Hello! I thought for a while about what to say in my first blog post, and finally ended up on free will. It's something that I haven't really thought about much before, but these past couple of weeks it has come up a lot. Reading the likes of Scott Adams done this to me!
I always assumed free will existed. Regardless of your religion or belief in a god, it seemed to me just about everyone agrees that we are able to make our own decisions. We feel that our lives are in our control, and that we had a final say over what we did. I wanted to write this blog post, so I made my own decision to do it. Nothing in my brain made me do it, outside of my own control... or did it?
Tuesday's post on Scott Adams' blog gave a link to an article in New Scientist in which they speak about how quantum mechanics is related to free will. In essence, we have to believe in quantum mechanics for free will to exist. I'd say it's not that hard - quantum mechanics has been around for quite a while, and seems to explain the tiny tiny world very well.
Quantum mechanics says that everything is a probability. There's a probability I was going to post about this topic in this blog, and a different probability I would post about something else. This uncertainty means there's no way to predict what will happen in the universe. However, a Nobel prize-winning physicist has recently completed a new mathematical model that shows an underlying concrete model for quantum mechanics, allowing us to predict the movement of particles.
If someone could apply this new mathematical theory to the particles that make up my body, they could predict what I was going to do in the future. If you can predict what someone is going to do with perfect certainty, free will can't exist.
I'll agree that there's no way to truly be sure whether free will exists or not, at least not right now. Even if the math makes sense and beautifully works out, scientists have no way to test it, since the technology doesn't currently exist to actually see things that small. The same problem is inherent with string theory. One day, however, the technology will exist to test these theories, and here's hoping I'm around to see it.
3 comments:
Funny you should be thinking about this subject. There was an article in the NY Times mag. section last week on this subject. I didn't keep it, but it sounds very related to the article you refer to.
I have been studying with a small group the issue of whether Pharaoh has free will. In the first 12 chapters of Exodus, we read the negotiation between Moses and Pharaoh-- Moses repeating God's instruction to ask Pharaoh to "let my people go" and Pharaoh's various negative responses.
But at the beginning we hear God tell Moses that he (God) will "harden Pharaoh's heart." So was Pharaoh free to do otherwise? Could he have responded differently or was it preordained that he would answer "No" ?
The important piece to note is that Pharaoh is the Egyptian God. The battle here is one between two Gods. If the Hebrew God actually can "harden" Pharaoh's heart then clearly he is more powerful and maybe Pharaoh is merely human after all.
There are different ways to see God. One is as perfection, immutable, immovable, in need of nothing. The other as responsive, caring and connected to our actions.
Some, like Maimonides, see the Hebrew God as Perfection, but most see him as involved in human history. Pharaoh definitely saw himself like the former. He was stone-like in his perfection. Hard as stone. The harder one gets, the easier it is to remain hard. Perhaps the Hebrew God is merely stating what already is in play when he says that HE will harden Pharaoh's heart..that is, taking credit for the pre-existing rigidity.
So does Pharaoh make his own decisions based on his rigid personality (and is that free will or is it simply predictable?)...or has God determined Pharaoh's course of action and there is no free will?
We can then apply the same scrutiny to Moses's actions versus the instructions he received.
Back to your blog...
Does predictability obviate the possibility of free will? Have we no say whatsoever in who we become?
Fire Sparks
damn blogs!
Here's another question. Does non-predictability imply free will?
Let's suppose it's true that there's a 50% chance that the will go left, a 50% chance that it will go right and there's no way of knowing which way it will go. Does that atom have free will, or is it just going one way or the other randomly? Do human's have free will, or are we just going through life in a way that no on can predict, but we don't have a say in either? That movie Waking life has a pretty cool discussion on this and a bunch of trippy animation to boot.
Free will is impossible to prove either one way or the other. We definitely shouldn't use physics theories as a basis -- they're bullshit and will be outdated in a couple hundred years.
That said, I find it impossible to actually believe free will doesn't exist. I know people who say it doesn't but they sure don't live their lives like that.
Fire Sparks and Ben, you both seem to have said the same thing - does predictability have anything to do with the existence of free will? Good question, and I think it does.
Ben, I agree about the physics being outdated in a couple hundred years. In 2200, physicists will probably be able to see and examine a hole lot more, increasing our ability to predict what will happen and when. It's like when Newton said ok, now there's this force called gravity, and suddenly people could predict what would happen with various gravity experiments.
Since our brains work with electrical signals following neuron paths, if you can predict where the electrical signal will go by looking at atom interactions at a quantum (or lower) level, you know what someone will do before they do it. Knowing what someone will do means they don't have a choice themselves - they are only following what the electrical signals in their brains are telling them to do.
Someday, science will be able to read the electrical signals in people's brains with an accuracy we can't imagine today. And, just because I know it's actually possible, I don't think free will exists.
There's an illusion that it exists, and I think it goes something like this: I have neurons in my brain that both lead to me having tea in the morning, and me having coffee. The coffee connection is a whole lot stronger than the tea one, simply because I have made more coffee than tea and enjoy the taste.
While it looks like I have a choice in the matter, the electrical signals will have a greater chance of following the path of neurons that lead to me making coffee, so that's what I do. Sometimes the signal forks to the tea choice, but nowhere near as often.
It's certainly not that simple, since outside influences can change the path of the neurons, and other thoughts can change it as well. If I'm consciously trying to not drink coffee, I probably won't because I'm already thinking about not drinking it. The neurons that have to fire for me to make coffee will have less of a chance of getting fired, and instead I make tea.
Damn, this coffee is good!
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