No choice? Is there free will

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

If you are sure that you yourself determine your own destiny, we have bad news: it's not that simple.

Free will is the ability to influence events, make choices, and act regardless of restrictions. The concept of free will is at the core of morality, law and religion, since we are believed to make all decisions consciously.

But do we really have a choice? The answer to this question is not so straightforward.

How attitudes towards free will have changed over time

The question of whether people are free in their actions is one of the main ones in thinking about human existence, since the understanding of the meaning of life largely depends on the answer to it. If there is no free will, then everything is predetermined. If it is, then we ourselves make decisions about how we should live.

Throughout human history, philosophers and scientists have puzzled over this question.

So, Plato believed Plato. State. Book IV. M. 1971 that a person living in harmony with himself, the mind is not subject to passions, so he does only what he considers right. Aristotle wrote to Aristotle. Nicomachean ethics. Book III. M. 1997, that it is in the power of a person to act in one way or another, and in most cases our actions are voluntary. Other ancient philosophers (Chrysippus, Epicurus) argued that decision-making depends both on external circumstances and on the person himself.

The Christian thinker of the 4th-5th centuries Augustine considered Aurelius Augustine. About free will. Anthology of Medieval Thought. Volume One. SPb. 2001 that evil is the result of the abuse of God's gift of freedom of choice, linking it with the fall of Adam and Eve. Another theologian, Thomas Aquinas (XIII century), was convinced that human freedom lies in choosing ways to achieve good.

Thinkers of the early modern era (17th century), such as Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, emphasized that without faith in free will, people risk slipping into immorality, but this freedom is difficult to fit into the scientific picture of the world.

The fact is that classical Newtonian physics proceeds from the consideration that any physical system moves along a completely predictable path. Therefore, there is no room for free will.

This belief is known as determinism. It can be The psychology of believing in free will. The Conversation understands that our existence is an indirect result of the Big Bang, the emergence of the Earth and life on it, evolution.

A simpler view of determinism is the belief that parents and living conditions made us who we are. Modern science relies not only on Vedral V. The Big Questions: Is the universe deterministic? NewScientist on mechanical determinism, but also on the theory of the uncertainty of the Universe, for example, quantum mechanics.

There is also compatibilism - the belief that determinism does not contradict free will. Such famous thinkers as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Immanuel Kant adhered to it.

Arthur Schopenhauer considered Schopenhauer A. Free will and morality. M. 1992, that in addition to external reasons, our actions are determined by the will, which arises along with a sense of duty. And according to Friedrich Nietzsche, the basis of human actions is F. Nietzsche's Will to Power. M. 2019 strong or weak will to power. The belief that the will plays a major role in the human mind is called Voluntarism (philosophy). Britannica.

French philosopher and writer of the 20th century Jean-Paul Sartre considered Free will. Britannica that free will confronts a person with an eternal agonizing choice. This view is called existentialism.

As you can see, discussions about free will have a rich history, and there are two main approaches to this issue: compatibilism (belief in the existence of free will) and incompatibilism (its denial and belief in determinism).

What modern science says about free will

In 1964, two German neuroscientists, Hans Kornhuber and Lüder Dicke, discovered areas of the brain that are activated when a spontaneous action is needed. Thus, researchers who initially believed in free will laid the foundations for experiments that indicate its absence.

Neurobiological experiments in the late 1970s and 1980s showed that free will is an illusion. An experiment in which the subject had to press a button, first conducted by the American scientist Benjamin Libet, and then repeated several times, demonstrated that between 0.3 seconds and 7-10 seconds elapsed between action and a conscious decision.

That is, the decision is made before we can realize it.

Such conclusions are also prompted by the expansion of our knowledge about the hormones serotonin and dopamine. For a long time it was believed that they largely determine the actions associated with the reward reaction. That is, if we know that some action will bring us benefit or satisfaction, the body "informs" us about it, releasing the appropriate hormone.

However, recent research suggests that chemical reactions in the body play a much larger role in decision-making, including those not related to reward. A group of psychologists, neuroscientists and neurosurgeons from the United States and the United Kingdom came to this conclusion with the help of five patients with Parkinson's disease and essential tremor. A neurological disorder associated with involuntary tremors of the hands or head. - Approx. the author. …

The patients were implanted with thin carbon fiber electrodes for deep brain stimulation and treatment of their ailments. Also, the electrodes allowed scientists to track the levels of serotonin and dopamine in subjects much faster than is possible using standard methods. In a specially designed computer game, the subjects were shown an array of dots on the screen, which move with varying degrees of randomness. Subjects were then asked to answer in which direction the dots were moving. It turned out that dopamine and serotonin reactions in the body occur even when a person is faced with a choice with unknown consequences.

Dan Bang, a researcher at University College London and one of the authors of the study, gives an example for clarity: being in the dark, a person moves differently than in daylight. And it turns out that dopamine and serotonin can determine the direction and speed of this movement.

Does this mean that we are not responsible for our actions

If free will does not exist, then it turns out that we do not influence the course of events. Therefore, we cannot be held responsible for our actions.

In this case, many of the problems of humanity are presented from the other side. For example, it is not clear what to do with criminals, because the argument about atrocities committed "in sound mind and memory" is crumbling.

On the other hand, if everything is predetermined, then the justice system should have appeared, and punishments for unacceptable actions are justified.

It would be more correct to assume that the issue of free will has not yet been finally resolved: discussions in science are clearly not over.

It is believed that Libet's experiments and other similar experiments do not allow such far-reaching conclusions to be drawn. Supporters of this point of view believe that the conditions for their implementation are incorrect, and what Libet discovered is only spontaneous movements that can be compared, for example, with a false start in sports. And Kornhuber and Dicke declare that even unconscious actions can be free and uncontrolled. They also believe that the areas of the brain that are activated by spontaneous movements are not associated with decision-making.

Another explanation for Libet's findings is offered by neuroscientist Aaron Schurger of Chapman University and colleagues. They came to the conclusion that brain activity is heterogeneous and can be represented as waves on the cardiogram: there are lower and upper peaks. And when the activity of the brain reaches its highest point, it can make a decision, even if the person himself has not yet understood it.

Such "predictions" associated with peaks in brain activity have been found in chimpanzees. So, the monkey's brain could "tell" scientists about what it will choose, even before presenting it to the options. For example, it was possible to predict which type of reward she would prefer: small, but which can be received right now, or large, but available only after a while.

There are other hypotheses as well. For example, Joaquin Fuster, MD and Ph. D. from the University of Los Angeles, proposes a cyclical model of decision making. He believes that the brain is closely related to the human environment. This leads to the fact that his choice of options is always very limited, and the consequences of the decision are hardly predictable. Therefore, according to Fuster, it is almost impossible to find the beginning and the end of both in the cycle "decision - action". Freedom of will, according to his convictions, is that the environment is not an objective reality, but how a person perceives it.

Finally, in 2019, a group of scientists from the United States and Israel did not find any “outstripping” brain activity during conscious action - the decision to donate money to charity.

The question of the influence of dopamine and serotonin on the choice also requires further study on a larger number of experimental subjects, among which there will be healthy people.

Several experimenters have concluded that the belief that there is no free will leads to increased dishonesty, aggression and unwillingness to help others, as well as ingratitude. However, the increase in the number of subjects cast doubt on these results.

The study of the issue of will leads to unexpected conclusions: it turns out that part of the scientific community does not believe in it, and the supporters of religion - on the contrary (albeit with the proviso that it is part of God's plan). Despite the use of modern technologies and the centuries-old study of this topic, it is difficult to find an unequivocal answer to the question of the reality of free will.

Stephen Hawking's point of view can be cited as a compromise. In the book Hawking S., Mlodinov L. The Supreme Design. An astrophysicist's view of the creation of the world. M. 2020 "Higher Design", he wrote that the results of experiments indicate that human behavior is "programmed", but at the same time it is still very difficult to predict.

One way or another, belief in free will is a matter of choice … If, of course, there is one.