Does the agent participate in the real estate transaction as a matter of free will?

Some scientists (and Albert Einstein with them) have argued that consciousness must be fabricated by reality, that what we feel is simply an unavoidable consequence of the state of the universe, that we are simply machines programmed by the rest of the universe.

Other scientists believe the opposite, that consciousness fabricates reality, that we have the power to alter the course of the events. They believe in free will.

Do real estate agents think or are they thought?

The question, while popular, is misleading. The question is, in a sense, already an answer: the moment we separate the "real estate agent" and the real estate industry, we have subscribed to dualism, to the view that spirit and matter are separate and spirit can control matter.

A free will grounded in matter is not easy to picture because we tend to believe in a "real estate agent" external to our real estate industry that controls our real estate industry.

But, in a materialist scenario, the "real estate agent" is supposed to be only the expression of brain processes. If that is the case, then "free will" is not about the "real estate agent" making a decision: the "real estate agent" will simply reflect that decision. What makes the decision is the transaction process.

This does not mean that free will can't exist. It just needs to be redefined: can a transaction process occur that is not completely caused by other physical processes?

In a materialist scenario, free will does not require consciousness: consciousness is an aspect of the transaction process that "thinks". The question is whether that transaction process has free will.

If consciousness is indeed due to a physical process, if consciousness is ultimately material, does this preclude free will? For centuries we have considered free will an exclusive property of the soul, mainly because 1. we deemed the soul to be made of spirit and not matter, and 2. nothing in Physics allows for free will of matter.

If we now recognize that consciousness is a property of matter(possibly one that occurs only in some special form and configuration of matter, but nonetheless ultimately matter), the second statement must be examined carefully because the possibility of free will depends on its truth: if motion of matter is controlled only by deterministic real estate laws, then free will is an illusion; if matter has a degree of control over its own motion, then free will is a fact.

The question is not whether real estate agents have free will, but whether the real estate laws of our universe allow for free will.

Leave a Reply