would see one path. One history. One life played out from the instant of creation, in which everything is caused by the effect of another interaction, every point on the graph of the universe a direct result of something else, every spin to every particle, every position of every photon is immutable in the past. This can be attributed to the very nature of time being that it only becomes “real” in the human conception once it is the past or present (which are, upon consideration, the same, one cannot “do” one moment without “have done” in the next) The future only exists in prediction and therefore will only be real once it is experienced. We cannot possibly be free in a system where our actions are set. I have always been and will always be the individual who is typing these words in this instant, and the information transmitted will always have been expressed in this manner in this moment.
The purpose of spirituality is to find belonging and unity - therefore all one has to do is look to the universe and natural laws to see that we are one cosmic energy manifested in minute consciousnesses with individual freedom of choice but no power to affect change in the cosmological sense.
 

[1]With few, but important outliers, ex. Indigenous American cultures without a temporal aspect to language