There are at least two reasons to doubt the idea of free will. From a physics perspective, there is very little fundamental difference between a person (or any other form of life) and a computer. We both have a neural network that transmits information via electronic means; carbon-based for life and silicon-based for the computer. Admittedly, the brain has a different, more non-linear architecture, but given that the laws of physics are deterministic in a probabilistic way, we have to choose one of the following possibilities:
- The brain follows the laws of physics, and its deterministic state controls our conscious experience (the favored "scientific" approach).
- The brain follows the laws of physics, but its deterministic state does not control our conscious experience (the disembodied conscious model).
- The brain doesn't follow the laws of physics (the divine intervention model).
Needless to say, as a scientist I reject the latter possibility until someone somewhere comes up with a shred of evidence to demonstrate the macroscopic laws of physics being broken, and I am very much not alone in this among scientists according to an opinion piece in the LA Times today.:
Most polls show that about 90% of the general public believes in a personal God; yet 93% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences do not.I note for those that would ask if there is uncertainty in what "the laws of physics" are, a la Thomas Kuhn, that quantum and classical mechanics provide a nearly complete system at the scales and energies appropriate for describing the brain, though admittedly the system is too complicated for us to use it in a predictive manner.
We are left with a pair of alternatives: either our consciousness is produced by the physical state of our brain, or it is not. The evidence, which everyone out there already knows, is that the former is true. We are readily willing to believe that sugar and caffeine make us hyper, marijuana gets us stoned, and that beer clouds our judgment. If you accept any of these, you are tacitly agreeing that chemical substances affect our brain, and by doing so affect our thoughts and actions. More proof of physiological determinism is suggested in an article that appeared in The Economist that begins:
In the late 1990s a previously blameless American began collecting child pornography and propositioning children. On the day before he was due to be sentenced to prison for his crimes, he had his brain scanned. He had a tumour. When it had been removed, his paedophilic tendencies went away. When it started growing back, they returned. When the regrowth was removed, they vanished again. Who then was the child abuser?
From this premise, the article goes rapidly downhill in vastly misapplying ethical principles, but more on that later. This type of story is hardly new, having been popularized by the case of Phineas Gage back in 1848. On a more subtle level, Benjamin Libet demonstrated that the physiological pathways in the brain are activated before we think we have actually made a decision, implying that when we think we are "making a decision", we are really rationalizing a choice that has already been made on a sub-conscious level.
Philosophers have a great deal to say on this topic, but when it comes to describing actual phenomena they are essentially full of crap, though it is admittedly mellifluous crap. In the end, we are only really left with one out: our brains control our thoughts, and they are deterministic electromechanical systems. In other words, no real free will.
Obviously, this cuts the heart out of Western religion, which is based upon the whole notion of free will, except maybe for Calvinism, which I have never been able to understand whatsoever with its simultaneous predestination and free will. How can we live in a world where we don't actually make the choices for ourselves? The answer is to deal with the system like a physicist does with a person: you treat it as a phenomenological issue, because there is no other reasonable way.
Notice before I said that the brain can in theory be predicted by the laws of quantum mechanics, but that it is too complicated to do so in real life. Honestly, as my co-blogger can tell you, we can't even use the very straightforward laws of quantum mechanics to describe water. The brain is like water, only infinitely more complicated. Thus, we can only deal with it phenomenologically: we make approximations, some very crude approximations in practice, until we have a system that is more manageable, at the cost of a great deal of information lost. The same approach, completely missed by the Economist article quoted above, applies for moral issues as well. Even if we don't actually have free will, we go about our days as if we do. Look, we don't actually walk on the floor, since electric repulsion at the atomic level keeps us slightly above it, but there is no need to mention this fact in daily conversation. Effectively speaking, we walk on a floor, just as effectively, we have free will. Maybe we don't at some fundamental level, but as long as we all go around as if we do, society works just fine. Can we punish criminals, even if they had no real choice? Of course! We have no choice in applying punishment, so we go with what we think is right, even if our brain's physiology thinks it for us. It does suggest one thing, though: our notion of criminality is way the heck out of whack. People are not evil because they "wish to be bad", any more than people "wish to be good" in this model. In many ways, we already do this as a society at a different level, what with the explosion of Ritalin and Prozac into the national bloodstream to cure those behaviors we find unacceptable.
From a more practical standpoint, is there any kind of moral principle we can take from this. Basically, I would default to the safest standard in the book: the Golden Rule. Doing unto others and being done unto you makes people happy, and regardless of the nature of free will, happiness is a good thing. I would say this would argue for not picking on Gay people, helping out those in need, and generally not being an ass, but to each their own. I'd settle for people finally realizing that much of Western morality is built on a collection of mythology and linguistic gymnastics, and re-establishing some moral principles that actually make sense. More during the next science installment on why the size of the universe argues against humans being so frickin special, and why this bothers me not a lick.
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4 comments:
Interesting. there seems to be more and more evidence of no free will; at least the blogspere is rampant with the topic, thanks for the post
You're welcome, houston_scott. The piece in the Economist was linked by Slashdot, and the LA Times thing was the most e-mailed article from yesterday, so it seemed timely. I figure if people are going to go on and on about free will, we should all have to face the basic facts as best we understand them, rather than all agree to ignore the uncomfortable evidence. Noting that I am certainly not exempt from this in any way, it is constantly amazing how people in general can allow for a vast amount of cognitive dissonance when it comes to their treasured beliefs; thus the contradictory idea that we fully control our own actions but chemicals can change our behavior, as if the latter doesn't speak to something deeper going on. Thanks again for the comment, we appreciate the interest.
Interesting to say the least. There is a Zen koan to the following effect: Since a great master was to deliver a lecture at the small zen monestary, two monks were directed to the front gate to raise a flag (effectively announcing the lecture). After they raised the flag they ended up in a vigorous debate, almost coming to blows. When the master saw them he inquired as to the nature of the debate. Both monks pointed to the flapping flag and one said, "Master, the flag is moving." "No," the other said, "the wind is moving." The Master said "you are both wrong, only the mind is moving."
And it was a wise teacher (the Dalai Lama) who suggested that if you have difficulty making decisions, you should flip a coin. But rather than having its position on landing determine the issue pause and acknowledge which way you want it to land while it is in spin, as you will have made your decision.
Perhaps Descartes only arrived in the neighborhood, and had he a better map he would have said, Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum. And Mel Gibson didn't speak alcohol did.
Speaking about buddhist monks, I suppose I should acknowledge the other side of the coin as well (or maybe the same side of a different coin, like R+G are dead). If our brain's underlying structure controls our mind, so too can our mind in some way work with parts of the underlying structure. Thus, you get al sorts of neat physiological effects from mediatiation and the like, biofeedback, changes in body temperature (either hotter for most monks according to anecdotes, or colder in the case of Lynne Cox who somehow swam a mile in the Antarctic on 60 Minutes), etc. The latter type might be more difficult (like programming in assembly rather than c++), but you need to acknowledge the holistic system that is brain and mind in order for it to make much sense.
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