Do we have free will?
I think most people are actually not really interested in this question.
But there are some really interesting and important aspects to this question.
John Searle argues philosophers have not really made any progress on this question in the past hundred years or so. I think he may be right about that.
The ultimate objective test of free will would seem to be: Can one predict the behavior of the organism? If one can, then it clearly doesn't have free will but is predetermined. On the other hand, if one cannot predict the behavior, one could take that as an operational definition that the organism has free will ... The real reason why we cannot predict human behavior is that it is just too difficult. We already know the basic physical laws that govern the activity of the brain, and they are comparatively simple. But it is just too hard to solve the equations when there are more than a few particles involved ... So although we know the fundamental equations that govern the brain, we are quite unable to use them to predict human behavior. This situation arises in science whenever we deal with the macroscopic system, because the number of particles is always too large for there to be any chance of solving the fundamental equations. What we do instead is use effective theories. These are approximations in which the very large number of particles are replaced by a few quantities. An example is fluid mechanics ... I want to suggest that the concept of free will and moral responsibility for our actions are really an effective theory in the sense of fluid mechanics. It may be that everything we do is determined by some grand unified theory. If that theory has determined that we shall die by hanging, then we shall not drown. But you would have to be awfully sure that you were destined for the gallows to put to sea in a small boat during a storm. I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road. ... One cannot base one's conduct on the idea that everything is determined, because one does not know what has been determined. Instead, one has to adopt the effective theory that one has free will and that one is responsible for one's actions. This theory is not very good at predicting human behavior, but we adopt it because there is no chance of solving the equations arising from the fundamental laws. There is also a Darwinian reason that we believe in free will: A society in which the individual feels responsible for his or her actions is more likely to work together and survive to spread its values. -Stephen Hawking, Black Holes & Baby Universes . . . pp. 133–135
So Stephen Hawking is suggesting we do not have free will, but we’ll work together better if we act like we do. Yet later Stephen Hawking says “We are each free to believe what we want” (Curiosity). If our actions and thoughts are determined by mechanistic processes, we are not even free to think or believe what we want-we are programmed to believe what we only appear to choose.
Roger Penrose, who shared the Nobel Prize with Stephen Hawking, dove into the subject as well:
My own point of view, although it is not very well formulated in this respect, would be that some new procedure [CQG-Classical Quantum Gravity] takes over at the quantum—classical borderline which interpolates between U and R (each of which are now regarded as approximations), and that this new procedure would contain an essentially non-algorithmic element. This would imply that the future would not be computable from the present, even though it might be determined by it. I have tried to be clear in distinguishing the issue of computability from that of determinism, in my discussions in Chapter 5. It seems to me to be quite plausible that CQG might be a deterministic but non-computable theory. -Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind
In English: Penrose argues that our mental process and free will may not be mathematically describable.
Michio Kaku (a physicist who is working on a unified theory of quantum mechanics, and built a 40 gigawatt particle accelerator in his garage when he was a teenager for a highschool science project) argues that because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle we cannot determine what someone would do based on what has happened before and that, therefore, the question of free will is answered, we have free will, because what we do cannot be absolutely determined by what has happened before. (Big Think video series)
So, the physicists have weighed in and they seem to be divided on the issue. I think there are fundamental deficits with the presupposition that predictability and freewill are absolutely related. Boethius, I believe, answered this issue quite well over 1,000 years ago, as Lady Philosophy explained that simply because you know someone will behave in a particular way does not mean that either 1. You have determined their actions or 2. Their actions are determined simply because they are predictable. Our decision-making processes are, I think, beyond mathematical prediction, or, as Penrose stated, they are non-algorithmic. But even if they could be described mathematically, this in no way implies they are somehow, thereby, pre-determined. It seems to me there is something about consciousness itself which supersedes the physical processes from which it arises.
Some have argued that there are lots of research data which indicate that we make a decision before we choose to do those things consciously and, therefore, our decisions are not free:
Thalia Weatly, among others, has researched our decision-making process and determined much of the decision-making brain activity takes place before we consciously make a decision-much of that process is unconscious. So, how can we say we have an entirely free will (which implies conscious processes) when most of what we would think of as the process of decision is determined by processes beyond our conscious control? - Dartmouth.edu
It seems to me that even if a large portion of our decisions are made subconsciously that does not mean we are not exercising free will. Whether it is a subconscious evaluation of our decision (a process of which there is evidence-see the June 2014 issue of Scientific American article on Habits) or the conscious evaluation of our decision, we are exercising choice. Sometimes our choices are less willful than others, yet we must make a choice. We cannot live without choosing one action over another on a moment-to-moment basis. This is more than intuitive-it is a part of our existence.
Yet there are indications that our brains may function more mechanically than we might guess by our intuition.
The MOUSE-VIDEO a mouse which has part of its brain adjusted so that it is stimulated by light pulses. When the light is turned on and the part of the brain associated with the motor function of running is stimulated, the mouse runs, when the light is off, the mouse appears to choose its own actions. The implications of this experiment are a bit frightening. Once we understand the workings of the human brain we may be able to develop systems for making human automatons. . . humanity may become the Borg.
WHY DOES THIS DISCUSSION MATTER?
July 2008 retired steelworker Brian Thomas and his wife, Christine, drove their camper van to a small seaside village in Wales. Disturbed by men on motorbikes performing loud stunts, the couple relocated to the parking lot of a nearby inn. Later that night Thomas dreamed that one of the bikers had broken into the van. As he slept, he confused his wife with the imaginary biker and strangled her to death. That is how he told the story, anyway.
The next year a jury had to decide whether Thomas was guilty of murder. He had been prone to sleepwalking since childhood, the jury learned. An expert psychiatrist explained that Thomas was not aware of what he was doing when he choked his wife and that he had not consciously chosen to attack her. Thomas went free.
Anne M. Graybiel and Kyle S. Smith . . . . our research has suggested, the more people doubt free will, the more lenient they become toward those accused of crimes and the more willing they are to break the rules themselves and harm others to get what they want. Scientific American June 2014
concerning habits: even the brain has a tutor/governor, the infralimbic cortex:
infralimbic cortex seems to help the striatum further imprint the habit as a semipermanent brain activity. Aided by dopamine, the infralimbic cortex also seems to control when to allow us to engage in a habit; shutting down this region can suppress deeply ingrained routines.
Deuteronomy 30: 19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Joshua 24: 14 “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. Revelation 22:16-17
God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata—of creatures that worked like machines—would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free. - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Maybe another aspect of this question demonstrates the nature of our humanity. There is no indication that dogs or flies or crabs or elephants or mosquitoes ever contemplate their free will. If a fly were contemplating such questions it would likely find itself bumping into things more often (maybe that is the reason our windshields get filled with these creatures-they are contemplating whether they have free will and forget to look out for that vehicle flying in their direction). The fact that we are “free” to think about these things is part of what sets us apart from other creatures. We are people, made in God’s image, and a part of that image is that we have the freedom to choose.
Choose you this day, whom you will serve.
Choose well.
