Is free will an illusion?
Maxine Clarke
Wednesday, 03 June 2009 10:04 UTC
Scientists and philosophers are using new discoveries in neuroscience to question the idea of free will. They are misguided, says Martin Heisenberg, professor emeritus in the department of biology at the University of Würzburg, in a Nature Essay (Nature 459, 164-165; 14 May 2009). “At the scale of planets, quantum effects give way to the deterministic laws of classical mechanics. At an intermediate scale, however, they are occasionally amplified to become observable, for example when we measure radioactive decay. In general, life is an interplay between the deterministic and the random. There is plenty of evidence of chance at work in the brain: take the random opening and closing of ion channels in the neuronal membrane, or the miniature potentials of randomly discharging synaptic vesicles. Behaviour that is triggered by random events in the brain can be said to be truly ‘active’ — in other words, it has the quality of a beginning.”
There is plenty of evidence, Professor Heisenberg writes, that an animal’s behaviour cannot be reduced to responses. Fruit flies, for example, can modify their expectations about the consequences of their actions when in situations they have never encountered. They can solve problems that no individual fly in the evolutionary history of the species has solved before. They can be made to use several different motor outputs to escape a life-threatening danger or to visually stabilize their orientation in space. Thus, according to Professor Heisenberg, self-initiated action is not in conflict with physics and can be demonstrated in animals. Humans can be considered free in their behaviour, in as much as their behaviour is self-initiated and adaptive. We need not be conscious of our decision-making to be free. What matters is that our actions are self-generated. Conscious awareness may help improve our behaviour, but it does not necessarily do so and is not essential. Why should an action become free from one moment to the next simply because we reflect upon it?
Updated 03 June 2009 10:13 UTC
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I agree with much that have been said above, but I would like to know if you think something like the following would be a good illustration of the issue, directed towards a general audience including non-philosophers/non-scientists:
It is most certainly true that events on the quantum mechanical level are really random, and not completely determined by the situation before the event. Hence one could say that determinism is false. But what about our thoughts and actions? If they are not determined, are they then simply random?
Actually, it would not be correct to call them either determined or random. Random events on the smallest levels can have very different results in the larger scale.
One possible outcome can be illustrated by a sharpened pen standing on its tip, perfectly balanced. A very small random event could make the pen fall in any direction. Some processes in the brain could be like this, and amplify quantum fluctuations to produce effects that seem totally random.
The outcome of other processes may be more like the average result of throwing a well-made dice a large number of times. The more times the dice is thrown, the closer the average result will come to 3,5. This can be proven by statistics. The underlying process is random, but the end result will appear almost totally determined and predictable. Small disturbances will make very little difference, and if they are truly random disturbances, they will cancel each other out in the long run.
So some processes in the brain may be like the pen and appear to be random, others may be like the average result of throwing a dice and appear to be determined, and most will probably fall somewhere in between. We will then have an interplay between random and seemingly deterministic processes in our brains. Out of this interplay something can emerge, that is neither random nor determined, but certainly both very complex and very fascinating. Perhaps future research may be able to tell us if this something really deserves to be called “free will”.
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Twinning myself and free will
For a long time the problem of free will has been twinned to the disputed resemblance of behaviour in monozygotic twins. I would like to add a small contribution which, as far as I know, nobody proposed before: we can test the problem with my most perfect identical twin: myself!
Trying to remember the most important decisions I took in my life, I ask myself what I would have done if I had had the possibility to relive again any of the decisive moments of my life – with the same imperfect knowledge and with the same external constraints I had -
The results of analyzing my perfect twin’s behaviour are, in my opinion, absolutely clarifying: reliving my life would have rendered a life identical to the one I actually lived.
I can distinguish between two types of events as determinants of every minute fact that occurred in my life. Some were the result of conscious decisions, in many cases taken as the result of an evaluation of pros and cons (always with incomplete knowledge of the real situation). As it is impossible for me to take stupid decisions (the stupidity defined by myself), I was forced to decide in a determined way, searching the best results. In other cases my behaviour was the result of random and/or uncontrolled external factors. In the first case I would repeat my action; in the second, my response would be forced. However, if the external random factors would be the same, I also would repeat mi action
So, the life of my identical twin entirely repeating my own life shows that I never had a true free will. My behaviour was dependent on either uncontrolled environmental factors or on the optimization processes performed by my brain which, modelled by the natural selection, forbids me to make fool decisions.
My identical twin shows me the inescapability of Hume’s fork: My actions are either causally determined or random. In either case, I am not free.
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It is really sad to see that “Nature” still publishes old-fashioned debates being based on equally old-fashioned (political, philosophical) terms, including debates on some “evolution”, “freedom”, “will” etc.
Eliminate all these terms in current scientific language (their only place is in historical archives and books…)-terms that have only fostered centuries of wars (beginning with St Augustine and the Augustine monk Luther and this crucial shift to some “voluntarism”), misunderstandings, dead-ends, etc.
See, e.g, http://www.mapology.org/en/Main_Page (when looking for “better” and more current terms…) -
The greatest problem with the original article and both comments that they don’t start with definitions i.e. what is the current definition of Free Will and what is the current definition of Determinism.
My definition: My Free Will is my capabilty, based on what I know, with a purpose, to make decisions and to act.
Study the following two examples:- Select a number between 1 and 10.
- Select a ball out of “closed” bag filled with balls.
IMO answering 7 on the first question is an example of my Free Will. It is a number I have selected in my brain.
Because there is no definition how can you answer the question: Is free will an illusion ? In fact the whole sentence is not clear.
Going back to the original article I see no reason in order to answer the question “Is Free will an illusion” to study animals nor to study the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Robert O. Doyle writes in his comment:
If our actions are determined we are not free.
The question is here: what does he mean with determined ?
IMO if I am thirsty and there is water than I can decide to drink. My Free Will makes that decision.
On the other hand if there is no water than I’am limited in the posible solutions of my problem.Etienne Vermeersch writes: “However the concept of free will may become confused if it is linked with an absence of determinism” IMO that sentence is not clear.
Next he describes 3 schoolgirls. My question to EV would be do you agree that selection number 7 as an answer is an example of my Free Will.
If he agrees than I would remark: That means that in principle all the 3 schoolgirls have a Free Will. This implies that they can give different answers to the same problem.The whole problem of us not having a Free Will comes from the concept of determinism which means that the position (and velocity) of all particles in the Universe in the future is determined by the present position (and velocity) of all particles as described by Newton’s Law, which implies that we have no Free Will.
That definition of Determinism is not true (because also other laws are involved)
You can make a new definition:
determinism means that the position etc as described by the Laws of Nature (including Newton’s Law)
That definition is not clear because what are the Laws of Nature? Nor how do you prove that. Nor how do you know that there are no other causes involved that are not expressed by the current set of Laws. Nor what is the relation between the particles and my brain i.e. Free Will.
Next you can introduce certain “laws” as arguments infavour of the Free Will concept like the Chaos Theory and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.IMO the whole concept of determinism should be abandoned and certainly not be used in relation to Free Will.
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I am afraid (or maybe not so) to say that as a biologist with an interest in philosophy I agree entirely with Dr Vermeersch. Discussions of free will such as this are a reinvention of a square wheel that never ran and although Spinoza’s account can be embellished he said enough for nobody to need to. One basic problem is the polysemic nature of the English statement ‘that is possible’. Another is the confusion between the dynamics of physics and the pseudo-dynamics of the folk conception of physics, that includes ideas like agency. A third is the brain’s potent confabulation that it hosts such an agent, which has a readily understandable Darwinian basis and which can survive severe damage. But Spinoza’s pithy account is all that is really needed. Free will is not an illusion, it is an incoherent concept in the form that gets dragged into these interminable hares about indeterminacy. Messy causality is just noise, not ‘choice’ and I find it slightly bizarre that this sort of thing gets into the periodicals it does.
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Dr. Vroon, the definitions proposed in my 1 july reply (including the barred passage)allow an unambiguous answer to your questions. (But look also at my Correspondence text, the passage beginning with "In short…).
First it is essential to realize that ‘being free’ is not an all or none condition: there are degrees of freedom. Second, an organism is free when its decisions are determined by itself. But with this notion of ‘self’, we can, as far as human beings are concerned, refer to different degrees. When we do something in our sleep or under the influence of a drug (the case of the heroin addict), this is different from a decision we take relying on the core aspects of our personality: our rational thinking, our long-term aims and the emotions which accompany the (non-)realization of these aims. My definition (= proposal for definition) considers the engagement of this ‘core personality’ as the highest degree of freedom and a lesser eengagement,a lesser degree of freedom.
When you choose 7 as an answer to your first question, it is, of course, your answer and hence, a free act, but to a low degree, certainly when you have no reason to choose this number. This degree is somewhat higher if it is determined by your natural tendency (common to a lot of people) to prefer 7 (or a prime number in general). When you had been asked to give the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, your answer would have been determined by your mathematical capabilities, and hence, more free.
My answer concerning the three girls follows easily: they all make a free decision, but X has the highest degree of freedom because her decision is totally based on her own rational thinking.
In all the examples you will propose, I will show that my definitions are unambiguous, compatible with common sense and practicable in Court. -
This is a new editing of my 1 july reply, which bounced because of formatting problems.
I confess, Dr. Brembs, that I am not aware “that determinism has been dead since the uncertainty principle”. I know, of course, that there is undeterminedness at the quantum level. Every second some nuclei of uranium235 disintegrate and it is impossible to know which ones: we have absolute randomness here. However, if you shoot a number of pieces of this element together, so that they almost instantaneously reach the critical mass, you can be sure that an explosion will follow: this may cause death, but certainly not the death of determinism!
I realize now that my text may lead to misunderstanding: I tried to reduce my initial draft to a length that, I thought, could be acceptable for Nature but, obviously they still had to make cuts.
Let me therefore explain more thoroughly the reason for my reaction to Heisenberg’s Essay. It seemed immediately clear to me: (a) that he was influenced by the almost universal misunderstanding that freedom and determinism are mutually exclusive, (b) that he hopes to vindicate some freedom by referring, after others, to the indeterminedness at the quantum level.
My position, which is, of course, inspired by Spinoza, is that freedom is impossible without determinism, in the strong sense: the more we are free, the more we are determined.
According to Spinoza only God is really free, because only God, Spinoza’s God, is completely determined by himself. Take the example of an axiom system: the theorems follow with certainty from the axioms. In Spinoza’s conception whatever can be known is deducible from the first principles and whatever exists in the material world is caused by the basic laws of a general mechanics. Human beings can, of course, think otherwise and hence, make mistakes; but that’s not freedom, that’s stupidity. Or, to put it mildly, since ignorance limits your possibilities to act efficiently, the better you know, the freer you are.
Let us now look at the common sense conception of freedom. In a first approach we are not free when we are tied up or in jail, i.e. physically restrained: at least in such a way that we are frustrated by it. In a second approach we are not free when we are reduced to slavery: then we are physically less restrained, but our actions are limited through fear of punishment. In these situations, however, human beings can still have some freedom in developing ideas and making decisions concerning intellectual or other activities within the limits imposed by the physical or psycho-social restraints. Such activities, as e.g. writing Mein Kampf in jail, are free and we are considered responsible for them. In relation to these last types of actions we speak about ‘free will’, although it is better to avoid the vague notion of ‘will’ and to speak of ‘free decisions’. It seems that Hitler did not actually write Mein Kampf: he was dictating it to Hess. Nevertheless we still consider Hitler responsible and if Hess would have written it under unbearable pressure, we would say his decision was not free; neither would he be held accountable.
That means that most of us consider actions of a person as free when they are determined by the person himself. Sometimes Hitler may have been absent-minded, with bad German, nonsense or manifest mistakes as a consequence. In these cases, although the activities stem from the person himself, he would have been less free, because they did not emanate from the very core of his personality: his rational thought, based on logic en empirical knowledge, and his basic aims, accompanied by his basic emotions.
A comparable approach is accepted by most reasonable people when they are confronted with the decisions of persons in an acute psychiatric delirium: they are not responsible.
Or consider heroin addiction. When a junkie is not in need and makes an evaluation of his life, he can, determined by his rational thought and his ultimate aims, come to the radical conclusion that he must stop shooting up: this is a free decision. But as soon as the withdrawal symptoms are there, he fails to act accordingly. Once again, everybody would say he is then less free or not free at all; and when his dependence was caused unintentionally , e.g. by using a painkiller, we would not hold him accountable.
These examples show the inadequacy of Heisenberg’s definitions. “My actions are not free if they are determined by something of someone else.” The actions of the psychiatric patient or the heroin addict are determined by the person himself, but not by the core of his normal personality.
The other definition is also strange. “So humans can be considered free in their behaviour inasmuch as their behaviour is self-initiated and adaptive.” What is meant by ‘adaptive’? Advantageous to the individual or to reproduction? And why would a free act always be advantageous? “The king can do no wrong?”. Why should a free act be ‘self-initiated’? When I see someone helping handicapped persons and I decide to help also, can this not be a free act?
I am sorry for this series of examples, but the flawed thinking is so generalized, also among important philosophers, that even a lot more of them would be helpful.Let me summarize. For human beings, to make free decisions, does not mean that these are undetermined, but that they are determined by those aspects of our organism that we consider the most central: our fundamental long-term aims and our rational thinking in the process of realizing those aims and the emotions accompanying their realisation. Since freedom is not an all or none concept, the more we are free in this sense, the more we are determined.
When I hear that, according to Archimedes, the ratio of the volume of a sphere to the volume of the cylinder that contains it, with a perfect fit, is 2/3, I can decide to believe that; this is a rational decision because Archimedes is known as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. It is determined by what I know of Archimedes, and hence, free. However, it is not completely free, for the content is based on authority. But when I follow the magnificent proof, step by step, I end with a really free decision because I have made out for myself that it cannot be wrong. It is almost completely determined and predictable; ‘almost’ because some quantum effect in my brain could have caused a distraction or a loss of rigour and, consequently, of loss of freedom.
Most of our decisions are not totally free, since they are not totally determined.
Consider now a decision to realize an aim in the outside world: should I buy a house or rent one? Here my hierarchy of values, ideas about my future, calculations concerning my finances, etc. are taken into account. The final result will not be uniquely determined: there are too many uncertainties; but when I arrive at the most rational conclusion, this decision will be determined to a certain degree and hence free up to that degree and I have to take responsibility for it.
Of course, I could also toss up a coin. The decision to do that would not be a free one because it could not be caused by my core personality: only a pathological condition could make this possible in my case. Neither would the outcome be my decision since it depends totally on a random process. I agree that some people might prefer to use this procedure, but that would make their decision less free, because not determined by their own personality.
You could object that these people would nevertheless be held responsible for their actions and we could punish them for that. Rightly: it is indeed a basic principle in our society that, with the exception of children, the mentally handicapped and the mentally disturbed, people have a duty to try to make free, i.e. rational, decisions.
As far as the topic of punishment is concerned, the question is sometimes asked: “could he have decided otherwise?”. This question is only relevant when physical, psychopathological or psychosocial constraints, handicaps or forms of pressure, come into play: these may eliminate or reduce self-determination and hence accountability. In the other cases, when rationality and personality characteristics are the determining factors, the rule of our society is reward and punishment. One could call that unjust, but that is the way the practice of law functions and it is a very reasonable way.
Take the example of a serial killer. Could he act otherwise? If he had another personality structure, of course he could, since his actions are not determined by physical causes or by a mental illness. But, the crimes are committed by a person with this specific personality structure. That’s why this personality goes to jail: (a) to protect society, (b) to give the relatives of the victims the relief that ‘justice has been done’ and © to uphold the law of society: “thou shall not commit murder”. Could he have acted otherwise in the absolute sense? Probably not, but this is not a relevant question in Court, because legal responsibility is only reduced in the above mentioned cases of physical, pathological or psychosocial constraints. I am convinced that this way of approaching the notion of free decision has no flaws.
Let me finish for the moment with the following points.
(1) (a) From an theoretical point of view, random events can, but need not be the result of quantum effects: a random number generator can work without them. (b) The normal outcome of random signals is noise and, eventually destruction. Exceptionally, as may be the case in evolution and art production, a valuable structural change may come about. In trial and error learning, where bad directions, within a limited range, are eliminated very fast, positive results may be more frequent. Concerning most of our decision processes however, the hope to be a free person thanks to quantum effects, seems a rather meagre one. I claim no originality for these remarks.
(2) Heisenberg is wide off the mark when he thinks that Kant would be pleased with his proposal. For Kant human beings are morally free insofar as they are guided by duty : the categorical imperative. “Je weniger der Mensch physisch, je mehr er dagegen moralisch, durch die blosse Vorstellung seiner Pflicht, kann gezwungen werden, desto freier ist er”. I cannot see the slightest relation between this and quantum effects in the brain.
(3) I fail to see why Heisenberg finds it an original point that “an animal’s behaviour cannot be reduced to responses”. The stimulus response model is typical of ‘Pavlovian conditioning’, but not of ‘operant conditioning’. Besides, we all know that a hungry animal has no need of external stimuli to go out and search for food.
(4) Attributing, without detailed definitions, the typical human concept of free decisions to animals, seems to me a dangerous path. What about the ‘decisions’ of a fire detector?
(5) I found the letter by Ruben Rial Planas , page 2 of this forum, remarkable. He shows in his ‘twin analysis’ that he has made two types of decisions in his life: those who were conscious, determined decisions and the others “the result of random and/or uncontrolled external factors”. To my astonishment he concludes: “In either case I am not free”, although he just made a brilliant analysis of the really free decisions: the conscious determined ones.
(6) The last part of my ‘Correspondence’ referred to the experiments concerning the delayed awareness of ‘decisions’ made by the brain and the role of consciousness. I see now that the point I wanted to make is not clear at all (due to cuts by myself and by the editor). I can later expand this topic.
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The discussion of free will brings Skinner (e.g., Why I am not a cognitive psychologist. Behaviorism 1977;5:1-10) to mind: “By its very nature operant behaviour encourages the invention of mental or cognitive processes said to initiate action. In a reflex, conditioned or unconditioned, there is a conspicuous prior cause. Something triggers the response. But behaviour that has been positively reinforced occurs upon occasions which, though predisposing, are never compelling. The behaviour seems to start up suddenly, without advance notice, as if spontaneously generated. Hence the invention of such cognitive entities as intention, purpose, or will. … Because controlling circumstances which lie in an organism’s history of reinforcement are obscure, the mental surrogate gets its chance. Under positive reinforcement we do, as we say, what we are free to do; hence the notion of free will as an initiating condition. … we believe in free will because we know about our behaviour but not about its causes.”
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In the text by Dr Vermeersch he writes the following:
“My position is that freedom is impossible without determinism, in the strong sense: the more we are free, the more we are determined.”
First this line did not make sense to me, but after some thinking it all of a sudden became clear. Dr Vermeersch uses a different meaning of the word Determinisme. He means self determinism.
Making that switch the sentence becomes: “My position is that freedom is impossible without self determinism, in the strong sense: the more we are free, the more we are self determined.”
I fully agree with that opinion or concept.Not only that. When you use that concept you do not need any comparison with animals in order to convince the reader.
Nor you need to explain quantum mechanics to support your opinion.
You also do need the chaos theory to change the opinion of the people who support the opposite.I expect that Dr Vermeersch also agrees with my opinion that the sentence: “Free will is an illusion” is not true, which implies that we have no Free will.
I would like to point out that even when you are in jail you stil have a Free will.
For the readers who want to read more about my opinion about free will, here is the link to my homepage: Free will
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Google naturalism.org for takes on determinism, please. If one has contra-causal free will, then one is at the mercy of random events or is one. I favor casual free will, soft determinism
compatabilismas did David Hume and so many philosophers. Our nature and nurture impinge upon us; we choose from those determinants. We do not fully know our coming thoughts. We decide before we consciously decide. People who state that they don’t know for whom they will vote, actually do based on their beliefs. My nerve pills have altered my schizotypal personality disorder such that I’m no longer terminally shy and paranoid. My schizotypy and depression caused me to get therapy to change them! This is why we need better correctional education for convicts. Going back to old places puts them at risk even if they try to change, I think. And for theists, does God’s foreknowledge show that we have no kind of free will? As a naturalist, I find natural causes at work with no divine input or diabolical input to cause us to do anything. Good will and blessings to all!
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