Now, a little bit is known about the brain and nervous system. We know that certain neurons of the brain [...]]]> Picking up where we left off, we had bookmarked the experiential definition of free will (that which reduces to “the experience of choosing”) and ventured into the causal definition (a “self” is a unique cause of action).

Now, a little bit is known about the brain and nervous system. We know that certain neurons of the brain are “stimulated” by neurotransmitters received from neurons extending from various sensory nerves, and this is our brain’s primary input for experiencing the world. Likewise, we know that our muscles contract and release depending on signals carried to the by nerves which are stimulated by certain neurons in the brain. We also know that our brains have quite a bit of nervous activity that sorts and stores sensory inputs and mediates output to our motor functions. It would probably be accurate, if overly simplistic, to say that the brain processes inputs and turns them into outputs through nervous activity.

Be that as it may, we have a problem if we are to postulate causal will. Where does it manifest? If I “choose” to ball my fist, then at some point a set of neurons have to communicate the necessary signals from my brain to the muscles in my hand. Those neurons do not discharge in a vacuum – they discharge the way they do, according to the current understanding, because they are stimulated by neurotransmitters from other neurons. Without oversimplifying too much, my fist clench is the end result of the convergence of numerous causal chains – chains that involve DNA and the development of neural tissue, sensory inputs and its impact on neural tissue, the fact of being dropped on my head as a baby, nutritional factors, etc., etc., etc. It’s difficult to find a gap in which to insert a different kind of cause. Sure, there are big gaps in our understanding of how the brain stores memories, reinforces with dopamines, punishes with pain… but there is little doubt left that all of these are accomplished through the mediation of neural connections and the transmitters between them. If we trace backward the neural reactions that lead to the balling of my fist, at some point we have to find that there is room for something we call “self” – apart from those causal chains – to cause some neurons to release their chemical signals without being primed to do so by other neurons or physical stimuli. If no such place can be found, we are at a near loss for ways to consider my choice to ball my fist to be other than mechanically caused with no true “choice” on the part of a more numinous “self”. The only alternative is that, in cases where the numinous “self” wishes to assert its free choice, it is capable of producing neurological miracles.

Very frankly put, to gain a causal sense of will, and for that will to be free, there must be a miracle making self not completely tied up with the mechanics of the brain.

The other alternative for causal free will is very similar to what we discussed before: if we admit of the self as cause without the guarantee that the self could choose differently than it does, then we can say that the “self” does cause the action, defining the self with reference to the human body and brain as constructed and modified by its genes and environmental history. In other words the freedom of the will remains somewhat illusory, but the will itself could be well-established. Then the question of whether there is a numinous “self” or only the illusion of same must be brought up, then dropped quickly when we realize that we have mainly already covered that territory.

I’m not quite satisfied to drop the subject there, but again – fits & starts. I’ll return to this, hopefully by Monday.

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I’ve been scratching my head over this stuff for a week now here on the bleg, but this and related questions have been coming up in my mind as long as I can remember. I’ve always in the past skirted the issue with [...]]]> Wow – I should have proofread this… Talk about scatterbrained… fixing it now…

I’ve been scratching my head over this stuff for a week now here on the bleg, but this and related questions have been coming up in my mind as long as I can remember. I’ve always in the past skirted the issue with a little mental trick I’ll tell you about here. I’ll probably keep doing it in the future, too (as though I have any choice in the matter. Groan.) But here just for a moment, I’m going to publicly peek behind the curtain.

And, excuse me if I do it in multiple posts and in fits & starts. I’m more than a bit scatterbrained this week.

I guess I’ll start by throwing this link out there. It’s ok to skim past the part where he agrees with my thinking that the “unpredictability” of quantum mechanics is hardly an optimistic harbinger for the possibility of free will. If all you mean is “not mechanically pre-determined”, then perhaps. If you mean what we intuitively think of as free will – then it doesn’t get you very far.

I’m not sure of miller’s reasoning behind the suggestion that free will and the illusion of free will are the same, but it is this suggestion that I want to point out from his link. My own reasoning leads me down two converging paths that point to a similar view.

I’ll content myself in this post by talking about the first path. It should lead us to more than enough rabbit trails on its own. That first path is this: the “folk” definition of free will is made in terms of experience. I may not know art, but I know what I like. I may not know what free will is, but I know how to exercise it. If it be shown, as some recent research and no small amount of reasoning about commonly known facts of human cognition has suggested, that free will is an illusion, then it remains a daunting exercise to show that this illusion does not meet the definition that we can all intuitively agree on for the fact of free will. Only if free will can be rigorously and acceptably defined in terms other than the experience of it can the two be differentiated. If, and only if, they are meaningfully differentiated does the “illusion” of free will imply the falsity of the notion of free will. Right?

Well, as far as I can reason it out, that’s right. If free will is defined, for instance, as “the experience of choosing, not under duress”, and while not under duress, a causal chain of neurological firings brings about an illusion that can be described as “the experience of choosing”, then the two are the same. Personally, I prefer this type of definition and will likely stick with it, but there is something unsatisfactory about a world where the illusion and the actuality are the same. It would seem more economical to discard the concept of free will as useless at best, false at worst. And, like most people, the illusion is a comfort I’m not keen to abandon.

So, if we are to distinguish free will from the experience of it, how do we do so? Without torturing you with the various dead-ends I pursued, let me just say that every definition I could conceive reduced eventually to experience. But I did find a glimmer of hope by making a definition in terms of causality. I’m sorry to say that I believe this only moves the problem elsewhere, but I’m happy to explore it a little bit, since that “elsewhere” is also an interesting place, if a touchy one for many of us.

If you define free will as the ability for an individual person to determine their own actions – then that is a tad different from the mere experience of determining. In other words, if it could be shown that with the same “causal chain” in place – a person “cued” identically between prior brain states and sensory stimuli is capable of producing more than one action and some hitherto unexplored quality of “self” – divorced from the “causal chain” – was capable of determining which of the multiple possibilities was instantiated… then we could define free will in this way. Then, and only then, would the illusion of free will be divorced from the actuality of free will. And, as I hinted earlier, It’s more satisfactory to see it this way than to allow for a conflation between the actuality and the reality – but only if we don’t learn that free will is illusory. In other words, it might be better to have illusory/experiential free will than no free will (by this other definition) at all. There are other problems. We risk a brain / mind duality that threatens to make the situation even scarier… but like I said – fits & starts. I’ll come back to this.

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