At Scientific American, free will seems very much alive
The concept is incompatible with their “mind is just the brain” thesis but they can’t let go of it anywayLast Thursday, science writer Dan Falk published an article in Scientific American that brings us up to date on arguments about free will — and then comes down in the middle on the question.
At one time, some physicists could claim that everything in the universe is determined by the laws of physics. Starting in the twentieth century, however, many thinkers saw the recently developed quantum mechanics as supporting free will because it shows that nature is, at bottom, indeterminate. A particle has no specific location until someone measures it. In that case, there is no strong physics basis for insisting that everything is determined.
However, some theorists now use quantum mechanics to argue against free will, by invoking a multiverse: If we live in a multiverse, when we make a choice, we make all possible choices at once, in different, newly created universes. So in what sense did we really choose?
Falk observes that the speculation here is pretty topheavy:
Physicists have a reasonably good grip on most of the universe’s 13.8-billion-year history. As we rewind the tape, though, we find that our understanding of space and time becomes more tenuous as we get closer to the big bang. In the universe’s first moments, neither relativity nor quantum mechanics on their own can offer an accurate description of what’s happening, and there’s no agreed-upon unified theory of quantum gravity to take their place.
Dan Falk, “ Does Quantum Physics Rule Out Free Will?”, Scientific American, 16 May 2024
Compatibilism
Most philosophers who accept free will (about 60% overall) are “compatibilists.” They would generally say,
… free will in this sense can generally be understood as the ability of rational agents to act in accordance with their reasons and preferences, whereby a rational agent is defined as someone capable of responding to reason (so, young children don’t have free will, but most healthy adults do).
Jack Maden, “Compatibilism: Philosophy’s Favorite Answer,” to the Free Will Debate, Philosophy Break, May 2024
As Falk notes, in the world of elementary particles, a solid table seems like empty space but that does not mean that its solidity is an illusion. Or that the particles and forces are either.
Free will when it matters
A 2023 article, also in Scientific American, offered support for free will from neuroscience. SUNY Albany philosopher Alessandra Buccella and Chapman University experimental psychologist Tomáš Dominik pointed out that neuroscience research has come up with quite unexpected findings about free will. While a “readiness potential” typically fires in the brain before we are aware of insignificant decisions, it is absent from significant ones:
In 2019 neuroscientists Uri Maoz, Liad Mudrik and their colleagues investigated that idea. They presented participants with a choice of two nonprofit organizations to which they could donate $1,000. People could indicate their preferred organization by pressing the left or right button. In some cases, participants knew that their choice mattered because the button would determine which organization would receive the full $1,000. In other cases, people knowingly made meaningless choices because they were told that both organizations would receive $500 regardless of their selection. The results were somewhat surprising. Meaningless choices were preceded by a readiness potential, just as in previous experiments. Meaningful choices were not, however. When we care about a decision and its outcome, our brain appears to behave differently than when a decision is arbitrary.
Alessandra Buccella, Tomáš Dominik, “Free Will Is Only an Illusion if You Are, Too,” Scientific American, January 16, 2023 The paper is open access.
Bucella and Dominik are very clear that they want such results to be interpreted in a purely materialist way:
“We” are our brain. The combined research makes clear that human beings do have the power to make conscious choices. But that agency and accompanying sense of personal responsibility are not supernatural. They happen in the brain, regardless of whether scientists observe them as clearly as they do a readiness potential.
So there is no “ghost” inside the cerebral machine. But as researchers, we argue that this machinery is so complex, inscrutable and mysterious that popular concepts of “free will” or the “self” remain incredibly useful. They help us think through and imagine—albeit imperfectly—the workings of the mind and brain. As such, they can guide and inspire our investigations in profound ways—provided we continue to question and test these assumptions along the way.
Buccella, Dominik, “Only if You Are, Too”
But wait. This doesn’t really work. If “we” are our brain, who is the mind that is thinking through “the workings of the mind and brain”? The committed materialist cannot accept the mind (or the concept of free will that usually follows) and — at one and the same time — claim that it is merely the physical brain, except by rhetorical sleight of hand.
Why do smart people persist in thinking that free will has been disproved?
Another contributor to the discussion on free will at Scientific American is science writer John Horgan, who offers an interesting observation there (January 1, 2020, now available for free at his blog): “Free will must exist if some people have more of it than others … You have more free will—more ability to see, weigh and make choices–now than when you were a baby. Right?” If it makes a difference, it must exist.
He also asks why smart people persist in thinking that free will has been disproved, suggesting, “Some smart people, I suspect, feel smarter when they attack beliefs that give others comfort, such as free will and God. Adamant free-will deniers tend to be adamant atheists.”
The debate will doubtless continue but the remarkable thing is that it is held at Scientific American at all. Wasn’t materialism supposed to have disproved free will by now? What happened? Clearly, we are not living in the world we were told to expect.