Entropy is the proven physical law that all systems in the universe move from order to disorder. This gives time its arrow. On their own, systems never spontaneously move backward from disorder to order. In a hard deterministic universe, this law will always prevail.
Free will allows us to locally decrease entropy — creating and maintaining order in our brains, habits, and lives — in defiance of the natural drift toward disorder.
Free will is what keeps our complex systems from falling into chaos.
Living systems, especially conscious ones, are remarkable because they locally decrease entropy by building and maintaining highly ordered structures. Your brain, when engaged in deliberate thought, is actively organizing information against the entropic tide. That organization has real causal power.
This is called the causal chain. A molecule causes things. A cell causes things the molecule cannot. An organ causes things the cell cannot. A conscious mind causes things the organ cannot.
Each level is real. Each level has genuine causal power that cannot be fully reduced to the level below it. This is known as downward causation — higher-order structures genuinely influencing lower-level processes.
The Upstream Moment is a higher-order causal event operating within the causal chain at the level of conscious deliberation. It does not break the chain. It enters it from above — shaping neural architecture, building habits, and forming values — which then operate as lower-level causes.
Free will becomes part of the causal stream, rather than something existing outside of it.
Sapolsky, in his book Determined, presents this thought experiment to argue against free will:
Imagine a college graduation. A garbage collector is taking out the trash. Now swap every factor: give the garbage collector the graduate’s genes, womb, childhood advantages, education, and opportunities. The graduate gets the garbage collector’s disadvantages. According to Sapolsky, the roles would simply reverse. Free will plays no part.
But what about this scenario? The garbage collector sees the graduate, becomes inspired, attends community college at night, earns a scholarship, and goes on to build a successful business. The original graduate ends up working at Starbucks.
No magic required. This kind of reversal has happened in real life countless times.
Free will is not an illusion. It is the force that pushes back against entropy, the spark that allows us to build meaning, character, and order in a universe that naturally trends toward chaos. In the quiet upstream moments, we exercise this power — and in doing so, we participate in the divine work of creation itself.