There’s No Free Will

Just about every human on Planet Earth holds near and dear to their worldview that they have control over their own lives, or at the very least control over their own mind. Even if you live in a dictatorship or you are a slave or a prisoner you have free will of the mind. You can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking. But wishing or believing or faith doesn’t make it so and there are many scenarios that render your alleged free will to the state of an illusion, if not a delusion.

Here are a few reasons why your alleged ‘free will’ is in fact an illusion at best; a delusion at worst.

* We’re all simulated beings living in a virtual reality obeying the commands of the master computer software program. Characters in a video game do what they are programmed to do, no more and no less.

* God lied! All our strings are being pulled by outside evil (satanic, demonic, etc.) vs. good (angelic) forces. Humans are trapped in the middle of this tug-of-war, mere pawns for the larger forces at work. But as someone once told me, “I have free will because I take responsibility for my own actions”. Well actually that’s just those goody-goody-two-shoes angels pulling your strings. And if you argue in court say that “the devil made me do it”, well that’s probably spot on the case. The devil should be on trial, not you!

* Make of this what you will, but many people who report having involuntary visitations by otherworldly entities, be they described as aliens, shadow ‘people’, beings from other dimensions or parallel realities, etc. note that they were compelled against their will to carry out the wishes or instructions of these entities who have complete, total, absolute control over their human victims. If you have free will, it apparently can be overridden, but then that’s known from case studies in hypnoses. 

* Classical physics rules! Cause and effect rules! Causality rules, OK? All the laws, principles and relationships of classical physics were established and set in motion at the moment of creation (the Big Bang event) and all follows as clockwork (Newton’s point of view) from that in a totally deterministic way as far into the future as you care to calculate. The clockwork, causality rules universe of which you are a part, means no free will for you.

* Quantum physics rules too! Quantum physics apparently has no causality (Einstein disagreed) which immediately sets my teeth on edge, but that’s another matter. Quantum physics is expressed in probabilities, like either/or. Since your brain which houses your mind isn’t exempt from quantum physics (nothing is exempt anytime, anywhere, anyhow), all those billions of either/or quantum physics reactions collectively can give rise to all the apparent free will choices you apparently have at your command. It’s all one massive superposition of state after another after another as your mind lurches from one decision to the next. But whether it’s one either/or or the sum total of billions of either/or probabilities, the possibilities are still finite. You may not do the same thing twice in identical scenarios, but that’s not your free will, just the coming to the fore of one of those random probabilities that result from all those either/or possibilities inherent in quantum physics that hold sway over your mind, which, if truth be known, is comprised of the same matter and energy regimes that are the realm of physics, classical or quantum. 

* Your body cells, tissues, organs, organ systems on up the line are all on biochemical autopilot. No free will need apply. So why should your brain, housing your mind, be an exception to the rule? Your mind is not a something which exists independently of your body.

* Your ‘conscious’ decisions are by-products of what’s already happening within your subconscious. Our subconscious mind comes to a decision before we are consciously aware of it as has been demonstrated by actual experimentation.

* If you accept the probability of a Megaverse, a conglomerate of the Multiverse, with each individual universe having associated Parallel Universes and an infinite space (volume) and time (thus eliminating the awkward questions of ‘what’s beyond’ and ‘what was before’) then every possible timeline and history and scenario has happened – an infinite number of times. An infinite number of you have made every possible decision you can possibly make, compatible with the laws, relationships and principles of physics, an infinite number of times. How do you reconcile free will with that?

* Any competent neuroscientist worthy of their salt and status can stimulate parts of your brain using electromagnetic (EM) energy and get a physiological response, like your fingers twitching, ditto your arms and legs flapping like puppets on a string, your head turns and your posture changes - all grist for the neuroscientist’s mill. What you experience under the EM stimulation is the urge to do it (say tap your toe) and then you do it but you do not get the urge to, nor perform the action, voluntarily or willingly. Someone else, in this case the neuroscientist, is in control. That applies equally to your emotions as well as your movements. Stimulate this brainy bit and you cry; here and you laugh; somewhere else will hit your guilt complex, etc. What makes you, you, is just being reduced to the basics of electrical signals.

Conclusion: You are a part of life, the Universe and everything, or, to shorten things, a part of Mother Nature. Mother Nature operates on a select number of non-negotiable laws, principles and relationships, starting with the most basic of elementary particles and forces and working on up the line. No correspondence will be entered into or answered by Mother Nature. As such, you dance to Mother Nature’s tune. Do not attempt to change the tune and adjust reality. She controls the horizontal; She controls the vertical; She controls all that you see and do. Mother Nature is a bitch, but there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.  Myth busted!

But, and there’s nearly always a ‘but’, while ‘free will’ may well be, and probably is, an illusion (or delusion), it does have practical applications in the real world (like forcing one to be accountable for their actions) and thus is a concept unlikely to bite the dust anytime soon. It’s akin to the notion that God may not, and probably does not exist, He forms a useful function in society by keeping a lot of people here on Terra Firma employed!

P.S. If there is such a thing as free will, why is there such an obesity epidemic? You’d think one of the last things people would want to look like is blubber personified. But what do I know? Maybe roly-poly is the latest in body fashion statements!

Further Reading:

Harris, Sam; Free Will; Free Press, New York; 2012:

Free Will: Reality or Illusion? Part Two

“You have to believe in free will. You have no choice”. Seriously, if our Universe is a clockwork Universe, where causality rules absolutely (as both Newton and Einstein believed), then you do not have free will, only the illusion of having free will.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Now let’s take the case of human conception, through to blastula, embryo and foetus. I think one can agree that a human doesn’t need to make any decisions for the first nine months, while still in the womb. Ditto the nine months following birth, and probably another nine months after that. But sooner or later, that baby or infant will make its first decision that’s not based on fundamental body needs like ‘deciding’ to go to sleep or wet it’s diapers.

The question is what is fundamentally different about the nature of the infant before it can make its first free will choice or decision and just after? The brain, the brain chemistry, the neural nets and pathways, would be seemingly identical. The only thing I can think of is that the infant and infant’s brain/mind is receiving an ever steady input of sensory data, ultimately enough to allow the infant to make decisions – the baby wants scrambled eggs, not soft-boiled eggs. 

The ever increasing absorption of external stimuli may provide the ultimate need or desire to make choices, but it doesn’t provide the mechanism. Ultimately I don’t think there is a free will mechanism as everything is predetermined, like the computer simulation of “Life”. But does it really matter whether or not you have actual free will or the illusion of free will? It doesn’t alter how you live your life and the expectations of those unknown choices you’ll make between now and when Mother Nature makes that final choice on your behalf!

So far I’ve been muttering on as if you came to a metaphorical fork in the road and had some sort of free will to pick one path, or the other path; maybe neither path - or maybe not, if causality rules the universal roost.

There’s no free will solace in the Many Worlds Interpretation of reality; in coming to that fork in the road, because all paths, all possible choices, are enacted as the universe splits to cater for each and every one. You may think you picked one path – the high road, the low road, or the path least travelled, it makes no difference – and thus could pat yourself on the back for having free will and acted upon it, but in actual fact it was, ditto, an illusion. All paths were taken, in one world you took the high road, in another the low road, in a third world the road in-between, so no cigar, you do not pass ‘go’, you do not collect $200 free will dollars as there was no free will exhibited. 

I do have some unanswered questions. Say you have to decide between wearing that green dress or that red dress to – whatever. You set those thought chemical/physical wheels in motion. I’m not quite sure how the chemical/physical processes stay focused on the issue at hand. I mean, what if you hence decide to make scrambled eggs – nothing to do with the original green dress/red dress decision! Perhaps that’s a part of the ‘disease’ we collectively call mental illness.  

Then there’s the old hairy chestnut of if there is no free will, can people, should people, be held accountable for their behaviour? The fact that people are, obviously suggests that society as a whole has voted for the concept of free will. Whether that has ultimately a religious base (God gave us free will) I know not, but I’d bet - probably. 

Quite apart from that deterministic clockwork Universe scenario – what was set in motion at the Big Bang event 13.7 billion years ago, those initial fixed conditions, the set of particles and the laws and relationships that governed their interactions and evolution past to present to future – there are other slightly less plausible scenarios that also limit your free will if they reflect true reality.

For example, if you appear in your dreams as a character, or as a character in someone else’s dreams, your (or someone else’s) dream world representation of you, if questioned (not that that’s possible of course) about your free will, well you would reply that within the dream you were a part of (not that you would know you were a participant in a dream) that you were exhibiting free will. But of course it’s actually the dreamer’s mind that’s pulling the strings, and thus the characters (such as you) in a dream just dance to whatever tune is played out for them. No free will.

Dreams (wetware) aren’t the only form of virtual reality. There’s software, and computer generated simulations, like, say video games. The characters within, as per the dreams scenario, would tell you if they could that their actions exhibit their own free will. But of course that’s not true; the programmer and ultimately the player dictate the action and tell the character what to do. Again, there’s no free will actually exhibited by the characters.

Now, ask yourself what if our reality is actually the product of a higher reality wetware or software? That is, we’re dreamed or simulated but ultimately generated beings akin to the beings we dream about or we create via our software. We’re actually characters in someone else’s dream (let’s hope they don’t have an alarm clock set) or the product of someone (something) else’s software (let’s hope they don’t hit the delete key). If that’s so, then, we got no free will. We waltz to their wetware or software tune.

Lastly, although according to legend God gave us free will, let’s say for argument’s sake that there’s an afterlife and that we go to Heaven. Do you have free will in Heaven? That is, could you, of your own free will, commit a sin in Heaven?  

Conclusion – Regardless of what society believes, I believe free will is an illusion. Everything is preordained, much like that next scene in the movie you’ve already seen a half-dozen times before. You know what’s coming next and the characters you’re observing have no choice in the matter – no free will. Well, maybe that’s what life, the Universe, and everything is – something already recorded and set in stone. Or, like that example I gave above, “Life”, perhaps we’re a computer program or simulation with relationships and rules all set in motion, perhaps for the edification or amusement of that extraterrestrial computer programmer in the sky!

Free Will: Reality or Illusion? Part One

“You have to believe in free will. You have no choice”. Seriously, if our Universe is a clockwork Universe, where causality rules absolutely (as both Newton and Einstein believed), then you do not have free will, only the illusion of having free will.

I will argue that if causality means anything, then everything is predetermined and therefore there is no free will. Causality rules – a cause causes an effect which in turn becomes the cause for a later effect which is hence the cause for an even later effect, and so on down the line. It’s an unbroken causality chain starting from an initial set of fixed conditions. The past determines the present which determines the future. If you knew the past to an absolute infinite amount of detail, then you know the future to that same degree of infinite detail, and free will doesn’t enter into things.

Our Universe could be a reflection, albeit on a far grander scale, of those computer-generated simulations, like “Life”. Start with a simple set of initial conditions and relationships, add several rules to the mix, press ‘enter’ or ‘go’ and see what happens. Such simulations can evolve into immense complexity, but the outcome – as far up the track as you wish to extrapolate – is 100% predetermined.

You can download and run “Life” on your home computer – in fact I understand some come automatically equipped with the software. In a similar way, cosmologists run simulations where they vary the various parameters thought to have existed close on the heels of the Big Bang event or era, along with the laws and constants of physics and see if the simulation evolves into something approaching the large scale structure of our actual, observed, Universe. Their fundamental assumption is of course that causality is absolute. If you start with ABC, you end up with XYZ – the first time, the last time, and all the in-between times.

If causality however is a sometime thing (like a woman is – sorry, I didn’t write the song, Gershwin did, so complain to him when you get to the afterlife part of your existence), then there must be (or probably is) such a thing as free will.

Now quantum physics as we currently understand it, is in-deterministic – it’s all based around probabilities, not certainties. Einstein never accepted that, believing to his dying day that there was some undiscovered deterministic or certainty principle or hidden factors that would restore or reaffirm causality in the realm of the quantum. If Einstein were alive today, he’s still be waiting. However, the indeterminacy and lack of causality in the realm of the quantum has nothing to do with free will.

Free will, if it exists, is a function of the mind; it’s all in the mind – the ways and means of consciousness to achieve a conscious choice.  Free will, if it exists, is ultimately then a function of brain biochemistry or neurochemistry. Chemistry is deterministic and causality driven. Chemistry is an atomic process, but chemistry is still macro compared with the micro of the quantum realm. If you combine sodium and chlorine in equal parts and only probably get table salt and thus every now and again you get quartz or stainless steel instead, well that’s just not the way the Universe works. That’s not the way chemistry, any chemistry including brain biochemistry or neurochemistry works.

Let’s explore the issue further.

Firstly, free will means making decisions that have no predetermined outcome. Free will is coming to that metaphorical fork in the road and having the ways and means or ability to choose one path or the other. Even choosing neither, doing nothing, is in itself a decision.

Decisions require conscious thought – well, maybe not. There’s something more fundamental at work here – physics and chemistry.

Let’s start with simple life forms, say microbes and plants.

Plants and microbes make decisions but clearly they do not have free will. They respond to external influences. Plant roots ‘decide’ to grow downwards with gravity; the plant ‘decides’ to grow upwards, against gravity. Phytoplankton ‘decide’ to move up and down in the ocean with respect to light intensity, and plants can ‘follow’ the Sun as it moves across the sky. Unicellular organisms ‘decide’ to reproduce when the environmental conditions are right. 

Even more complex organisms that we don’t normal associate with free will make decisions. A snail will decide to tuck into its shell with threatened. We may call it instinct, but its still decision making, albeit somewhat involuntary.

At what point does instinct or blind response to environmental stimuli morph into the appearance (real or illusionary) of free will?

And so we have, slightly higher up the evolutionary chain, a threatened organism will decide to fight or flee or hide or go into its shell. The response is not 100% instinctive; not apparently 100% predetermined. The organism chooses, and if it is not instinctive, then the decision required thought.

Decision making, instinctive or otherwise, has an awful lot to do with chemistry, and ultimately physics, because organisms are chemical structures, and chemistry is ultimately based on physics.

So, thought processes are ultimately chemical processes, ultimately routed in physics – we’re back to that micro world again!

Faced with a non-instinctive decision – fight or flee; red dress or green dress; scrambled eggs or boiled eggs – you have to think about it. That thought process sets into motion a chain of chemical and physical processes. It’s like you’ve pulled the handle on a slot machine - when everything stops and the numbers (or symbols) come up, that’s it bingo – decision made. But you had no actual control between setting the wheels in motion and the result. Your decision making was only an illusion of free will.

I repeat - once those chemical and physical processes are set into motion, you have no control over them – no say-so. You have no say-so in the reactions that happen, in the energies required to see those processes through to completion, what pathways electrons travel over your neural circuits.

Should that be surprising? Setting your brain aside for a moment, the rest of your body does not answer to what you want. In the exact same way you have no control over the natural chemical reactions that take place in your stomach when you dump a load of food into it, or for that matter any of the biochemistry that makes you tick. You don’t dictate to your body what pathways electrical impulses take when they blink your eyelids or control your heartbeat or make you twitch or even when you put one foot in front of the other.

Every molecule, atom and fundamental particle in your body does not answer to what you want, free will or no free will. You do not decide what they do! If you really had free will – willpower or mind-over-matter – you should be able to decide to control your aging process, or control your hair growth or colour. You can’t. You don’t really have free will.

You can only hold your breath for so long, or deprive yourself of sleep. While a relatively few can have the willpower to starve themselves to death when food is readily available, few could willingly die of thirst, and astronomer Tycho Brahe* notwithstanding, you can only put off going to the bathroom just so long and no longer. On a less gruesome note, how long can you prevent your eyelids from blinking?

If you have no control over the operations of your own body – its systems, organs, tissues, cells and biochemistry, why is the brain – including the mind, or that inner ‘You’ within you any different?

To be continued…

*Because of etiquette or protocol, Tycho Brahe, while in the company of royals so the story goes, apparently couldn’t, or wouldn’t excuse himself to go to the bathroom. As a result he suffered a ruptured bladder and snuffed it, getting a Darwin Award in the process. That was a hell of a way to die for king and country!