Free will

Free will is the notion that human beings are able to choose between different courses of action in any given circumstance, whereas its opposite, determinism, claims that all our mental states and actions are made necessary by preceding causes, and we are therefore not free at all, although we may have the illusion thereof. These diametric extremes, on the one hand we always are in complete control, and on the other that we never are in control, unnecessarily restrict our options, an example of false dichotomy, referred to specifically in this instance as naïve dualism. Reality lies somewhere else, as it is abundantly clear that our actions can be dictated by factors outside our control and outside our awareness, but it is unclear that such factors are decisive in every instance or in the long run.

The controllable and uncontrollable aspects of decision making are logically separable using the following device:

"Philosophers who distinguish freedom of action and freedom of will do so because our success in carrying out our ends depends in part on factors wholly beyond our control. Furthermore, there are always external constraints on the range of options we can meaningfully try to undertake. As the presence or absence of these conditions and constraints are not (usually) our responsibility, it is plausible that the central loci of our responsibility are our choices, or “willings.” Timothy O'Connor, Free Will [Italics not in original.]

The connection between will and action thereby is separated for further discussion. In particular, is there in nature anything that actually inhabits the domain of "will" so-defined, a domain beyond the reach of "external constraints"? A related distinction is that between brain and mind, with brain the physical matter where mental processes take place, and mind somehow (unclearly) related to consciousness and will.

All of us have subjectively experienced being torn between doing one thing or another –what we would like to do, what we think we should do, or what we think others would appreciate our doing, and so on. We might assume that the decision is up to us, that we are free to do one thing or another, and others may heap blame or praise on us assuming the same thing. This assumption is what is meant by free will –the belief that whatever we may have done in actual fact, could have been otherwise because we might have decided on another course of action, and that before taking the action we were free to choose between alternatives. The claim might be: "Consciousness has the ability to override its genetic (and other) instructions and to set its own independent course of action."

At the same time, we realize that some aspects of the world work in ways that can be understood because there are law-like processes that can be deciphered, and that allow us to predict some future events based upon observations of past events. The principle operating here is that future events are governed by physical laws rooted in past events, and the notion that this kind of explanation applies to everything that happens is known as determinism. Some have argued that the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics opens a door to a randomness in human behavior, which is foreign to human experience. Inasmuch as random atomic events are not under our control any more than predetermined events, determinism can be rewritten to include this randomness, for example, as follows: All our decisions are either implied by past events, or by random events, that in both cases do not involve us as agents, but which we simply witness.

If the world is deterministic, our feeling that we are free to choose an action is simply an illusion. We have trouble believing all our actions are beyond our control, and that our sense of freedom is totally illusory, but we also have problems thinking that our actions are totally within our control. Although it is an exaggeration (at least at the moment) to think that science requires determinism, it is apparent that "consciousness plays a far smaller role in human life than Western culture has tended to believe."

This dilemma is what in philosophy is known as the problem of free will (or sometimes referred to by its flip-side as the dilemma of determinism), and it is a dilemma because it is difficult to decide how to assign responsibility for our actions. In a more nuanced formulation, the dilemma stems from the question posed as follows:

"Are behaviors, judgments, and other higher mental processes the product of free conscious choices, as influenced by internal psychological states (motives, preferences, etc.), or are those higher mental processes determined by those states?" John A. Bargh, Free Will is Un-natural

A clear statement of the dilemma is as follows:

"The idea of free will, though now rather in disfavor, expressed the popular and philosophical view that behavior reflects the outcome of a struggle between an autonomous, relatively virtuous, possibly spiritual self and the baser forces of external demand and inner cravings. The assumption that two different processes battle it out to determine action has been fundamental in theological views, such as beliefs about the judgment of individual souls based upon whether they choose virtuous or sinful acts. Likewise, it is central to some modern legal judgments that assign punishment not just on the basis of the action and its (criminal) consequences but also on the supposed state of mind of the perpetrator – reserving lesser punishment for crimes committed in mental states...that supposedly reduce the capacity of the nobler part of the self to restrain the wickeder impulses..." Roy F Baumeister et al., Free Willpower: A limited resource theory of volition, choice and self-regulation

Mind-body problem

The idea of free will is one aspect of the mind-body problem. For example, Cartesian dualism, today's formulation called "interactionalist dualism", suggests that some physical events cause some mental acts and some mental acts cause some physical events. This dualism allows humans free will, because associated brain activity is only correlated with human action, and not its cause. The modern version of this approach is the "three world" formulation of Popper. These are versions of what is called epistemological pluralism, that is the notion that the mind-body problem is not reducible to the concepts of the natural sciences. The contrasting approach is called cognitive naturalism, in which mind is simply part of nature, and must be studied by the methods of empirical science.

Incompatibilism

“Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.” B de Spinoza Ethics

One approach, of course, is simply to accept as a fact that human beings are not free, a position termed hard determinism or incompatibilism. To accept this position is to accept that our actions are caused by things other than our will –that actions do not originate in volition (willing), but rather in forces that determine its disposition in one way or another, a view often associated with stoicism. Hard determinism, however, insofar as it accepts a causal chain of events, means our present actions are determined in the past, and some consider that view to wholly destroy any notion of moral responsibility. From this stance, freedom is considered a necessary component of responsibility, for why should anyone be blamed or praised for actions that could not have been otherwise?

Stoics, however, considered that an agent was responsible for thinking through their choices, even though the appearance of choice is illusory. This curious situation led to much debate over the centuries, with Chrysippus (279 – 206 BC) attempting a way out of this apparent contradiction by separating external antecedant causes from the internal disposition receiving this cause, a solution adopted by many thinkers since that time in various formulations.

Libertarianism

Others have argued that determinism is false, or that at the very least, human actions are a special case and stand outside the requirements of a deterministic universe. In simple terms, freedom of thought is distinguished from freedom of action, and their connection is made a subject of study. By separating the rules of thought, one might be free to choose between alternatives, one might have causal powers.

Saint Augustine held this view, the capacity for metaphysical freedom. Kant also subscribed to this view: besides nature and empirical knowledge, there is the realm of things in themselves accessible to thought and governed by different rules; a distinction between phenomena and noumena.

In a kind of inverse form of Kant's approach, Pierre Duhem suggested that scientific theory was simply a device to facilitate economy of thought, and could not be considered to encompass "reality". Thus, thought is a distillation of reality, and what goes on "in reality" is a much deeper and broader question than how we describe it. Similar to consciousness itself, scientific theory is a synopsis of some of what goes on, not the full text. This view of science as dealing with only part of the picture opens the way to more modern statements of the separation of causality in nature from that in the mind.

For example, we have this modern statement of the claim:

"The nonconcious forms of self-regulation may follow different causal principles and do not rely on the same resources as the conscious and effortful ones." Roy F Baumeister et al., Free Willpower: A limited resource theory of volition, choice and self-regulation

A different approach questions the concept of "causality" itself, considering it a construct inappropriate to the description of human and animal behavior. Freeman introduces the replacement he calls "circular causality" to "allow for the contribution of self-organizing dynamics", the "formation of macroscopic population dynamics that shapes the patterns of activity of the contributing individuals", applicable to "interactions between neurons and neural masses...and between the behaving animal and its environment":

"Circular causality departs so strongly from the classical tenets of necessity, invariance, and precise temporal order that the only reason to call it that is to satisfy the human habitual need for causes....The very strong appeal of agency to explain events may come from the subjective experience of cause and effect that develops early in human life, before the acquisition of language...the question I raise here is whether brains share this property with other material objects in the world. " (Walter J. Freeman, Consciousness, intentionality and causality)

Compatibilism

An intermediate view has been to soften the requirements of what it means to be free. One accepts the fact that actions have causes, but argues that this does not mean we are not free.

In the approach known as soft determinism, I am still free even though my character, common sense and so forth, strongly support a course of action, because they do not compel me to act in this way, nor preclude alternatives. Of course freedom understood in this way is not an arbitrary freedom. It is freedom in the sense that nothing stops me from doing otherwise, even though it is unlikely. Put in an extreme form: "A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings".

What are the "strings" attached to our decisions? The questions of character, predisposition, programming and so on, are part of the field of behaviorism, where behavior modification, reinforcement, and so forth are studied. A closely related field is cognitive psychology, the psychology of cognition, studying matters such as the processes involved in memorization and decision making.

Complementarity

In quantum mechanics the notion of complementarity arises, that is, different aspects of a description that are mutually exclusive. Bohr (1922 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics) suggested complementarity is useful outside of quantum theory. In asking whether one can perform an action, one is both observer and subject, which is posited to be an untenable situation: one must adopt one or the other stance. To quote Niels Bohr:

"For instance, it is impossible, from our standpoint, to attach an unambiguous meaning to the view sometimes expressed that the probability of the occurrence of certain atomic processes in the body might be under the direct influence of the will. In fact, according to the generalized interpretation of the psycho-physical parallelism, the freedom of the will is to be considered as a feature of conscious life which corresponds to functions of the organism that not only evade a causal mechanical description but resist even a physical analysis carried to the extent required for an unambiguous application of the statistical laws of atomic mechanics. Without entering into metaphysical speculations, I may perhaps add that an analysis of the very concept of explanation would, naturally, begin and end with a renunciation as to explaining our own conscious activity."...

"...On the contrary, the recognition of the limitation of mechanical concepts in atomic physics would rather seem suited to conciliate the apparently contrasting viewpoints of physiology and psychology. Indeed, the necessity of considering the interaction between the measuring instruments and the object under investigation in atomic mechanics exhibits a close analogy to the peculiar difficulties in psychological analysis arising from the fact that the mental content is invariably altered when the attention is concentrated on any special feature of it."

These observations are echoed by experimentalists studying brain function:

"...it is important to be clear about exactly what experience one wants one's subjects to introspect. Of course, explaining to subjects exactly what the experimenter wants them to experience can bring its own problems–...instructions to attend to a particular internally generated experience can easily alter both the timing and he content of that experience and even whether or not it is consciously experienced at all." Susan Pockett, The neuroscience of movement

Self-programming robots

See also: Robot and Robotics

Today robots can be made that adapt their responses to their environment through self-programming, so-called intelligent robots. Much of the description of these machines seems parallel to human behavior, although technology has still not reached sufficient complexity to make a strong case for the similairites.

"Some people think that consciousness can arise only in organic, of flesh-and-blood beings. Others speculate that self-awareness might develop in any sufficiently complex network that is set up to operate like a brain...Could a conscious robot – a being created by humans and not by God – ever be said to have a soul? "

Is such a machine deterministic? We cannot predict the machine's exact behavior without a complete knowledge of its personal history with its environment, the reliability of its components, and its present state of programming, uncertainties in which limit us to probabilistic statements.

Groups of cooperating robots also are envisioned:

"The interaction of multiple behavioral robots can be regarded as a continuum between two diverse types of behavior. At one extreme, the behavior can regarded as being egoistic, where a robot is concerned purely with self directed behavior, e.g. energy conservation. At the other extreme their behavior can be regarded as being altruistic, e.g. when a group of robots need to work together to perform some common task."

One can conjecture that some such groups could evolve following a Darwinian scheme, not only an interest of engineers, but a recurrent topic of science fiction.

"The marvels accomplished by evolution inspired many researchers with the long term goal of automatically designing and even manufacturing complete robotics "lifeforms" with as little human intervention as possible." (Doncieux et al., §1.4.4 p. 12)

Addiction

The separation of freedom of action from freedom of will is demonstrated in addiction. An addict has disconnected their will that identifies a desirable course of action from their ability to enforce that action. Brain imaging of addicts and non-addicts show differences in brain activity and can relate the process of addiction to a reprogramming of the brain's handling of dopamine that can be reversed only with a very prolonged and multipronged therapy.

"Most PET (Positron Emission Tomography) studies of drug addiction have concentrated on the brain dopamine (DA) system, since this is considered to be the neurotransmitter system through which most drugs of abuse exert their reinforcing effects. A reinforcer is operationally defined as an event that increases the probability of a subsequent response, and drugs of abuse are considered to be much stronger reinforcers than natural reinforcers (e.g. sex and food). The brain DA system also regulates motivation and drive for everyday activities. These imaging studies have revealed that acute and chronic drug consumption have different effects on proteins involved involved in DA synaptic transmission. ... chronic drug consumption results in marked decrease in DA activity which persists months after detoxification and which is associated with deregulation of frontal brain regions. " (Volkow et al.)

"One of the most consistent findings from imaging studies is that of abnormalities in the prefrontal cortex... The prefrontal cortex is involved in decision making and in inhibitory control... Thus its disruption could lead to inadequate decisions that favor immediate rewards over delayed but more favorable responses. It could also account for the impaired control over the intake of the drug even when the addicted subject expresses the desire to refrain from taking the drug. " (Volkow et al.)

Summary

The various notions of free will conflict, but involve many of the same elements. These matters have been argued for millenia, and their resolution may depend upon developing a better understanding of what actually goes on in the brain.

"Although strong advances are being made in analyzing the dynamics of the limbic system and its centerpieces, the entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus, their self-organized spatial patterns, their precise intentional contents, and their mechanisms of formation in relation to intentional action are still unknown." (Walter J. Freeman, Consciousness, intentionality and causality)

In popular accounts of this subject, the same modern developments are used as new wine in old bottles. On one hand, we have K. E. Stanovitch's The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin, which advances the view that decisions are possible using "instrumental rationality" with goals "keyed to the life interest of the vehicle" to replace "gut" decisions. On the other hand we have books like Sam Harris' Free Will, and D.M. Wagener's The Illusion of Conscious Will, that take the view that consciousness is completely illusory, and old-fashioned determinism is completely correct.

At an individual level, perhaps we can be viewed as complex machines with built-in goals sought using algorithms for survival, which adapt to experience. The conscious monitoring of some aspects of this reprogramming may generate feelings of mental control over our individual destinies even though these feelings may be illusory.

The occurrence of mutations, however, introduces a random aspect. Unusual circumstances will occur due to random events, provoking new responses. New types of individual will arise that exhibit novel reactions even to mundane environmental factors. These novelties may permit (or even force) individuals and societies to explore new avenues even though, once initiated, they are governed by Darwinism and natural law, albeit with a complexity that defies prediction.