Free Will or Not So Free Will !!!
From a scientific point of view, I am not sure whether free will exists or
not. I'm divided over it. From a spiritual point of view, I know there is no free will, what so ever, considering there is no “me” to have free will in the first place. But from the scientific view, there is no way of being certain about it. Having
thought and read about it, I must admit I believe there isn't any free will. It
is definitely not "free", seems like it is under the influence of
many things.
From subjective experience, I can say for
certain that I don't really have a choice in believing there is no free will,
it’s how I feel given the information I have. Just as I have no control over
whom I fall in love with, whom I hate, which car I like, what color I like, my
favorite movie or even who I am.. It just happens to be so; I didn't really
pick one thing over another. There was no conscious decision, that I made/was
aware of making, to like or not like a certain thing. It appears to be "my
will", yet "I didn't will it so". I am not in control of the
thoughts I have; they latch on from one thing to another. I see apples and
think it so red, from red comes a thought about the color of my current car, to
thinking I need a new car, from that comes thought of money, which leads to
thought of my rich relative, whom I think my grandpa doesn't like, which leads
to thinking of my grandpa and calling him. Where is my control in all this?
From apples to car to calling grandpa… It flows from one thing to another.
Science tells me it is due to how information in my brain is structured, but
once again I am not in control of structuring the information in a certain way.
In my brain, the neuro-net is wired up in a certain way, where neurons encoded
with memories of apples are connected closely to neurons encoded with red,
which in turn is connected to my car and eventually leading to my neurons
encoded with grandpa. The entire brain is inter-connected, lets say 1 neuron
has 10 or 15 connections, with 100 billion neurons, putting the total number of
connections at a mind boggling 10^15(or 10000000000000000 or in words 10 with
15 zeros behind it, that's a monstrously large number). I have no choice in how
all those neurons are inter-connected. Thankfully it is not in my control. Or I
would make a bloody mess, I suppose that's why I don't have "free
will" when it comes to the important things, can you imagine consciously
willing to take each breath, we would suffocate ourselves every time we go to sleep
or get distracted. It is for good reason that sub-conscious is in control of
all the above.
But is there anything beyond the control of
the sub-conscious? What is in my conscious control? When in comes to Doer-ship,
it seems I have free will. I can choose to run, jump, smile or write this
article. I might not have the free will of liking chocolate, but I seem to have
control over whether I put it in my mouth or not. Surely, this is some sort of
free will; once again it turns out, it is not really "free".
Science has been very concerned and focused
on this sort of free will; It is testable and has been tested. First explored
by Libbet in 1991, his experiment has been re-created and confirmed hundreds of
times. There was a new similar study, using much better technology; it has shed
much more light on the topic and also re-confirmed Libbet's findings.
Libbet’s experiment, in which he asked each subject to choose a random
moment to flick their wrist while he measured the associated activity in their
brain (in particular, the build-up of electrical signal called the readiness
potential). Although it was well known that the readiness potential preceded
the physical action Libbet asked how the readiness potential corresponded to
the felt intention to move. To determine when the subjects felt the intention
to move, he asked them to watch the second hand of a clock and report its
position when they had felt the conscious will to move. Libbet's findings
suggest that decisions made by a subject are first being made on a subconscious
level and only afterwards being translated into a "conscious
decision", and that the subject's belief that it occurred at the behest of
his will was only due to his retrospective perspective on the event.
2008 Study by Masao Matsuhashi and Mark Hallett
"Scientists in
2008 were able to predict with 60% accuracy whether subjects would press a
button with their left or right hand up to 10 seconds before the subject became
aware of having made that choice. These and other findings have led some
scientists, like Patrick Haggard, to reject some forms of "free
will"."
Both these studies
suggest that the sub-conscious brain, is responsible for making decisions, and
then these decisions are translated to "conscious awareness" which
creates the appearance of it being a conscious decision. So this form of free
will is an illusion.
There are 2 major
criticism of these studies : One suggests that rather than sub-conscious brain
making the decision, the decision is made spontaneously prior to conscious awareness,
and then is picked up by conscious brain. Even if this is to be believed, it
doesn't prove free will, but rather just removes the sub-conscious from the decision-making.
The other criticism argues that both these studies were done using finger movements,
and may not necessarily generalize to other actions such as thinking, or even
other motor actions in different situations. Once again even if this is to be
believed, it doesn't prove that free will exist, only that the results might
not apply to other activities.
Testing free will when
it comes to thinking is tricky and not really testable. It comes down to
subjective experience.
Personally I think the
case for free will for thinking is even weaker, than for actions such as finger
movement. As discussed above I have no control over what thoughts come to me, I
can think of specific things (or so it appears; maybe it’s the subconscious
commanding to have that thought), but how I think depends on how the
information is structured in my neuro-net, which is definitely out of my
control.
My preferences are not
free willed either, as discussed above I have no control over what I like or
love or hate, it seems these decision are already made without my conscious
involvement.
So my actions,
thinking, preferences aren't really in my control, the case for free will is
quite weak. I hope I have some free will, but the evidence and experience
points otherwise.
The only kind of free will
that does exist is what scientist call "free won't/veto".
Which means that
unconscious impulses to perform a volitional act (like walking or moving fingers)
are open to being vetoed by the conscious mind. I might not have the free
will to move my finger, but I have the veto power to not go through with it.
Which isn't really free will, because I don't have control over doing
something, but rather have control over not doing something.