Introduction: An account of "free will" which doesn't attempt to account for "free will"
I haven’t been a member here all that long, but if my time is at all representative of longer intervals, the subject of “free will” (or a close relative of some kind) arises fairly frequently without much (if any) resolution(s).
I hope to bypass some of that here by focusing on what most (whether they believe in “free will” or not) would agree “free will” necessarily entails: a person’s capacity to make a choice or decision (from “small” examples like what kind of snack to consume, to “large” examples like what kind of career to pursue) such that they could have made a different choice or decision than the one they did.
Example: A large number of people end up going to college/university. When they do this they are usually required from the beginning to choose what it is they will major in and perhaps even which college (i.e., in universities a major in chemistry requires applying to some college of science rather than e.g, the liberal arts college). It’s true they can change their major later on, but if they decide to do this after a year or two of study (or more) often this means spending a lot of extra time, money, and work to graduate. This is especially true if they wish to study a discipline quite different from what they chose initially (say, to major in physics rather than classical languages).
Let’s make this more specific imagining a specific student and specific decision. We’ll call our student Max, a student of German extraction who is studying classical languages with a minor in philosophy (although it isn’t really important, it so happens that Max, whether for simplicity or out of needless shame, only gave the university his first and last name, rather than including the middle part: Ernst Ludwig). After about two years of studying, certain philosophy courses have made Max really interested in physics, especially theoretical and computational areas.
After considering for some time what changing his program of study would entail (extra semesters, a new set of courses required for the new major, more money, etc.) Max decides “dash it all, one only lives thrice, so I might as well give it the ol’ college try, wot? Righto, then, it’s settled.” (Max is a bit of an Anglophile). And he decides to switch his major and study physics, ignoring the advice of others (including a mentor of his, Phil Jolly, who was particularly opposed).
We have here a decision, or choice, that Max made after considerable thought (making it a “conscious” choice, understanding that the adjective “conscious” isn’t yet clear but that we’ll get to it anon). Sticking to the confines of “free will” we defined above, the question is whether or not Max could have decided differently. We are not concerned with the extent to which his upbringing, friends, the courses he took, the state of the universe several hundred millions of years ago, etc., influenced his decision. We’ll even grant that there were a great many things, from his upbringing to a passing remark in one of Max’s classes made by Prof. Rosen, over which Max had little (and in some cases no) influence, but which did influence Max.
The question is not whether Max was influenced, but whether or not, no matter how “big” we allow our sphere of possible influences to be (e.g., as “big” as the state/conditions of everything from the origins of the universe up to Max’s decision) we can say that Max had the capacity to decide not to change majors. Put another way, Max could have made a decision other than the one he did.
The Question: What's wrong with the answer "duh"?
But asking is just the easy part. Answering is another thing altogether. However, we have a starting place, this decision of Max’s along with our question about it, which naturally brings to mind other questions, issues, problems. For example, sticking with what we know about the make-up of human physiology, what about it can we relate to Max’s decision? Most would probably agree that the brain is rather key here. In fact, it’s not only key, but if there is any way in which Max could have made a different decision, then something about the way Max’s brain works must make that a possibility.
Another thought or question which no doubt presents itself here is why or why not we might think (whatever the nature of Max’s brain) there is reason to suppose that Max only thinks he made a choice which he could have made differently. Most people at least agree that it appears to them that they make choices, but that they could have made one different than they did. So why even think that e.g., someone with a suitable amount of data (even if it needs to include the state of the entire universe since the big bang) and the right computing device could have told us what decision Max would make a day before, a month before, a billion years before, etc.? In other words, why wonder whether Max’s choice couldn’t have been other than what it was, in that it is at least in principle for us to know what any choice will be before it is made, which necessarily entails that it was the only possible choice?
There are a set of related reasons responsible for entertaining the seemingly impossible (in that it is counter to our everyday experience) notion that there is no decision or choice we can make such that a different one was possible. The first is another type of everyday experiences: effects and their relationship with time and cause. Simply put, the idea that one thing causes another, and that the cause precedes the other (the effect), is something we experience constantly. Why is Cathy Conduitt crying? Because Uncle Newton, during another rant about gravity, has dropped a filled glass and spilled milk all over the floor she had just cleaned. If asked why she was crying, Cathy would say it was because of the mess made by the spilt milk on the floor. Newton would proudly announce that he had dropped the class, thus causing gravity to take over, and then ramble on about structural integrity and the essence of hardwood flooring relative to melted sand blown into glass, and somewhere in these ramblings who these too are causes.
That’s the type of thing we experience all the time, mainly because we experience “time” as the unfolding of something we intuitively understand as events (which are more or less intervals of temporal measurements, or perhaps “moments”, in which things are happening). And typically, when we can see these events or actions, whether a dropped glass or a match lit or a declaration of war, we conceptualize them in terms of how we experience time and the activity which happens as we experience this time: as a linear sequence of intervals/moments/actions/effects/etc., each one and every one resulting from some previous set of effects which came before it and which caused it.
There is another main reason for supposing that Max only thinks he made a decision which came from his ability to (at least at times and to some extent) determine what he does (including making this decision such that he could have made one which was different). To explain this reason, we have to look back in history a bit. Specifically, we have to deal with a Greek by the name of Aristotle who’s been dead for millennia. For centuries, the big issue here (Max’s decision and whether it was inevitable) had a lot to do with language. Aristotle illustrated the issue with a sea battle, which in Greek is one word and which in Greece of that time was a common enough experience, but which rather dated now. Instead we’ll go with rain. Like Aristotle, philosophers and others even unto today deal with “truth-bearing” statements called propositions. Thus, “is it raining?” is not truth-bearing, but “it’s raining” is. If I say “don’t go outside, it’s raining” and you go outside to find that there’s not a cloud in the sky nor a drop of water falling from it, then what I said was false. But what if you had asked about the weather report? And what if I had answered “It’s going to rain tomorrow”? This appears to be a proposition, in that although we can’t determine whether or not it’s true right after it is said, we can do so the next day.
And because philosophers are lazy, borderline psychotic, obsessive, and generally useless to society, for centuries reasonable people have tried to keep them confined to universities or similar institution, so that they could spend hundreds of years arguing about how exactly “it’s going to rain tomorrow” is a “truth-bearing” statement (proposition), and whether the answer to that question entails fatalism. To go back to Max, if, after a last ditch attempt dissuade Max, Phil Jolly said (just as Max closed the door behind him on the way out of Dr. Jolly’s office) “he’s going to change his major”, let’s say that Jolly made a truth-bearing statement. It turns out that Jolly was correct here, and Max changed his major. Which seems to mean that when Dr. Jolly predicted this, his statement was true. If it was true when he made it, then necessarily Max had to change his major, otherwise Phil Jolly’s statement would be false. Of course, if it were false, then Max couldn’t change his major, because then “he’s going to change his major” would have been true. And for a very, very long time, the safely secluded philosophers argued about this while the rest of society did real work.
I haven’t been a member here all that long, but if my time is at all representative of longer intervals, the subject of “free will” (or a close relative of some kind) arises fairly frequently without much (if any) resolution(s).
I hope to bypass some of that here by focusing on what most (whether they believe in “free will” or not) would agree “free will” necessarily entails: a person’s capacity to make a choice or decision (from “small” examples like what kind of snack to consume, to “large” examples like what kind of career to pursue) such that they could have made a different choice or decision than the one they did.
Example: A large number of people end up going to college/university. When they do this they are usually required from the beginning to choose what it is they will major in and perhaps even which college (i.e., in universities a major in chemistry requires applying to some college of science rather than e.g, the liberal arts college). It’s true they can change their major later on, but if they decide to do this after a year or two of study (or more) often this means spending a lot of extra time, money, and work to graduate. This is especially true if they wish to study a discipline quite different from what they chose initially (say, to major in physics rather than classical languages).
Let’s make this more specific imagining a specific student and specific decision. We’ll call our student Max, a student of German extraction who is studying classical languages with a minor in philosophy (although it isn’t really important, it so happens that Max, whether for simplicity or out of needless shame, only gave the university his first and last name, rather than including the middle part: Ernst Ludwig). After about two years of studying, certain philosophy courses have made Max really interested in physics, especially theoretical and computational areas.
After considering for some time what changing his program of study would entail (extra semesters, a new set of courses required for the new major, more money, etc.) Max decides “dash it all, one only lives thrice, so I might as well give it the ol’ college try, wot? Righto, then, it’s settled.” (Max is a bit of an Anglophile). And he decides to switch his major and study physics, ignoring the advice of others (including a mentor of his, Phil Jolly, who was particularly opposed).
We have here a decision, or choice, that Max made after considerable thought (making it a “conscious” choice, understanding that the adjective “conscious” isn’t yet clear but that we’ll get to it anon). Sticking to the confines of “free will” we defined above, the question is whether or not Max could have decided differently. We are not concerned with the extent to which his upbringing, friends, the courses he took, the state of the universe several hundred millions of years ago, etc., influenced his decision. We’ll even grant that there were a great many things, from his upbringing to a passing remark in one of Max’s classes made by Prof. Rosen, over which Max had little (and in some cases no) influence, but which did influence Max.
The question is not whether Max was influenced, but whether or not, no matter how “big” we allow our sphere of possible influences to be (e.g., as “big” as the state/conditions of everything from the origins of the universe up to Max’s decision) we can say that Max had the capacity to decide not to change majors. Put another way, Max could have made a decision other than the one he did.
The Question: What's wrong with the answer "duh"?
But asking is just the easy part. Answering is another thing altogether. However, we have a starting place, this decision of Max’s along with our question about it, which naturally brings to mind other questions, issues, problems. For example, sticking with what we know about the make-up of human physiology, what about it can we relate to Max’s decision? Most would probably agree that the brain is rather key here. In fact, it’s not only key, but if there is any way in which Max could have made a different decision, then something about the way Max’s brain works must make that a possibility.
Another thought or question which no doubt presents itself here is why or why not we might think (whatever the nature of Max’s brain) there is reason to suppose that Max only thinks he made a choice which he could have made differently. Most people at least agree that it appears to them that they make choices, but that they could have made one different than they did. So why even think that e.g., someone with a suitable amount of data (even if it needs to include the state of the entire universe since the big bang) and the right computing device could have told us what decision Max would make a day before, a month before, a billion years before, etc.? In other words, why wonder whether Max’s choice couldn’t have been other than what it was, in that it is at least in principle for us to know what any choice will be before it is made, which necessarily entails that it was the only possible choice?
There are a set of related reasons responsible for entertaining the seemingly impossible (in that it is counter to our everyday experience) notion that there is no decision or choice we can make such that a different one was possible. The first is another type of everyday experiences: effects and their relationship with time and cause. Simply put, the idea that one thing causes another, and that the cause precedes the other (the effect), is something we experience constantly. Why is Cathy Conduitt crying? Because Uncle Newton, during another rant about gravity, has dropped a filled glass and spilled milk all over the floor she had just cleaned. If asked why she was crying, Cathy would say it was because of the mess made by the spilt milk on the floor. Newton would proudly announce that he had dropped the class, thus causing gravity to take over, and then ramble on about structural integrity and the essence of hardwood flooring relative to melted sand blown into glass, and somewhere in these ramblings who these too are causes.
That’s the type of thing we experience all the time, mainly because we experience “time” as the unfolding of something we intuitively understand as events (which are more or less intervals of temporal measurements, or perhaps “moments”, in which things are happening). And typically, when we can see these events or actions, whether a dropped glass or a match lit or a declaration of war, we conceptualize them in terms of how we experience time and the activity which happens as we experience this time: as a linear sequence of intervals/moments/actions/effects/etc., each one and every one resulting from some previous set of effects which came before it and which caused it.
There is another main reason for supposing that Max only thinks he made a decision which came from his ability to (at least at times and to some extent) determine what he does (including making this decision such that he could have made one which was different). To explain this reason, we have to look back in history a bit. Specifically, we have to deal with a Greek by the name of Aristotle who’s been dead for millennia. For centuries, the big issue here (Max’s decision and whether it was inevitable) had a lot to do with language. Aristotle illustrated the issue with a sea battle, which in Greek is one word and which in Greece of that time was a common enough experience, but which rather dated now. Instead we’ll go with rain. Like Aristotle, philosophers and others even unto today deal with “truth-bearing” statements called propositions. Thus, “is it raining?” is not truth-bearing, but “it’s raining” is. If I say “don’t go outside, it’s raining” and you go outside to find that there’s not a cloud in the sky nor a drop of water falling from it, then what I said was false. But what if you had asked about the weather report? And what if I had answered “It’s going to rain tomorrow”? This appears to be a proposition, in that although we can’t determine whether or not it’s true right after it is said, we can do so the next day.
And because philosophers are lazy, borderline psychotic, obsessive, and generally useless to society, for centuries reasonable people have tried to keep them confined to universities or similar institution, so that they could spend hundreds of years arguing about how exactly “it’s going to rain tomorrow” is a “truth-bearing” statement (proposition), and whether the answer to that question entails fatalism. To go back to Max, if, after a last ditch attempt dissuade Max, Phil Jolly said (just as Max closed the door behind him on the way out of Dr. Jolly’s office) “he’s going to change his major”, let’s say that Jolly made a truth-bearing statement. It turns out that Jolly was correct here, and Max changed his major. Which seems to mean that when Dr. Jolly predicted this, his statement was true. If it was true when he made it, then necessarily Max had to change his major, otherwise Phil Jolly’s statement would be false. Of course, if it were false, then Max couldn’t change his major, because then “he’s going to change his major” would have been true. And for a very, very long time, the safely secluded philosophers argued about this while the rest of society did real work.
Last edited:
by this metabolic-repair process. The question is what causes this process? What most people informally term “cause” corresponds fairly well with what philosophers and scientists have termed “efficient” cause since Aristotle. Thus I can talk about how, for example, certain normal human behavior is “caused” (through evolution) by the state of an environment thousands and thousands of years ago (evolutionary psychology). But when someone has a hard time sticking to a diet rather than eating “junk food” filled with sugars and fats and so forth, it isn’t because at the moment they decide to have a chocolate bar rather than a granola bar they are thinking about the conditions of life thousands of years before civilization which is “causing” the craving. It’s not an efficient cause. The efficient causes would be more things like the neural signals coming and going from their digestive system and pre-frontal cortex. The problem with metabolic-repair in cells is that it appears to be closed to efficient causation. In other words, the same parts of the cell which are part of the metabolic-repair process are also influenced by it at the same time. It’s not just that we can’t figure out what’s causing what because we can arbitrarily choose (as before), but a more serious problem (so serious that at the moment there exists a mathematical proof that cells cannot be computed, which has caused a rather heated debate for scientists in fields ranging from computational biology to machine learning to mathematicians). The “efficient” cause of the metabolic-repair process is cellular activity, but cellular activity which is also the “efficient” cause of metabolic-repair at the same time. Despite the death-grip reductionism has on the sciences, particularly in areas like biology, it has increasingly become at least partly abandoned because it fails: too often reducing a biological system to its components means you cannot model the system itself, because the behavior is more than just the summed activity of its components.
