Hello! I found a channel on YouTube, it’s called “Closer to the Truth”. This channel shows interviews with scientists from many fields, especially from the field of neuroscience. I watched most of the videos with neurobiologists and was very upset, since most scientists say that free will is an illusion and that consciousness and other higher functions of the nervous system are nonsense. Quite famous scientists speak there: Christof Koch, Talia Whiteley, Patrick Haggard. Only Uri Maoz and Peter Tse say that science does not exclude free will. Is everything so clear-cut, has science really disproved free will? Neurobiologists give quite convincing experiments and it is difficult for me as a non-professional to object to anything. I am depressed now. I do not understand free will as something magical. I am just wondering if I decide something in my life. I am not from the USA, maybe I am missing something? Is the issue of free will settled or are most scientists simply transferring their worldview to science and passing off wishful thinking as reality? Thank you!
Most of the discussion concerning free will, including from the perspective of neuroscience, seems to define free will as choosing free of causation, and on that basis, we do not possess free will.
I do not see free will in terms like: Right, how do I summon the immense effort to override the stimuli of the situation, overcome all my life experience to this point, and despite the weight of my natural tendencies, decide on an action which transcends universal causation?
In other words, we have the freedom to do what we want in the moment (want can be in your perceived immediate interest, desperate or coerced). We do not have the freedom to do what we don’t want. That is free will enough.
Thus, our choices are an emergent property of our consciousness, how we process our perception and evaluate our experience with the outside world, and channel all that with the faculty of logic and problem solving. Such choices are inputs to future choices. As such, saying we do not possess free will is like saying we do not possess rationality. People are creative, history demonstrates that. It is strange to allow that people can be creative in art, invention, and discovery, but when it comes to choices, creativity plays no role. On that basis, free will is inescapable.
I’m at a loss to define what free will is supposed to be, independent of causation. If I’m at an ice cream parlor, is free will the freedom to choose a flavor I do not want? Why would I do that - just to prove a point? If I choose my favorite, tiger licorice, does that mean I do not have free will? Then it seems that the only sensible course in life is to just dispense with the idea of free will and go ahead and choose the life one wants.
- I think I’ve seen most, if not all, of the “Closer to the Truth” episodes regarding Free Will. Recently, I came across the name of Matthew Gazzaniga, an American psychologist who is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind He is one of the leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, the study of the neural basis of mind. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences.
- Gazzaniga was interviewed by Sally L. Satel, Lecturer Yale University School of Medicine->Department of Psychiatry. The Interview can be seen at After Words with Michael Gazzaniga in which they talk about Gazzaniga’s work and his book: Who’s in Charge?: The Neuroscience of Decision-Making, the Notion of Free Will and the Idea of a Determined World
- My summary: Gazzaniga’s research leads him to conclude that there is no free will, … but we are still legally accountable and responsible for our actions.
I know questions about free will plague some people. I haven’t spent time studying it, but rather cultural influences on how we process or interpret our world, which are formative to how we think. This includes how we will.
I can’t imagine that the free will that assumes an entirely neutral stance in relation to one’s world actually exists.
thank you very much Terry. thanks for the links. could you explain briefly. english is not my first language and i have hearing problems so i am afraid i may have problems watching the video (sorry about that). if we consider “freedom” as the ability to choose one of two options in certain limited circumstances, guided by our past experiences, our feelings and emotions at the moment, do we have the ability to choose between two options consciously? Thank you
Thank you! I agree with you. I don’t understand free will as something gratuitous and magical. You described it very well in your comment. I understand free will as the ability to choose between options under certain conditions. guided by my past experiences, my beliefs, my inner expectations, my upbringing, being limited by genetics, my lack of knowledge, and so on. Self-control would be a better word here. Many scientists say that a person is generally an unconscious set of molecules, will and responsibility are an illusion in any sense, and not in the sense of libertarian free will. Some are trying to change the judicial system, saying that we are not responsible for our actions. This is what scares me. I would like to see scientific evidence for these theories, but many refer to Libet’s experiments and the like.
@MarkD there might be something in this discussion to interest you.
I think I need to clarify what I mean by free will. If I can consciously do or choose something in certain circumstances, being limited by my experience, upbringing, worldview, genetics, etc., if I can consciously stop myself somewhere, for example, I want to eat a chocolate bar when I have diabetes, my hand is already reaching for the chocolate, but at the last moment I say “no” and refuse the sweet. Even if 95% of my life is the unconscious work of my nervous system, controlling breathing, heartbeat, coughing, dilation and constriction of blood vessels, etc., even if I unconsciously perform simple actions, like raising my hand and bending my finger. But if at least 5% of my decisions, especially difficult decisions that require reasoning, responsibility, can be controlled by consciousness and I have some degree of freedom of choice, then this will be good news for me,
This is a good starting point. It is not useful to discuss about free will without first defining what we mean by free will. Depending on the definition, we either have or do not have free will. As a follow-up question, we either are or are not responsible for our acts - complete lack of free will would make us automatons that are not responsible for our acts.
Michael Gazzaniga: Brains Are Automatic, But People Are Free
- “Free Will and the whole idea and concept behind it was an idea that grew out of thousands of years of thought at a time when there really wasn’t any serious knowledge about the mechanistic nature of the human brain. And now we know a ton. We know how the brain is organized; we know that it comes with structure; we know that it has knowledge in it, we’re learning more and more each day: how it makes decisions. In other words, we’re learning how the thing works.
So if you think about it this way: if you were a Martian coming by Earth and looking at all these humans, and then looking at how they work, it would never dawn on you to say: “Well now, this thing needs Free Will. What are you talking about? What we’re knowing is that we’re learning and appreciating the ways in which we produce our perception, our cognition, our consciousness, and all the rest of it. And why do you want something in there that seems to be independent of all that?”
The essential part of free will that people want to hold on to is the sense that makes you responsible for your actions. So there is the idea of personal responsibility. And I think that’s very important, and I don’t think that all this mechanistic work on the brain in any way threatens that. You learn that responsibility is to be understood at the social level: the deal … the rules that we work out living together.
So the metaphor I like to use is cars and traffic. We can study cars and all their physical relationships and know exactly how they work. It in no way prepares us to understand traffic when they all get together and start interacting. That’s another level of organization and description of these elements interacting. So the same is with brains, we can understand brains to the nth degree and that’s fine, and that’s what we’re doing. But it’s not going to in any way interfere with the fact that taking responsibility in a social network is done at that level.
So the way I sum it up is that brains are automatic, but people are free because people are joining the social group and in that group are laws to live by. And it’s interesting, every social network—whether it’s artifactual, internet, or people—the accountability is essential or the whole thing just falls apart. You’ve got to have it. No one has anything to worry about, I don’t think, from science in terms of whatever we discover about our nature. And however good we get at describing it, it’s not going to impact that essential value that everybody has to be held accountable because it’s at a totally different level. And it’s in the social level which is so crucial and important for the human.”
I agree. But the reality is that many neuroscientists and scientists from natural sciences are trying in every possible way to show that we are unconscious robots made of meat and bones.They dream of depriving people of any opportunity to be free, even at a minimal level.
- Gazzaniga’s “car and traffic” analogy is useful, IMO. Each of us individuals is “like” a car. Each can be studied by folks like Gazzaniga …independently; but a group of us humans is not like a single car; a group of us interacting is like “traffic” and “traffic” is not “a car”.
Thank you! In my moment of despair, I even emailed William Newsom, a neuroscientist at Stanford. He said he didn’t believe in free will as something uncaused and disconnected from the brain. But he also said we have the ability to exercise self-control, albeit severely constrained by many factors. He also told me about the complex levels of organization, top-down and bottom-up phenomena, and emergent properties of the brain. He agreed with Gazzaniga in general, but disagreed with him on his philosophical interpretations.
Jesus said in Luke 9:60, “Let the dead bury their own dead.” In other words, I think it is quite possible that the vast majority (which is what science studies) is indeed for the most part lacking any freedom of will. But I don’t think the theological question of free will rests on any universality of free will in all human actions, but rather whether any freedom of will is even possible. And to that question modern science shows that it is very much theoretically possible because of quantum physics and chaotic dynamics.
As for neuroscience, I think the problem is that they are focusing on only a small part of how things work. Have they even addressed the problem of how neural pathways are formed, or are they only looking how such pathways work after the formation part is over and done with?
I don’t think about free will from a religious point of view. I don’t even know if the concept of free will is appropriate at all. Nowadays it is common to talk about control, self-control. I agree with you that we need to define what free will is. For me, “free will” is the ability to make at least some conscious decisions even if the options are limited by genetics, experience, environment. Even if at the last moment of my action I can consciously prevent this action, I would say that this is “free will”. For example, a hungry homeless person saw money left unattended, he wanted to take this money, came close to it, extended his hand, but after some deliberation decided not to take the money. Is this a conscious action or an illusory choice?
I agree. I don’t know if this analogy is appropriate, but it seems to me that neurobiology’s attempts are similar to the attempts of a person who looks at a Van Gogh painting from a close distance under a microscope. Such a person will see the paint, the canvas, the interweaving of fibers, but will not see the whole picture.
Couldn’t agree more. A neutral stance toward the world would be something arbitrarily imposed from without and as such a demonstration of a very free -even reckless- exercise of volition. Freedom to act inauthentically is nothing to covet.
I wonder about this but I don’t really have any existential dread over it, but then again maybe it’s not my choice…….
I often wonder about natural selection and free will. I used an example once that I often find myself wondering how well it works.
The caterpillars. At some point let’s say there was a very red caterpillar with some green and yellow specks. All of his siblings and cousins looked roughly the same. They stood out big time on the green leaves. But some of them would go to the edges of the leaf to eat it and they survived more than the ones that stayed in the middle. Overtime those on the edges of the leaves had some that barely moved while eating and others moved a lot. Those that moved a lot got eaten the most. Overtime all the caterpillars basically moved to the edges and ate slowly. Then some begin to go to the underside of the leaf and eat slowly. Those on top did not do as well. Then overtime those on the underside begin to also not eat during the day and only barely moved at night. Those did the best. Then those that did that begin to curl the leaves around them and eat from the inside of that curl.
So eventually all of those caterpillars curled the leaves around them from the underside, and barely moved while eating the inside of the curl at night. Instincts is really just another concept for programmed behavior. They don’t choose to do it. They naturally follow that pattern. So I wonder often how many things do I just do that’s part of a pattern programmed genetically inside of me. Then there is also the case of nurture in addition to nature. How many things have I learned and it’s become a habit without thought.
Take watermelon. I did not choose to like it. I just did. Getting mad when I’m punched. I don’t choose to get mad, I just do. I think about how ever since I was a little kid, I’ve liked horror. When I was just 4-5 years old, I sought out Halloween versions of kid books. Like Critter. As I got older I sought out goosebumps. When I was a kid, I never killed bugs inside. Found it repulsive. Would catch them and carry them outside. Was mostly vegetarian as a kid. When I was 10 I once cut a neighbors fence to free his cows because I knew they were going to be slaughtered. When I was 13 got in tons of trouble for sabotaging a pig farmers truck and trailer. By the time I was 16 I was almost completely vegetarian. By 19 full on vegan. I even typically don’t smash mosquitoes on me knowing they are just moms looking for amino acids for baby development and so I blow them off me as much as possible. But I never really choose to be this way. It’s just naturally how I’ve always been.
So I often wonder how much did I choose versus what was already chosen for me.
This isn’t directly applicable to the OP but I think it brings up something important that bears on it. Kendel, the bolded is for you.
That we find meaning in all manner of things in our lives—in our relationships with friends and family, in art and literature, religious belief—is not some weird epiphenomenon of the human mind. There is evident continuity between these human attributes and those we see in other animals. We don’t know and probably can never really know what a chimpanzee feels for its young, or what a dog feels for its owner or its comfortable blanket by the fire. But there are good reasons to believe that these animals feel something—which is to say, their response goes beyond automaton-like reaction. The animal finds some meaning in its environment: there is a relationship between the things it experiences and the goals and drives it possesses, and this is expressed in a mental valence imbued by the experience.
There is continuity with still simpler organisms too. Personally I don’t believe that a bacterium feels anything to speak of when it swims toward a source of nutrition, or away from a source of hazard. It doesn’t feel excited or scared. But I believe it is still reasonable and indeed necessary to speak of those stimuli as having meaning for a bacterium. There is nothing mystical in that idea. On the contrary, what we need, but currently lack, is a proper understanding of meaning in biology.
From Philip Ball’s How Life Works: A USER’S GUIDE TO THE NEW BIOLOGY
In that book he writes about how all life has agency. In the example of the bacterium which is drawn to nutrients but avoids hazards even that lowly life form is demonstrating agency and will. Is it free will? Probably not free enough for our liking but sufficient for its needs. I think it points out something about the exercise of our self consciously free will. For all our more sophisticated cognition, beneath that there is still the brute fact of volition. All life has it including us. We just also know that we have it and recognize circumstances where it is more or less constrained. But of course our freedom doesn’t extend to dictating what it is which shall attract or repulse us. That is more deeply embedded in our organism than our self conscious awareness can reach.
In it he explains more biology than I ever knew and
And of course one should be grateful to be relieved of volitional control over many things. Deciding when to breath or when to raise or lower ones blood pressure would be a poor use of our attention. Thankfully we don’t have to be involved in that. Free will only arises when something rises to conscious awareness and evokes a choice from us. But if I were a caterpillar I’d just go with the flow and roll that leaf.