The problem of free will and the way forward

 

Let me start with the defintion of the term ‘free will’. One of the misconceptions in the meaning of the term is to think of free will as freedom to do what one wants to do. I am not talking about such a definition. I am talking about why does one ‘want’ to do something? Is that wanting free? This definition is philosophically the most relevant one for me. It is the ability of human beings to choose freely, without any cause whatsoever. Not only the biggest of decisions, even a simple choice. For example, if you are choosing between two of the most favorite food items for the dinner, do you exercise free will?

Modern science says almost certainly that there is no free will. This is because of two main reasons. Let me elaborate.

1.      Choices are ‘deterministic’: If the universe works according to the physical laws, i.e., everything is cause and effect according to the deterministic physical laws, like collision of one particle cause the other to move and so on. If the initial conditions are known, everything in the universe can be determined. Since chemistry is just complex physics, biology is jus complex chemistry, human choice is just a product of complex biology in brain level. So everything is just blind physical process and hence, the process of human choice cannot be free. Choices can’t come out of the blue and there is no need of anything like a soul or supernatural. Right upto to the firing of final neuron that makes the choice, every single thing is according to physical laws. Simply put, the human choices are ‘deterministic’. There will be some reason for you to decide on one food item for the dinner over the other. However subtle it is, there will be a cause. The knowledge of extra spiciness or the ease of digestion etc., meaning the choices are ultimately deterministic. Even if the reason is not obvious, even if you get the feeling of freely choosing, the latest neuroscience says, it is only a post-hoc story your conscious mind tells itself about something that was already decided subsconsciously. So there is always a causal chain. i.e., The previous state of the universe ‘determines’ the current state. On the other hand, science itself provides another view. The most fundamental pillar of modern science, the particle physics, says, the human choices can not be deterministic but random. Let’s unpack.

2.      Choices are ‘random’: Particle physics tells that randomness and probabilities underly the working of the universe. For example, an electron is not surely present at a location but only ‘a probability’ of its presence can be talked about. Its position is actually random and cannot be determined. It means that the previous state of the universe is not the cause for the current state. The current state happens ramdomly among numerous other choices of states.  No causal chain. Therefore, if an electron is present in one location, the final neuron firing for a human choice will be something but if the electron is not present there, then the choice would be different. Going with the same example as before, the choice of food item is because of just randomness of subatomic level actions changing the final neuron firing. Now the question is, does that mean humans have free will? No, it just says nothing is deterministic but everything is ‘random’. So, this understanding also simply discards the free authorship of choice.

In summary, whether human choices are either deterministic or random, there is no scope of free will.

Alright. Then no one can be held accountable for their mistakes, including serial killers and pedophiles. Punishment would lose its meaning. Likewise, no one could claim responsibility for their achievements or moral virtues.

How does it make you feel? Pessimistic? Is it even a healthy thing to understand about our reality? The most pressing question is, will it not make people act more immorally? What is the way forward?

The optimistic way forward involves understanding more. You see, even if people understand that scientifically there are compelling reasons to believe that there is no free will, in daily life, even those people act as if free will exists. Neuroscience show that by certain training it is possible to be optimistic about moral behaviour. Consider the following experiment. The experiment tested whether beliefs about free will affect honesty. Students were primed with one of the two messages. One group recived messages of “no free will”, we are just part of mechanistic universe and so on. The other group recieved “Yes there is free will” messages, that we can make conscious moral choices. Then all the students were given an exam on some general subject, but they were left alone to grade their own tests and pay themselves according to their marks. The result: Students who were primed to believe they had no free will, consistently cheated more, taking extra money they didn't earn. Therefore, we can conclude that ‘believing’ you're just a pawn of physical laws either gives you an excuse for bad behavior, "don't blame me, I have no free will” or simply drains the willpower needed to resist temptation.

A researcher compares it to sailing: you can't control the wind or currents in the ocean, but you can set your course and largely end up where you want to go. He argues that while science has revealed much about consciousness and physics, we should be cautious about dismissing free will entirely, because believing in it clearly matters, practically speaking.

So whether free will is real or an illusion may be less important than the fact that believing in it makes us more moral, more responsible, and more motivated to shape our own lives. As much as possible we should think that we are free to choose and we are responsible for our actions. It has real positive consequence backed by experiments.

There is another interesting dimension to this. We discussed so much on human choices, but  what about human creativity? (If you think AI can do it, think again after reading the rest of this article). For example, consider the creation of theory of relativity. It is an hypothesis that was created by Einstein that explains many experimental observations. For the problems Einstein had, his creativity has hit an answer. The answer is not ‘random’ but the opposite of it. Because a random answer cannot be the right answer. If it is determistic, it must be predictable and any prediction first requires the laws. Now, here the law itself is reached by the creativity of a human. Then in principle it could not be predicted before hand by even the most advanced of computers since it can only model and simulate things based on the available laws. If its AI, it too works only based on the avialable data and the laws. So the right unknown laws can never be predicted. Will creativity eventually reach laws according to which creativity itself operates? we may never know but what is undeniable is the act of creativity makes humans incredibly important. The knowledge created by such creativity has causal power to rearrange the physical universe in ways that would otherwise be astronomically unlikely. It can convert things that aren't resources into resources. If problems are inevitable in the universe for humas, solutions can come from only human creativity to solve problems. And that is profoundly optimistic.