In order for anything to exist, everything must be as it is.  A thing can never be anything other than what it is, do anything other than what it does, or become anything other than what it becomes, because if it does, it cannot be the thing that it was.  It’s easier to accept that this applies to a hammer or a flower than to a human being, but if we define a thing as something that exists, and if we define a human as a particular kind of something (for surely a human is not nothing) then why should a human be any different?

Consider the human being I call “I,” for example.  I know with certainty that I exist subjectively because I feel that I do.  I can also infer that I exist objectively in some form because other things react to me.

And so if I can say with certainty that I exist, then I can also say with certainty that I am not anything other than what I am because if I was then there would be no I being I, there would be something else being something else in “I’s” place. I would not exist because I would not be as I am. I cannot be as I am without existing and I cannot exist without being as I am. I can’t have one without the other because they are ultimately the same thing.

Perhaps this seems too obvious at first – to say, essentially, that being and existing are the same thing, but the key distinction is that not only must I (or anything that exists) be in order to exist, but more specifically, I must be as I am. In my own case, when I think back on my life and how often I’ve felt for whatever reason that I should be something different than I felt that I was, and how often that made me feel unsettled in some way, then that distinction becomes quite meaningful to me.

But how can we know if a thing is being as it is and how can we account for the fact that all things, (especially living things) seem to change?

Nothing can exist without being as it is.

We can know if a thing is being as it is simply by the very fact of its existence. In the case of things like hammers or flowers (or even animals for that matter) it seems a small thing to accept that they must be and are being as they are in order to exist and that they exist because they are being as they are. This is true even when one thing practices deception on another – in pretending to be something other than what it really is it is still being as it is – a thing that pretends to be something other than what it is.

But in the case of human beings, the way forward grows murkier. Not only because humans are more adept at deception than other animals, but also because they are traditionally believed to posses a quality known as “free will” (or “free agency” in Mormonism), the idea being that because human beings feel like they are free to choose, that they are in control of their choices, and that they have some measure of control over things like their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and behavior as well. But this simply cannot be the case because human beings do not have access to their own interior controls, or, at least I can say that is true for myself.

I don’t know how I make a choice, think a thought, feel a feeling, or believe a belief, I just do it, and my choices, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs (among other things) determine my behavior. And when I say “I don’t know how” I literally mean I do not know how I do those things. I do them, I just don’t know how I do them or how it all works – kind of like my relationship with my iPhone in a certain sense – I make it do things, but I don’t know how I actually make it do what it does. I don’t know how to make it do things “under the hood” so to speak.

In the case of my brain, I can think a thought but I do not know how I think of a thought, how to cause the correct pattern of neurons to fire, for example. I don’t know what a neuron looks like, how or where to find a neuron, how to turn a neuron on or off, or how to relay messages between neurons. I don’t have a clue how my neurons work and yet I seem to be working with them all the time. I believe this is because I am a physical system (a particular human body) that contains neurons, I am not inside the physical system that contains neurons (my body). If I was inside and I was in control, I could perceive, access, and operate the controls from the inside.

Kind of not like my relationship with my iPhone in a certain sense – I know I control my iPhone (even though I don’t really know how I do it) because I can perceive, access, and operate the controls, or at least an interface with the controls, from the outside of my iPhone. But if I felt that I was inside my iPhone (like I feel that I am inside my body), and I could not perceive, access, and operate the controls (or at least an interface with the controls) from the inside, then I could and should conclude that I am not inside my iPhone after all, but that I am an iPhone, and that iPhones have evolved to become self-conscious. Especially if I point my camera into a mirror and see a small apple with a bite out of it on my back.

It does not matter if it feels like I am in control if I cannot perceive, access, and operate the controls. It is most likely impossible to control something without access to its controls, as that would be like steering a car that is steered with a steering wheel…without a steering wheel. But I think we can agree that it’s quite possible to feel something is occurring that in reality is not occurring at all – at least not in our shared objective reality. For example, when I’m asleep and dreaming in my own subjective reality I feel like I’m awake and acting in our shared objective reality even though I am not. When I stand still outdoors I feel like the Earth is standing still as well, but we know it is spinning at speeds as fast as 1,000 miles per hour (depending on where you measure from). When I watch the sun move through the sky throughout the day, it feels like it is moving around the Earth and rising and setting each day, but we know this is an illusion.

But if everything must be as it is how can we account for change? Or in other words, if a caterpillar must be a caterpillar, how can it ever be a butterfly? I think the answer is that in the case of living things, change (or at least the possiblity of change) seems to be baked in from the start. Or in other words, a caterpillar is never just a caterpillar, it’s always a caterpillar that changes into a butterfly under certain conditions, whether that change has occurred yet or not, or whether it ever will. This allows the caterpillar to always be what it is in every form in which it is found, even when it is no longer found in the form of a caterpillar.

In the case of human beings things again get more complicated. Most of society still seems to operate under the assumption that because people feel they have free will, that they are free to choose the kind of person they are as well as the kind of person they will become. I don’t think this is the case at all, because while it’s certainly true that people make choices and that they choose under varying degrees of freedom or restraint, it seems much more likely than not that people are only free to choose that which they freely choose, and not something else, with the choice being determined by what they are at the moment of decision.

You are not free to be something that you are not, because if you were something that you are not then you wouldn’t be anything at all. You are not free to do something that what you are doesn’t do, because if you did then you wouldn’t do anything at all – something else would do what something else does instead.

If you are something that you are not then you don’t exist, and if you don’t exist then you don’t do anything, so if you do anything you must exist, and if you must exist then you must do that which what you are does, otherwise you would do that which something else does, which means you would be something else, so you would not exist but something else would exist instead.

If I am the kind of person who does not like to eat seafood, then I cannot also at the same time be the kind of person who likes to eat seafood. I cannot simply choose to like eating seafood and carry on my way, or if I can then I must already be that kind of changeling to begin with. Most likely, if I can and will change my attitude about seafood, it’s going to require the right kinds of circumstances to bring about the change, and it’s going to require that I was already the kind of person who will change his attitude about seafood under those same circumstances. And not everybody can be that same kind of person under those same circumstances, otherwise everybody would be the same person. You either are that kind of person or you aren’t, for your own reasons related to your own identity as a person in your own circumstances, and “free will” has nothing to do with it. One must first be something (or someone) in order to do something (including making choices), and the things that one does must always be an expression of what one is in the moment in which one does them, or else what one is would not be expressed, so it would not exist, but something else would exist in its place, being and doing what something else is and does.

Everything must be as it is in every form in which it is found.  You won’t catch a hammer being a flower or a flower being a hammer. You won’t catch a person who is allergic to shellfish being a person who is not allergic to shellfish. From seedling to firewood, a tree is always the tree that it is, in some form, until it’s not. In the case of firewood, we seem to lose track of its treeness when it is burned, but even then it continues to be what it is even as it changes into something else. And what’s true of trees is true of hammers and flowers. And what’s true of hammers and flowers must be true of people as well.

Maybe true “free agency” is simply the freedom for all things to become all possible forms.

P.S. And what if, as I’ve learned from Alan Watts, being and doing are actually the same thing?