Free Will

The Times Science section has an article on free will that's much better than what you usually get from the popular press. A recent Economist article, by contrast, started with some observations about recent neuroscience, leapt to a conclusion about metaphysics, and then pondered whether the new freedom-less metaphysics didn't have sweeping consequences for liberalism, political freedom, etc.

As Julian explains this is all quite wrong. Political liberty, understood as the absence of coercion, has nothing in particular to do with radical metaphysical free will. What's more, there's less connection between the metaphysics of free will and the concept of responsibility than most people think. In most cases, it works perfectly well to think of whether and how to hold someone responsible for something as a pragmatic political decision. The kind of responsibility that may or may not be impacted by what we think about free will is something larger and more transcendent. Something like whether or not it makes sense for God to hold people responsible for their wrongdoing (by, e.g. sending them to hell) if God also created a predetermined universe (as, I think, orthodox Muslims are supposed to believe), which is tied up with all your traditional theological problems about theodicy and so forth. For the purposes of making profane decisions about governance, though, we can kind of ignore all that stuff.

Comments

You can't help but think that.

Posted by grytpype | January 2, 2007 10:12 AM

From the physics point of view, the argument against actual free will is stronger than indicated in the article. This whole quantum mechanics indeterminacy hinting at free will argument really is wishful thinking; quantum mechanics is determinsitic in its own way, and consciousness simply doesn't enter into the picture. From a more practical standpoint, you are exactly right about the consequences. Quantum mechanics may underlie both human behavior and the formation of hurricanes, but it's a useless way to describe either since the scales are all wrong (the emergent phenomena argument). In both cases, the only way to understand the system is phenomenologically; for human behavior, this implies we all act as if we have free will, even if at some fundamental we really don't. At the level of human interaction, the approximation is essentially true.

This does, however, undercut Western religion pretty severely, as well as calling into question notions of criminal guilt being associated with a person's will rather than that person's physiology, as in the case of the pedophile cited in an economist article from a couple weeks back,

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8453850

By the way, how is it we are all so willing to accept that various chemicals affect the way we think (sugar, caffeine, drugs), and are unable to draw the simple conclusion that brain chemistry and physiology is rather fundamental for controlling how we think?

Posted by jfaberuiuc | January 2, 2007 10:31 AM

I agree completely with your point. I was surprised at the sophomoric reasoning in the Economist article, because their science section is usually pretty good.

While I agree that it is ultimately a pragmatic decision as to what we hold people responsible for, its not as clear how science should impact our beliefs in the morality that is the basis for our laws. This is an area where there is a disagreement between two of my favorite authors, Steven Pinker and E. O. Wilson.

Pinker is opposed to the "naturalistic fallacy", thinking that morality should be completely divorced from what science tells us about human nature. Wilson, on the other hand, thinks that science should largely provide the basis for our morality in the way it informs us about human nature (although, there obviously need to some ad hoc value judgements thrown in as well). On balance, I tilt toward Wilson's view, which he expressed in Concilience.

Posted by Jim W | January 2, 2007 10:39 AM

"Pragmatic" is the key word. Isaiah Berlin once observed that he had never met a determinist, "they say they're determinists, but they don't act like they really believe it." (? quoted from memory)

In fact it is impossible for a person to act as if he/she has no free will. So, pragmatically speaking, free will is true, whether or not it TRUE in the metaphysical sense.

Posted by gregpstone | January 2, 2007 10:46 AM

"it is impossible for a person to act as if he/she has no free will"
greg, does that mean:
a) necessarily, people act in a way that is inconsistent with the truth of determinism
or
b) necessarily, people act as though they believe they have free will?

the first strikes me as clearly false; the second clearly true, but nothing follows from it about the truth of free will, even "pragmatically speaking" (except: it follows that people will keep thinking it's true, even if it ain't).

otherwise--I agree with MY that the NYT article was better than one has learned to expect. a little bit of nonsense about 'using mathematics to cut through philosophical knots', which is crap, and a little too much handwaving about quantum theory, which is also par for the course, but that aside it was far from the worst popular reporting on this topic.

Posted by kid bitzer | January 2, 2007 11:07 AM

Kid Bitzter hit a couple of my minor dislikes about the NY Times article (I also don't think that mechanical engineers or cosmologists have much to contribute to the issue), but overall it was a good job. Dennett and Wegner are good sources; Wegner's The Illusion of Conscious Will is a compelling take on the whole issue.

Posted by RSA | January 2, 2007 11:19 AM

From a biological perspective, it's clear that human beings are not dumb machines infused with some external life force that gives us radical free will. We are animals, whose thought processes are defined by physiological structures and chemical processes that have been honed by evolution to provide us with instinctive, reflexive behaviors. But humans also have a highly developed forebrain that gives us the capacity to adjust our behavior consciously, based upon information or moral values that have been learned. The cortex is highly plastic, and learning actually creates physical changes in the brain that can modify future behavior.

The classical understanding of "free will" may be false, but humans can absolutely make conscious choices with freedom within a certain limited range. The problem is that in practice, and especially in cases of illness or addiction or extreme stress, conscious choice is often essentially overridden by instinctive behaviors. Yet every day, individuals choose to go on a diet, choose to check into rehab, or choose to see a psychiatrist. The individual will is never completely free and it is occasionally shackled, but it exists nonetheless.

What strikes me as most misguided about the Economist's article is the suggestion that this understanding poses specific problems for "liberalism." Liberalism arose as a result of the understanding that power corrupts and hierarchical models of society that leave choice in the hands of the few are prone to abuse. I don't think there has been any scientific discovery that has challenged the validity of that assessment.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | January 2, 2007 11:41 AM

But the NYT article was composed of two different kinds of findings that undercut the notion of free will: one based in physics, the other in neuropsychology. While the former are not in any practical way troubling, the latter kind of freaked me out, and might actually mean something. To wit: the experiments showing that the neurological activity associated with the physical carrying out of certain actions appeared to precede the conscious activity which subjects believed to have directed those actions. So that our conscious understanding of what we'd been doing was often just ex post facto rationalization, and the real decisionmaking process was subconscious and impenetrable even to ourselves.

For some types of activity this is just obvious; we all know that when we're playing soccer, say, we're not consciously deciding how to move to handle the ball. (Actually, I usually am, which is why I suck at soccer.) But if you really embrace the notion that people don't consciously control a lot of their situational decisions, they just kind of happen and are reasoned away afterwards, isn't that somewhat troubling both for the moral implications of holding people responsible, and for the pragmatic legal/social implications in terms of the effectiveness of deterrence or reward? If a murderer says he doesn't really know why he pulled the trigger, it just kind of happened, and psychologists support that explanation as most likely true, then doesn't that make a jury's findings of motive seem rather artificial and bizarre?

Of course, pace the Economist piece, it would seem to make fuzzyheaded '70s liberalism MORE powerful rather than less. ("I blame society!")

Posted by brooksfoe | January 2, 2007 11:41 AM

The question of free will is interesting, but is it necesssarily important for political discussion? Either we have free will or we don't. I gathered from the article that the interesting idea is that we might have some free will even as we are largely programmed, but I think having some free will is like being somewhat pregnant--even a little is enough.

If we don't have free will, then all these arguments are pre-programmed. As are the societal structures and moral strictures that arise from assuming that we have free will when we don't, or from being "right" that we don't have free will. As are scientific "discoveries" that show we don't have free will when we thought we did.

If we do have free will, then we should exercise it to assume that we do have free will (since otherwise we are wrong) and constuct our society accordingly. That is, there's nothing to be gained from thinking we don't have free will.

Posted by Matt | January 2, 2007 11:50 AM

I don't see a conflict between absolute determinism and partial free will as we commonly perceive it. For example, it is determined by an endless chain of natural causes that I am writing this post. But parts of those causes are in me, determined by me, inasmuch as I'm part of the chain of causes. To that extent, my choice to write this is both determined and free.

Posted by Gary Sugar | January 2, 2007 12:04 PM

"But if you really embrace the notion that people don't consciously control a lot of their situational decisions, they just kind of happen and are reasoned away afterwards, isn't that somewhat troubling both for the moral implications of holding people responsible, and for the pragmatic legal/social implications in terms of the effectiveness of deterrence or reward?"

Not really, because all it means is that the decision making process for the situation at hand isn't open to inspection by some other part of the brain until after it has been initiated. You have to get away from the idea that there is a central controller in the brain that receives all input, processes it and then gives orders. It's nonsense, as neurology has shown. Even so, you - your brain/mind - are making the decision, and you are responsible for it. It's just that you - your conscious self, that is - are not aware of what decision you have made until afterward or at least part way through. Are writers who compose novels or songs at best semi-consciously not responsible for their works?

If you want a good (largely) philosophical analysis of the issues surrounding distributed consciousness, I recommend Dennett's Consciousness Explained, although it is quite old now. It's a better book than his more recent Freedom Evolved, although obviously that deals more directly with the free will question. If you want to delve into the neurological details, Christoph Koch's much more recent The Quest For Consciousness is superb, but it focuses mainly on visual perception.

I agree with some of the other commenters that the quantum mechanics stuff is a complete red herring.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | January 2, 2007 12:17 PM

kid bitzer,

The second. "the second clearly true, but nothing follows from it about the truth of free will, even "pragmatically speaking""

The point of this pragmatic truth is that the discussion is meaningless. I agree with William James that if the answer to to a question has no effect on one's actions, then the question has no meaning.

Posted by gregpstone | January 2, 2007 12:19 PM

These findings are nothing new: "...experiments showing that the neurological activity associated with the physical carrying out of certain actions appeared to precede the conscious activity which subjects believed to have directed those actions."

I read about similar findings 15 years ago. There are also split-brain findings from Gazzaniga indicating that the left hemisphere is something of a bullshit artist which is perfectly willing to come up with explanations for what the right brain has just done that it actually knows nothing about.

So, not only are we lacking in free will as it is commonly understood, but we are also lacking in self knowledge. There are also strong arguments that evolution has designed us to be self deceptive in order to make us better at deceiving others (ie, its easier to lie when you believe the lie).

The important point that Matt Y. made, though, is that these sorts of results do not undermine our holding people responsible for their behavior. Accountability is a pragmatic policy that makes society work better.

Posted by Jim W | January 2, 2007 12:19 PM

brooksfoe, for the criminal intent case, I think the argument would be that even though the criminal didn't know why he pulled the trigger, the worry as a society is that he'll do it again for the same reason, whatever it is, and thus some form of negative conditioning, like prison, is the appropriate response. The argument for punishment works even in the absence of free will, if one assumes that the rules of society are organized to produce happier and more contented futures. The bigger problem in the modern justice system is determining what the appropriate means are to deal with criminals. Is psychotropic medication acceptable, and if so, when? In the future, brain surgery (we are not there yet, not by a long, long shot)?

Posted by jfaberuiuc | January 2, 2007 12:20 PM

Something like whether or not it makes sense for God to hold people responsible for their wrongdoing (by, e.g. sending them to hell) if God also created a predetermined universe (as, I think, orthodox Muslims are supposed to believe)

Or orthodox Presbyterians.

Posted by Jose Padilla | January 2, 2007 12:22 PM

Liberalism arose as a result of the understanding that power corrupts and hierarchical models of society that leave choice in the hands of the few are prone to abuse. I don't think there has been any scientific discovery that has challenged the validity of that assessment.

No, LaFollette, but liberalism also generally involves a belief in human rationality. The idea that people are generally not rational actors, but are instead largely motivated by primitive emotions, myths, herd psychology, and superstition, is a genuine challenge to liberalism, and has been recognized as such since the dawn of fascism. The neuropsychological argument that much of our sense of having chosen our actions is an illusion, manufactured by the conscious mind to cover up automatic processes which are deeper and impenetrable to us, does pose some problems for political ideologies of freedom and personal choice. In the same sense that findings that 40% of voters remain unsure who to vote for before entering the polling booth, and explain their decision afterwards in terms that often seem baldly illogical or based on falsehoods, pose problems for the idea of a democratic political mandate.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 2, 2007 12:25 PM

Accountability is a pragmatic policy that makes society work better.

See, this is where I think the problem comes in. The more subrational the decisionmaking process is, the harder it seems to be sure that social policies actually influence it -- or rather, the language becomes more the language of behavior modification, and less the language of reasoned political discussion, or of moral responsibility. I think that at least in the area of criminality, there are serious consequences to such a shift. You're talking about locking people up for years at a time. You'd better have damn good pragmatic and legal reasons for doing so, if you don't think the people you've locked up actually consciously decided to do the things they did. That's an exaggerated way of phrasing things, but I think you get the gist.

But, yeah, the same questions are raised by the whole field of psychology from the discovery of the subconscious on. This is hardly new stuff; it's just that the neuropsychological evidence puts it in a new, more materially striking perspective.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 2, 2007 12:42 PM

Re: quantum mechanics is determinsitic in its own way, and consciousness simply doesn't enter into the picture.

Quantum machanics is deterministic only in the large picture: given an ensemble of N partucles we can predict that some approximate X percent will behave in one way, another Y percent will behave in another way and so forth. If N is big enough the law of large numbers insures that the ensemble as whole behaves as if it were subject to deterministic laws since the possibility of it doing otherwise becomes vanishingly small. However none of this means that the behavior of any individual particle is deterministic and any claim to the contrary indicates the commentor lacks a proper understanding of the subject. Quantum indeterminism is real and cannot be dismissed with wishful thinking about God not playing dice with nature.

Re: In both cases, the only way to understand the system is phenomenologically; for human behavior, this implies we all act as if we have free will, even if at some fundamental we really don't.

You know it is also possible that in fact we do have free will (to some limited extent at least) and that our understanding of the physics/metepahysics of our world is what it is incorrect-- or at least incomplete.

Re: To wit: the experiments showing that the neurological activity associated with the physical carrying out of certain actions appeared to precede the conscious activity which subjects believed to have directed those actions.

The key word here is "appears". What may in fact be happening is that choice is made and is then perceived via the neurological activity a fractional second later. This is similar to the way that thunder from a lightning flash reaches us later than the flash itself does, though we would be incorrect to believe that the two phenomena do not in fact originate simulatanously.

Posted by Jonf | January 2, 2007 12:45 PM

From the New York Times article:

A knowledge of quarks is no help in predicting hurricanes.

Is that really true? If you had a massive enough computer programmed to simulate nothing but the behavior and interaction of quarks, it couldn't in principal be used to model and predict the action of hurricanes? Not saying that it would be a particularly efficient use of computer power.

I find the idea of "emergent properties" pretty mysterious. I have the same questions about it as Cosma Shalizi does here.

Posted by bryan | January 2, 2007 12:58 PM

BrooksFoe,

But a lack of free will does not imply that we are motivated largely by myths, herd psychology and superstition. Besides, I would claim that if we were largely motivated by those things, liberalism wouldn't be possible. There's no doubt that we are significantly motivated/impressed by deep genetic imprints - deference to the alpha "male(s)" of our group, a desire to reproduce and care for the young, a tendency to store fat for the lean winter months, and, the most fundamental trait - the desire to "get ahead" (in whatever dimension of aheadness you wish to get). But modern society has conquered many primitive genetic traits, allowing the concept of elected leaders, deferred rewards and non-physical competition to flourish.

Much of childhood, after all, is spent learning that the primitive response is unacceptable. That everyone gets a turn, that everyone has the right to be heard, that we settle arguments with words instead of beatings, and that just because someone is different, doesn't make them inferior or inequal. And, for the most part, liberal society has succeeded in those regards. None of the others I mentioned seem fatal for liberalism. They may be fatal for communism or socialism, but not in the general concept of a universal right to free speech, suffrage and the pursuit of happiness.

Posted by jb | January 2, 2007 1:03 PM

There's a fudge in the article (aside from the chocolate anecdote, which had a slight "hardy-har-har" feel to me). It equates the conscious/unconscious distinction with willed/determinate. However, on the one hand, it's entirely possible to see our conscious choices as determined, and that rather than the overriding of them by chocolate is what usually is at stake in philosophical debates over free will. And, on the other hand, it's by no means upsetting to think of the mind as a sufficient whole that conscious choices involve neurological processes such that they take time to make us say to ourselves, "Done!" Or, to put it another way, our unconscious could be mulling things over without losing spoiling the model of a mind capable of mulling, but the whole process and even the feeling of choice could be determined. I won't try to settle it, as it goes back centuries, but I think the article isn't as close to a conceptual breakthrough here as experimentalists would love you to think.

Posted by John Haber | January 2, 2007 1:04 PM

Re: "...You'd better have damn good pragmatic and legal reasons for doing so, if you don't think the people you've locked up actually consciously decided to do the things they did."

I think someone can "consciously" decide to do something and also be utterly lacking in free will. I don't think the presence or absence of free will is a mystery. If you have a really complex information processing device, which the brain is, it will appear to possess free will even though it is determinstic at the lowest levels of description.

If there is a stochastic component at the lowest level (ie, quantum mechanics), that doesn't really matter, as other commentors have mentioned. For example, in my job I work with deterministic algorithms that have a stochastic component, which involves random numbers. The random numbers are actually pseudo-random nubmers, generated using deterministic code. This doesn't matter. The algorithms would work the same way if they numbers were actual random numbers.

What IS a mystery (and I think always will be) is consciousness. That is, I don't think we will ever understand why neurons firing in our brains cause sensations and perceptions.

Finally, I think the pragmatic arguments for vengeance and punishment are very strong, because people feel good when they see transgressors punished.

Posted by Jim W | January 2, 2007 1:29 PM

The idea that people are generally not rational actors, but are instead largely motivated by primitive emotions, myths, herd psychology, and superstition, is a genuine challenge to liberalism, and has been recognized as such since the dawn of fascism.

Absolutely, Brooksfoe, but what I intended to say is that this is not a challenge that is unique to liberal democracy. Those primitive emotions and superstitions have also posed striking challenges to feudalism, Marxism, and fascism, much to the credit of the human spirit.

It seems to me that a proper understanding of the limits of free will poses a very serious challenge to laissez-faire ideals of liberty, as something to be maximized simply by removing constraints upon individual choices and holding individuals personally accountable for behaving as rational actors. But it also points toward a more collective, democratic understanding of freedom, as a broad environment that allows for individual choice and responsibility within a framework of cultural and political institutions that provide security and opportunity. I think that this understanding of freedom is quite liberal in the modern sense of the word.

Let's put it this way... there are limitations to free will, but the evidence does not suggest an illiberal remedy.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | January 2, 2007 1:33 PM

Finally, I think the pragmatic arguments for vengeance and punishment are very strong, because people feel good when they see transgressors punished.

Hm. I feel good when I see Jennifer McCarthy naked, but the government isn't in the business of providing me with that good feeling. The argument for punishment is different: that it deters crime. But if decisions to commit crime are non-rational, the argument that punishment deters it becomes complicated.

It seems to me that a proper understanding of the limits of free will poses a very serious challenge to laissez-faire ideals of liberty, as something to be maximized simply by removing constraints upon individual choices and holding individuals personally accountable for behaving as rational actors. But it also points toward a more collective, democratic understanding of freedom, as a broad environment that allows for individual choice and responsibility within a framework of cultural and political institutions that provide security and opportunity.

This seems exactly right to me, LaFollette. But one thing that emerges from this discussion, for me, is a reminder that the kind of "freedom" which we value in Western liberal democracies is a particular social condition which has to be created through institutions and cultural practices. People can only exercise freedom in situations where they are informed accurately and thoroughly of the available options, or allowed to investigate those options thoroughly, and are then asked to choose, without coercion. Once they've made a decision under those circumstances, they can meaningfully be said to have chosen freely.

Part of the reason why this type of freedom has proliferated in the West is that it is an exceptionally powerful method of forging social consensus and undertaking collective action; in that way it's like contract law, which similarly depends on a strong concept of free will. But you have to build the institutions within which freedom can exist. Freedom doesn't just happen when you take away outside restraints. Kant was quite clear about this, about how just doing whatever you felt like at the moment was completely unfree because it meant surrender to the tyranny of unreasoning bestial instinct; freedom necessitated a voluntary and reasoned commitment to rules.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 2, 2007 3:45 PM

Re: "...Finally, I think the pragmatic arguments for vengeance and punishment are very strong, because people feel good when they see transgressors punished."

I didn't flesh out this point earlier. The point is, evolutionary psychologists have theorized that one of the strongest human motivations is the desire to obtain justice and fairness. This tendency supposedly evolved to discourage freeloading, which is highly detrimental to the survival of cooperative groups. Therefore, the practice of punishing lawbreakers is in harmony with natural human traits at the individual level, and in harmony with group dynamics at the societal level. This makes it pragmatic. Whether or not human beings possess free will when considered at the minutest scale of the operations of the brain just doesn't matter.

Posted by Jim W | January 2, 2007 4:17 PM

Pinker is opposed to the "naturalistic fallacy", thinking that morality should be completely divorced from what science tells us about human nature.

Jim W., I don't know whether that usage of "naturalistic fallacy" is Pinker's or yours, but it's close to the opposite of what I understand "naturalistic fallacy" to mean. I read it used by ev psych people to refer to the arguments of critics who claim that ev psych research is a justification for immoral behavior (aggression, etc.); such critics are falling prey to the naturalistic fallacy by conflating the natural with the good, they argue.

Wikipedia says: "The naturalistic fallacy is an alleged logical fallacy, described by British philosopher G.E. Moore in Principia Ethica (1903). Moore stated that a naturalistic fallacy was committed whenever a philosopher attempts to prove a claim about ethics by appealing to a definition of the term "good" in terms of one or more natural properties (such as "pleasant", "more evolved", "desired", etc.)." I think this is consistent with what I previously understood, since "genetically programmed" would be a natural property.

I dunno, though, maybe I got confused somewhere along the way.

Posted by Tia | January 2, 2007 4:38 PM

Tia,

I think the definition you showed is consistent with what I said. Pinker (in How the Mind Works) stated that we should not infer what is right and wrong from what is natural. We should keep our beliefs about morality independent of our beliefs about how the mind works. Thus, he is against committing the naturalistic fallacy.

I think his basic point is that we already know enough about human nature via common sense, literature, history, etc. to inform our morality. We shouldn't hang on the latest scientific findings to alter those judgements. In that sense, I mostly agree with him, but I still think (in accordance with E. O. Wilson) that science is bringing new information to light that can alter our moral beliefs, at least a little bit.

Posted by Jim W | January 2, 2007 4:52 PM

Jim W,

I think the confusion comes in because you originally said that Pinker is "opposed" to the naturalistic fallacy, perhaps implying that he doesn't agree with it, rather than that he doesn't think it should be committed.

I only chime in because I have a bit of an interest in what G.E. Moore said.

BTW, Pinker is not committing the naturalistic fallacy by believing keeping our beliefs independent of our knowledge about how the mind works. On this, Moore would agree, since conflating how the mind works with our beliefs about morality would be, in Moore's view, committing said fallacy.

Posted by Jay J. | January 2, 2007 5:37 PM

Jim W,

I think the confusion comes in because you originally said that Pinker is "opposed" to the naturalistic fallacy, perhaps implying that he doesn't agree with it, rather than that he doesn't think it should be committed.

I only chime in because I have a bit of an interest in what G.E. Moore said.

BTW, Pinker is not committing the naturalistic fallacy by believing keeping our beliefs independent of our knowledge about how the mind works. On this, Moore would agree, since conflating how the mind works with our beliefs about morality would be, in Moore's view, committing said fallacy.

Posted by Jay J. | January 2, 2007 5:43 PM

Another problem with the article, to me, is that there isn't a distinction made between having strong urges and deciding to act on them. Even if our conciousness only realizes some decisions after they are made, this wouldn't apply to the case of the pedophile discussed in the article. So OK, the guy had a tumor that appeared to cause his urges, but a normal person who lived his entire life without being a pedophile would need to go through several steps of planning to go around and proposition children. It's not like swatting a fly, and that can be seen just by watching an episode of "To Catch a Predetor" on MSNBC. Those guys have discussion on the internet and then drive to someone's house, stoppig along the way to buy condoms and alcohol. Now it's obvious that if they didn't have urges they wouldn't be doing this, but the existence of the urge does not mean that the action is determined. I mean, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But demonstrating that urges are determined does not also demonstrate than actions are.

BTW, sorry for the double post above, don't know what happened.

Posted by Jay J. | January 2, 2007 5:58 PM

Another problem with the article, to me, is that there isn't a distinction made between having strong urges and deciding to act on them. Even if our conciousness only realizes some decisions after they are made, this wouldn't apply to the case of the pedophile discussed in the article. So OK, the guy had a tumor that appeared to cause his urges, but a normal person who lived his entire life without being a pedophile would need to go through several steps of planning to go around and proposition children. It's not like swatting a fly, and that can be seen just by watching an episode of "To Catch a Predetor" on MSNBC. Those guys have discussions on the internet and then drive to someone's house, stoppig along the way to buy condoms and alcohol. Now it's obvious that if they didn't have urges they wouldn't be doing this, but the existence of the urge does not mean that the action is determined. I mean, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But demonstrating that urges are determined does not also demonstrate than actions are.

Even if the ole guy in the article couldn't control his actions due to his tumor, they haven't like, pinpointed a spot in the brain that determines the actions we will take, even if they can attribute all kinds of urges to physiology.

BTW, sorry for the double post above, don't know what happened.

Posted by Jay J. | January 2, 2007 6:15 PM

Free will, like the notion of god, isn't true or false, it is a useless construct for which no agreed upon definition can be stated. And it adds nothing to the science of understanding human behavior. It is intellectual nihilism. A plea to not explore further the biological underpinnings of our behavior. Afraid of the implications of scientific cosmology? Cry god. Afraid of the implications of humans being fully biological? Cry free will.

Free will is a shorthand way of saying that I can predict my behavior better than you can. Of course, like you, I disavow free will when dealing with objectionable behaviors, like cheating on my diet or smoking.

And it isn't necessary for our ethics. It is not necessary for us to believe in free will to think that people who rob can be made less likely to do so by punishment. Does my dog have free will?

And exactly when did you grow this brain lobe called free will? Did you have it at birth? Do you think you could predict, at the age of two, your choices better than your mother could? When did you develop free will? Did it occur all at once? Are some people's wills freer than others? And why do you disavow it at times? Very convenient.

Concepts that add nothing to our literal understanding of the universe, belong to the worlds of art and religion. I invite those who believe in free will to come up with a non-tautological definition.

Posted by epistemology | January 2, 2007 9:55 PM

Again, epistemology, I think you're failing to distinguish between different levels of the idea of "freedom". To claim that humans are not free in the sense of physical determinism is a pretty unimportant claim, as you say. The NYT article has a nice expression of why: even if our actions are predetermined, there is no computational shortcut which would allow us to predict what our actions will be, except to simply wait and find out what we do. I'm no expert but I think that the article's citation of Godel is this regard is appropriate. And if our actions are predetermined but also unknowable in advance, even in theory, then to say that they are predetermined is functionally meaningless.

But to say that for many realms of behavior, humans are not free in the sense that our conscious wills do not actually determine our behavior, that we're generally driven by motivations which we ourselves don't understand and cannot control, does have important implications. And for the three centuries that a concern with freedom has been the central concern in Western political philosophy, it is this sort of freedom, the freedom to act according to one's reason rather than according to either external or internal compulsion, that has been at issue. Neither Kant nor Hegel would have considered the NYT author's guilty scarfing of the chocolate dessert to be a "free" act; it is the product of instinct, which is a form of compulsion. The meaningful question about free will lies at the intersection of the conscious, reasoning mind, on the one hand, and the coercive forces of animal instinct and of social pressure and influence, on the other. If you really don't think it's important whether or not people consciously determine their actions or are driven by mere animal instinct, then I find it hard to see why you would hold people responsible for their actions, any more than you would hold your dog responsible for his.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 2, 2007 11:06 PM

Godel may be a bit of a heavy hammer in this case. Somebody had the right start of an idea before in mentioning the computation of hurricane prediction based on the behavior of quarks. Godel's theorem is on formal undecidability, as in "no amount of computational power/time," making moot the free will debate, but even before that, the computational complexity of a problem like hurricane prediction (as an analog of free will) may be way beyond the physically possible. Complex problems like that end up in the number-of-steps-equals-number-of-atoms-in-the-universe range pretty quickly, and if a solving an equation would require all the energy in the universe, we can chalk it up as a loss pretty early on.

Posted by Chaberski | January 3, 2007 12:02 AM

If you really don't think it's important whether or not people consciously determine their actions or are driven by mere animal instinct, then I find it hard to see why you would hold people responsible for their actions, any more than you would hold your dog responsible for his.

I don't know, I have a hard time taking this point seriously. I'm not sure why, it seems to be some sort of instinct or impulse or something.

Posted by Barbar | January 3, 2007 4:56 AM

The NYT article has a nice expression of why: even if our actions are predetermined, there is no computational shortcut which would allow us to predict what our actions will be, except to simply wait and find out what we do.

Freedom is not the same as unpredictability. We don't want our actions to be uncaused, or caused but simply unpredictable; we want them to be caused for the right reasons. What the "right reasons" are has nothing to do with quantum mechanics.

Posted by Barbar | January 3, 2007 5:13 AM

Brooksfoe, most dog owners do hold their pet responsible for its actions. What do you think discipline is for? But more importantly, you're creating a false dichotomy. Not all our reasoning is conscious - ask a mathematician - nor is everything that is not conscious "animal instinct" or "social pressure". Thousands upon thousands of factors go into each of our decisions - sensory input, personal preferences, mood, circumstance, etc - and only a small fraction of them are available to our conscious self - mercifully, or else we'd be paralysed with indecision. Usually they are the most pertinent or tendentious factors, but not always - how often have you done something only to wonder why afterwards?

"Neither Kant nor Hegel would have considered the NYT author's guilty scarfing of the chocolate dessert to be a "free" act."

Then so much the worse for Kant and Hegel. They were writing in a time when the scientific understandings of brain/mind and the universe asa whole allowed a much different conception of freedom.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | January 3, 2007 5:23 AM

Almost any driver can attest that decisions are made prior to conscious "choice". If an object (ball, child, another car) suddenly appears in your path, no decision making process would be fast enough to permit choice. We act autonomically to even the most perilous of situations. Similarly with speech or writing. Nobody weighs their words much when they speak. Even cautious speakers speak from within some non-consciously-selected list of options. There's no "bootstrapping" from nothing. Our sentences emerge formed and complete, and with them we discover what it is that "we've" been thinking.

But choice is a necessary illusion. We'd quickly sink into despair if the full implications of being a robot ever sank into our awareness.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 3, 2007 2:01 PM

We'd quickly sink into despair if the full implications of being a robot ever sank into our awareness.

Why? If the full implication of being a robot is something depressing like "we can't really make choices," and as a result we robots wind up depressed and inert, wouldn't this really be a sign that we robots CAN make choices? It seems wrong to think that we have no genuine freedom (hence the despair) and while holding on to the conceit that this despair is at all meaningful. Kind of in the same way it seems wrong to worry that maybe we can't assume that society consists of rational agents, all while expressing this concern in a rational argument directed at other presumably rational agents (see brooksfoe above).

Posted by Barbar | January 3, 2007 2:35 PM

Why despair? Because it would be beautiful to think Free Will was involved in this:

http://tinyurl.com/yddls8

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 3, 2007 3:30 PM

Do examples like the split-second "decision" (or reaction) making that we do while driving (or competing in sports or something) demonstrate that we don't make free decisions about like, what college to go to or who to marry?

Isn't there a distinction between dodging a tackler on the field and deciding if you should take that new job offer?

I mean, maybe we have free will, maybe we don't. But demonstrating that our reactions in hurried situations are only conciously registered afterword does not seem to demonstrate what's going on while we take time to mull something over.

Posted by Jay J. | January 3, 2007 4:22 PM

If after some thought you decide Free Will wasn't involved with that story... then you can't really think that Free Will had anything to do with your ability to draw that conclusion... and so isn't your despair ("oh no! I don't have free will!") a little precious (who is this free "I" person all upset about his lack of true Free Will)? Unless this Free Will thing isn't really necessary to get emotional about things... in which case why be so upset if we don't have it?

Posted by Barbar | January 3, 2007 4:35 PM

"I mean, maybe we have free will, maybe we don't. But demonstrating that our reactions in hurried situations are only conciously registered afterword does not seem to demonstrate what's going on while we take time to mull something over."

Of course not. They are very different processes. But one decision is as "free" as the other, in any scientifically meaningful sense. You make the decision freely or unfreely in either case, it's just that one is a conscious decision and the other isn't. People get hung up on that when they shouldn't.The phenomenon of consciousness has all sorts of interesting implications, but free will isn't one of them.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | January 3, 2007 7:49 PM

Ginger Yellow,

So the fact that some decisions are more like instinctive reations doesn't lead you to believe that they are less free than decisions that are rationally thought out?

Do you not see any use in proposing, like, a freedom scale, where the actions (or reactions) of an earthworm would be less free than the actions of a person deciding whether or not to go to graduate school?

Posted by Jay J. | January 3, 2007 7:59 PM

I don't see how time enters into it. If there are actions which cannot be the result of choice, adding time doesn't seem to cure the defect.

Consciousness and Free Will are intimately connected. I once underwent a medical procedure using only a hypnotic for analgesic. In the midst of the procedure, apparently, I strenuously let the doctor know what he could do with his damn probe. The doctor was forced to abandon the procedure and afterward couldn't even look me in the eye to explain why. My actions had all the appearance of "choice" -- a fluent and exact diction -- except that there was no "I" involved at the time. The doctor clearly didn't buy it. (I have no memory of the event at all.) The illusion of Free Will -- if it is one -- is extremely pervasive and persuasive.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 3, 2007 9:00 PM

Jeffrey Davis,

OK, so you had an experience where you did something that you couldn't have conciously decided to do.

What about when you asked your wife to marry you? What about when you decided which college to attend? What about when you thought about which career to pursue?

I'm just at a loss at how examples about split second reactions and words spoken under hypnosis are knock-down arguments against free will in all circumstances.

Posted by Jay J. | January 3, 2007 9:33 PM

I agree with Ginger Yellow: I was creating a false dichotomy, but it was just in response to people who were arguing that evidence that what we think are rational decisions are often non-rational presents no moral or political problems. Of course in fact there's a tremendous scale of different levels of "thinking" going on in our heads all the time, some conscious, some subconscious, some in between. But Jay is right and Ginger wrong when she says there's no meaningful distinction in freedom between hurried, instinctual reactions and carefully reasoned decisions. There are moral and political distinctions which we can't set aside without abandoning the precepts upon which our society is based. Try this: are you free to choose your profession? Are you free to choose your sexual orientation? If you consider both of those actions equally free or unfree, I think you've got a problem.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 3, 2007 9:49 PM

So the fact that some decisions are more like instinctive reations doesn't lead you to believe that they are less free than decisions that are rationally thought out?

No I do not believe they are "less free". The primary difference between a "rationally thought out decision" and an unconscious/semi-conscious one is that the former involves linguistic introspection. It is no more or less "willed", in the sense of a central controller, than the latter form. The neuroscience is absolutely clear on this. Either way you are making the decision. This emphasis on "instinct" is what is causing the confusion. The vast majority of our decisions are not "rationally thought out", but that doesn't mean they are based solely on "instinct", in the sense of something innate and fixed (like for the sake of argument sexual preference). They are based partly on instinct, but also on all the cumulative experience that our brains have access to, plus the particular circumstances of the situation, just as "rationally thought out" decisions are. What you have to get used to is the idea that our conscious self (the internal monologue) is not omniscient or even correct most of the time about the nature of our mental processes. Your brain is constantly doing things that your conscious self is not aware of, but that doesn't make those things any less yours. You're identifying one part of your brain (the introspective machinery) with the whole of yourself, when this isn't the case.

Do you not see any use in proposing, like, a freedom scale, where the actions (or reactions) of an earthworm would be less free than the actions of a person deciding whether or not to go to graduate school?

Absolutely. The rules (in a loose, biological sense) governing the worm's decisions are far, far more restrictive than those governing a human in almost all circumstances, let alone choice of university. Dennett likes to distinguish between three ways of looking at organisms or other complex systems - the physical stance, the design stance, and the intentional stance. You can find more information on this here, but the relevant point for this discussion is that using the physical stance the earthworm and the human are just as free or unfree as each other, because the underlying phsyics is just as deterministic (or not). However using the intentional stance humans are far freer, because the inputs that go into the decision making process and the potential outcomes are exponentially more diverse.

I'm just at a loss at how examples about split second reactions and words spoken under hypnosis are knock-down arguments against free will in all circumstances.

It's not just words spoken under hypnosis though. It's the overwhelming majority of all the words we speak. How often do you think to yourself "This is what I'm going to say" before you say it? And as I mentioned before, most mathematical reasoning is not explicitly conscious. That doesn't make it instinctual or unfree (in any useful sense of the word free).

Posted by Ginger Yellow | January 4, 2007 7:24 AM

The primary difference between a "rationally thought out decision" and an unconscious/semi-conscious one is that the former involves linguistic introspection. It is no more or less "willed", in the sense of a central controller, than the latter form.

Having a central controller is not a sufficient condition for something's being "willed". My heart has a central controller, but there is nothing "willing" it to beat, or to stop. Or if there is, that thing cannot usefully be described as "me", though it may be "mine". Which brings me to...

The vast majority of our decisions are not "rationally thought out", but that doesn't mean they are based solely on "instinct", in the sense of something innate and fixed (like for the sake of argument sexual preference). They are based partly on instinct, but also on all the cumulative experience that our brains have access to, plus the particular circumstances of the situation, just as "rationally thought out" decisions are.

No one is arguing that the difference between a rationally thought out decision and a non-rationally-thought-out decision is that the latter is fixed and not influenced by experience. One of the paradigms presented above for non-rational decisions was handling a ball in soccer; obviously one cannot do this without the experience of learning to play soccer. What is being argued is that because the mental processes leading to rational decisions are explicit, while those leading to non-rational decisions are hidden (from ourselves and others), non-rational decisions are less "free" in one important sense of the word. You call this "linguistic introspection"; I call it examining the value of one's own motivations before one makes a decision. It is the hope that, if called to explain our actions, the reasons we give might be of the same order as the actual considerations that ran through our minds at the time, rather than either ex post facto rationalizations, or auto-psychoanalysis.

Transparency in law and in the actions of rulers is a necessary condition for political freedom. Understanding your own reasons for doing things is a necessary condition for moral and psychological freedom. There are important ways in which we can never be free, and would not even want to be; we speak of people in love as being driven by something beyond their own control. But there is a common-sense wisdom to the understanding that you are not quite free to choose who you fall in love with, but you are free to choose who you marry. That is why we require that bit of linguistic introspection that precedes the words "I do", and why, afterwards, we hold the people who speak the words responsible for them.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 4, 2007 10:21 AM

What is being argued is that because the mental processes leading to rational decisions are explicit, while those leading to non-rational decisions are hidden (from ourselves and others), non-rational decisions are less "free" in one important sense of the word.

And I argue, with a considerable body of empirical and anecdotal evidence, that the processes leading to rational decisions are not all explicit. Read the literature on cognitive psychology or neurobiology. For the umpteenth time, is a mathematician's unconscious reasoning not rational? If not what is it?

I'm perfectly happy to accept that decisions that are genuinely instinctual, such as falling in love, are less free than others. But the idea that only our explicit, linguistically introspected decision-making processes are rational is wrong and frankly absurd.

It is the hope that, if called to explain our actions, the reasons we give might be of the same order as the actual considerations that ran through our minds at the time, rather than either ex post facto rationalizations, or auto-psychoanalysis.

a) To a certain degree all our understanding of our own mental processes is ex post facto rationalisation. Again, read the literature. There is an extensive debate between cognitive scientists whether this rationalisation is "Orwellian" or "Stalinist" in nature, but it exists nonetheless.

b) With the caveat given in (a) and with obvious exceptions like psychosis, drunken amnesia etc, the reasons we give after the fact for non-explicit decisions will probably be the same as "the actual considerations that ran through our minds at the time", it's just that at the time we weren't introspecting.

It seems to me that your fear of losing grounds for assigning moral responsibility is leading you to ignore the obvious implications of the experimental data. Yet there is nothing in that data that says we are not responsible for our actions, that our decisions, explicit or not, are somehow not ours. Just because decisions are the result of one coalition of neurons winning out over another doesn't mean they're not all our neurons, that the final result isn't shaped by our past experiences, idiosyncratic preferences and so on.

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