The Chronicle Review (from The Chronicle of Higher Education) brought together a group of philosophers and neuroscientists to discuss the nature and even the possibility of free will in the new reality of brain processes beyond our control.
This post is timely considering the recent publication of Sam Harris's new book, Free Will - an attack (the article calls it a polemic) on the notion that we have control of our individual thoughts and actions - and Michael S. Gazzaniga's Who's In Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain - a cogent argument against positions, such as the Harris presents, that our lives are wholly determined by physical processes and we are therefore not responsible for our actions.
What Harris lacks in academic reputation he more than makes up for in cultural popularity, but Gazzaniga is a heavyweight in the world of neuroscience. Harris is likely to win the popular argument, but I'm betting on Gazzaniga to offer the more nuanced and complete perspective. I look forward to reading each of these books.
Is Free Will an Illusion?
Free will has long been a fraught concept among philosophers and theologians. Now neuroscience is entering the fray.
For centuries, the idea that we are the authors of our own actions, beliefs, and desires has remained central to our sense of self. We choose whom to love, what thoughts to think, which impulses to resist. Or do we?
Neuroscience suggests something else. We are biochemical puppets, swayed by forces beyond our conscious control. So says Sam Harris, author of the new book, Free Will (Simon & Schuster), a broadside against the notion that we are in control of our own thoughts and actions. Harris's polemic arrives on the heels of Michael S. Gazzaniga's Who's In Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain (HarperCollins), and David Eagleman's Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain (Pantheon), both provocative forays into a debate that has in recent months spilled out onto op-ed and magazine pages, and countless blogs.
What's at stake? Just about everything: morality, law, religion, our understanding of accountability and personal accomplishment, even what it means to be human. Harris predicts that a declaration by the scientific community that free will is an illusion would set off "a culture war far more belligerent than the one that has been waged on the subject of evolution."
The Chronicle Review brought together some key thinkers to discuss what science can and cannot tell us about free will, and where our conclusions might take us.
You Don't Have Free Will - Jerry A. Coyne
The Case Against the Case Against Free Will - Alfred R. Mele
Free Will Is an Illusion, but You're Still Responsible for Your Actions - Michael S. Gazzaniga
Want to Understand Free Will? Don't Look to Neuroscience - Hilary Bok
The End of (Discussing) Free Will - Owen D. Jones
Free Will Does Not Exist. So What? - Paul Bloom
Sam Harris does feel that free will is mostly an illusion. I believe we can make choices, but seldom freely. In my (free) ebook on comparative mysticism, "the greatest achievement in life," is a chapter called "Outside the box." Here are three paragraphs from it:
ReplyDeleteWhat if you had to make all your decisions about living while detained in a jail cell? The cells may be open for brief periods each day, but the prisoners are still surrounded by walls. There are also walls around cells of everyday life. We are restricted by our ability to control our emotions, mind and body. Even with full command of our “self,” we must live within the restraints of Nature and society. Freedom is relative.
“Free will” is really quite limited, despite belief that we control ourselves and our lives. We think we have endless choices...until we try to make them. Each decision must not only be based on what we “want to do,” but also on our own capabilities and what is expected of us. Nature and society imprison us, whether we like it or not. The key to release is mystical realization. All in One and One in All, the divine unity, opens the gate between a universal consciousness and most people’s constrained awareness.
Outer walls are the boxes of Nature and of society. Inclement weather, lack of sunlight, gravity, and/or other natural phenomena may restrain our movements. Our own natural aptitudes, practiced talents and learned skills are always lacking in some areas. Human nature is controlled mostly by society. What we believe that other people expect of us greatly influences how we feel, think and act. Considering the reactions of our family, friends, business associates, community, and/or nation determines much of what we do. Those “laws” of Nature and society govern our lives, usually more so than we wish. Mystical awareness can allow us to obey divine law here and now.
Sam Harris has written positively on mysticism and said “I see nothing irrational about seeking the states of mind that lie at the core of many religions. Compassion, awe, devotion and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have.” Harris' personal background reflects his own search toward that goal.
As a neuroscientist, I side with Harris. I haven't read his new "book" (really, just a short essay), but his basic arguments can be found in his previous book on morality which I did read. His most important point I think is simply that the notion of free will is incoherent. There is nothing in our current knowledge of existence that would help us to understand what free will could mean. Either processes occur through cause and effect, or they occur randomly, but in neither case would free will be involved.
ReplyDeleteI have read parts but not all of Gazzaniga's book. As i understand it, his argument is just another rehash of the increasingly scientifically popular idea that higher level processes are not predictable from physical ones. Daniel Dennett makes much the same argument in Freedom Evolves, and a wonderful account of how these higher level processes may evolve is found in Terrence Deacon’s Incomplete Nature.
Harris does not deny this, though. He points out that cause and effect is just as much in force at these levels as at physical ones (a point made very cogently in Deacon’s book). To be somewhat free of physical processes does not mean that we are free of biological or mental processes. A century ago, Gurdjieff made a similar point with his view that as evolution proceeds, we become subject to fewer laws. So one could say that we are freer than lower forms of existence, without making any absolute claims about having free will.
As a crude metaphor, if someone dictates to you every moment of your waking life what you must do, you would not consider yourself free. Yet there is a greater degree of freedom than for someone whose nervous system is directly manipulated to achieve the same ends. In the former case, there is more flexibility or unpredictability about how you will achieve the dictated goals.
But even this metaphor fails to capture the essential point, which is that this flexibility or “choice” is not something we possess or control. The key question, which I think Dennett, Gazzaniga, Searle, and others who argue for free will miss, is “who?” Who is actually making this choice? This is the question, of course, that leads people to conclude that they are not free, and to seek the spiritual path. I think it is splendidly put by Deacon when he says, “Self as agent is indeed what philosophers struggling with the so-called free will paradox should be focused on, rather than freedom from determinate constraint.” The question is not how much flexibility there is, but what role “I” plays in creating this flexibility. The great lesson of meditation is that we have no control over “I”. Deacon, though I think arguing for some sense of free will, makes this point when he describes agents as a “locus of work”. We just identify with what is happening, which is not to say that we have any control over what is happening.
As a neuroscientist, I side with Harris. I haven't read his new "book" (really, just a short essay), but his basic arguments can be found in his previous book on morality which I did read. His most important point I think is simply that the notion of free will is incoherent. There is nothing in our current knowledge of existence that would help us to understand what free will could mean. Either processes occur through cause and effect, or they occur randomly, but in neither case would free will be involved.
ReplyDeleteI have read parts but not all of Gazzaniga's book. As i understand it, his argument is just another rehash of the increasingly scientifically popular idea that higher level processes are not predictable from physical ones. Daniel Dennett makes much the same argument in Freedom Evolves, and a wonderful account of how these higher level processes may evolve is found in Terrence Deacon’s Incomplete Nature.
Harris does not deny this, though. He points out that cause and effect is just as much in force at these levels as at physical ones (a point made very cogently in Deacon’s book). To be somewhat free of physical processes does not mean that we are free of biological or mental processes. A century ago, Gurdjieff made a similar point with his view that as evolution proceeds, we become subject to fewer laws. So one could say that we are freer than lower forms of existence, without making any absolute claims about having free will.
As a crude metaphor, if someone dictates to you every moment of your waking life what you must do, you would not consider yourself free. Yet there is a greater degree of freedom than for someone whose nervous system is directly manipulated to achieve the same ends. In the former case, there is more flexibility or unpredictability about how you will achieve the dictated goals.
But even this metaphor fails to capture the essential point, which is that this flexibility or “choice” is not something we possess or control. The key question, which I think Dennett, Gazzaniga, Searle, and others who argue for free will miss, is “who?” Who is actually making this choice? This is the question, of course, that leads people to conclude that they are not free, and to seek the spiritual path. I think it is splendidly put by Deacon when he says, “Self as agent is indeed what philosophers struggling with the so-called free will paradox should be focused on, rather than freedom from determinate constraint.” The question is not how much flexibility there is, but what role “I” plays in creating this flexibility. The great lesson of meditation is that we have no control over “I”. Deacon, though I think arguing for some sense of free will, makes this point when he describes agents as a “locus of work”. We just identify with what is happening, which is not to say that we have any control over what is happening.