In this article I’m going to pose a not so novel compatibilistic idea about the so-recurrent philosophical discussion of free will and determinism. However, this can apply to any topic where reductionism is over-used. Let’s get started.
There exists many views on free will and determinism. Some are about
physicalism and materialism, others about metaphysical explanations,
others about incompatibilistic views and compatibilistic ones,
etc. Within those we find a growing trend of analytic thinkers that
love to break down the meaning of words and by consequence get stuck on
the semantic, most often leading to the dismissal of further interesting
explanations.
This kind of analytic view has
its merits, which I won’t argue in this article. It’s not as innately
simplistic and non-valuable as some may portray it.
The standard definition of free will is: “The ability to choose between
different possible courses of action unimpeded.”, “The ability to act
at one’s own discretion.”
However, as with any such topic there
exist many definitions. For example: “The ability to make choices which
the outcome has not been determined by past events.” This particular one
doesn’t leave much space for free will if determinism is unchallenged. I
will try to focus the discussion on the first definition I mentioned.
The argument on the front line today, the analytic one, stems from
the stance of physicalism and materialism. Simply put, physicalism
consist of saying that mater is the fundamental substance of nature,
that everything is physical and follows the laws of physics.
It unfolds as follows: Everything
is physical, thus obeying the laws of physics, all the causalities are
innevitable, determined, and because human are physical beings they are
also determined. There’s no course of action that is possible other
than the one we are currently on. Which concludes that free will is
non-existent because decision-making is useless and won’t change what
events will happen in the future.
Regardless of the huge leap that
is done in the conclusion this might sound like some appealing logical
steps to make, right?
This type of perception of free will is called incompatibilistic, free
will and determinism cannot live together according to those. Another
incompatibilistic view could be a religious one. For instance pointing
supreme beings that dictate the will of the world.
Though it might depend on which
religious doctrine. For example, dualists would be compatibilist,
separating the mind/soul/metaphysics from the body/material/physical and
giving the free will to one of the previous two.
However, if we allow for metaphysics
it would break all of modern physics. For something to affect the world
it has to interact with it and to interact with something material it
has to be material. If the mind is non-material then it cannot interact
with the body.
As far as incompatibilist are concerned their main issue with
compatibilist is that they claim they are redefining free will to suit
their views. It is ironic, there are many definitions of free will and it
doesn’t mean that the absolutist and eternalist view of incompatibilism
is the perfect one because it looks like pure deduction. It doesn’t
render all other definitions invalid.
What would make this less confusing
would be to use different words to specify the kind of free will. We
could call “physicalist free will” the above. Or even better, if we made
taboo the words “free will” in a discussion about it, we’d have to start
by agreeing or disagreeing on what it actually means for us.
On the compatibilist side there are
many arguments too. For example saying that determinism is required to
be able to choose between different outcomes, that a base of causality
is needed to have judgement upon.
Other compatibilists put emphasis
on the causality part, it doesn’t mean that there is causality that
there should be determinism. We realize causality only after the fact.
There are many stances.
We definitely can’t deduce facts from subjective experiences but when
discussing free will we have to acknowledge that the experience itself
is a part of it. Some call it qualia, or the knowledge of having lived
an experience. This knowledge shouldn’t be dismissed. For example when
we lose our temper there is the feeling that we aren’t acting based on
our free will, we know that we lost control for some moments
Now, because we have a physical base
it doesn’t remove the validity of those experiences. The reductionist
would call it the illusion of free will. I think this is misleading
and avoiding the explanation. There exists a sense of agency, volition,
locus of control, “where one must believe they are an agent in order to
function and develop a theory of mind.”
I do not think the question is
about everything having a cause and that if everything has a cause
then that causes determine everything and jump directly to “free will
doesn’t exist”. When we talk about free will we rarely discuss the basic
constructions of the world and their causations, we rarely talk about
particles that bounce and influence our actions. We rarely calculate
every single moves based on the current state of the universe at that
precise moment. What we do is talk about someone facing a decision,
someone were forced to do something, Someone taking credit, someone
was blamed, etc.
It sounds more like its core is about identity and repression of identity
and not about causality. What would the entity wish for in its current
state as the next decision. What are decisions taken by an entity?
The answer would be that it depends
on how we choose to define the entity. Do we define it as a mind within
a body, the so-called dualism or essentialism. Do we define it as only
the conscious part of the mind or as all the body together. Most are
brought up to think intuitively that there’s a ghost in the machine but
it doesn’t make it more valid.
Then someone might want to point
out that we are influenced by society “in the back of our heads”, that
we’re “manipulated in our subconscious”. Which I would retort with:
Do we consider our subconscious a part of ourselves or not? If yes then
the influence is part of the composition of ourselves, and so we’re still
acting out of free will even if subconsciously.
This is the portion I want to press, it depends on how you define the
self. If you don’t think the self exists then you won’t think free will
exist because there’s no one to exert it on.
What constitutes us? Does
consciousness reside only in the head? Is consciousness a requirement
for free will?
For instance, Philippe Rochat in
his book Others in Mind: Social Origins of Self-Consciousness defines
different types of “consciousness” that develop throughout life and that
later on interact with one another together constituting the self.
- non-consciousness
- awareness
- unconsciousness
- co-awareness
- consciousness
- co-consciousness
Co-awareness and co-consciousness arise only in social environment. What
if we used those as the entity of free will, do we then have to include
the social environment as a free will agent too?
Again, this is the important aspect,
where do we draw the line. It is nebulous and rightly so. And this is
the same for the physical world. Where does a cloud end? Where does the
line between me and the chair starts?
If we break down the problem into
small parts, zoomed in, split the particles into their most simple
components, then the delimitations would disappear. The chair and
myself wouldn’t matter anymore at this level. This is the same kind of
result the incompatibilist physicalists try to make with free will in
my opinion. They try to reduce the discussion to absurdism, which can
be done with any topic.
Why not separate the layers,
even vaguely, to say that some aspect of reality make sense in one
but not in others. That some concepts don’t compute at higher, lower,
or across layers.
Scale needs to be addressed. At the scale of the single neuron we cannot talk about the free will of the human individual, at the scale of the universe we cannot also talk about free will of the human individual. But then it depends on what we consider as the individual. We often hear both: “I didn’t choose to be born here”, a before existence statement, and “I didn’t choose to get sick” a during existence statement. The first sentence doesn’t make much sense because before existence there isn’t anything where free-will can be exerted upon. After existence this sentence would make sense only if the sickness was something that was available on the same layer as the layer where we consider the identity to exists.
This means free will lives from interactions. Those interactions happen
between intentional agents, regardless if conscious or not. When something
is imposed from one intentional agent to another, then this agent looses
its free will.
I would loosely define an intentional
agent as an entity that is a causation in itself and that has goals to
sustain itself.
This interpretation allows saying,
for instance, that the universe itself knows the causality to itself, it
is itself, thus an emergent intentional agent. This is imprecise and I’m
willing to leave it at that because the lines between layers are
themselves fuzzy.
What constitutes free will then? It is the ability that an agent posses to interact within its level of existence, be it another intentional agent or not, for its own causation and not one of another agent on the same level. According to this, free will comes and goes, regardless of determinism or not. The “would you have done otherwise” would depend on the scenario.
Moreover, we could conjecture that this doesn’t have to stop at the
human level. Philosophical zombies could have free will, the Chinese
room thought experiment would be useless to bring in discussions too.
We could go a step further and
count in entities which lives are slower. Why limit it to one being,
why not say that an entity could be composed of many living beings. What
about considering the conglomeration of all the trees on earth as one
intentional agent (sometimes called holobiont).
I digress, nebulosity doesn’t equate with non-sense. It’s a well-chosen
term sometimes and limiting the question of free will to scales brings
meaning to it. The scale where we apply our definition of entity,
identity, and the self.
I hope I could convey my ideas
as clear as possible without being too misleading. Don’t forget who
exercises free will and what constitutes this “who”.
The closest idea to this layer approach
I found is Daniel Dennett view on intentional
stance and Roger
Scruton On Human Nature.
I’ve also found this wonderful documentary called “Why Are We Here?” and
the Episode 1: “Meaning Seeking Beings” is especially resourceful on the
topic of reductionism.
Attribution
Benjamin Herschel Babbage, printed in Harper's new monthly magazine / Public domain
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