We have free will- We have no choice. – Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Free will and determinism is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism. The way you play your hand is free will. –  Jawahar Lal Nehru.

Free-will takes the title of being the most contentious, unsettled topic of philosophical debate ever. Be it Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius or the armchair philosophers of your weekend drinking circle; everyone, intellectual and commoner alike, has thought about free-will. Casual or deep, informed or uninformed, the arguments on free-will never end. However, there is no clear consensus. Till a century ago, only theology and philosophy engaged in solving this dilemma, but now even sciences have jumped into the fray. Neuroscience is leading the way followed by social psychology and the likes.

Neuroscience’s take on free-will

In their quest for understanding free-will better, neuroscientists are now trying to fine tune an experiment conducted by Benjamin Libet’s in the 1980’s. This experiment became famous, ironically, for a result it was not supposed to throw out.  Libet asked his subjects to make some spontaneous action while he studied their brain activity. He was trying to record the average time difference between the urge to act and the actual action. He observed that the average time difference came to about  200 microseconds across the subjects and type of action. Unexpectedly, the EEG readings also threw up a signal that appeared earlier than the ‘urge’ to act, roughly  about 550 microseconds before the actual action itself. He termed this unexpected observation as one’s ‘readiness potential’. Even though scientists had not been looking for it, it became the main focus of further experiments and study. This readiness potential seemed to suggest that free will as such is impossible, because the brain is already preparing for action 350ms before we become aware of our urge to act. 

The neuroscientists have declared free will an open and shut case now, compelled by this irrefutable evidence. Our neural impulses are leading us, and they have no basis other than randomness. Patrick Haggard, neuro-scientist at University college, London says with deep conviction that science has thus unequivocally settled the matter. We have no free will at all. Other neuro-scientists have concluded that ‘agency’ or ‘authorship’ is also false in a sense. We are at the mercy of our involuntary impulses, of the waves in our brain networks. Talia Wheatley, associate professor of psychology at Dartmouth College has been able to  ascertain with experiments that our basic decision-making agency, our  sense of ‘I am deciding to do this’, is really not required.

This evidential support compels us to trust the verdict, but that feels strange, does it not? Why do we feel like we have free will then? Why do we feel that we are making free decisions, from ones as inconsequential as what dish to cook for dinner to more pertinent ones like which career to choose and which college to go to?

There are various prevalent philosophies of free will,  all placing broadly in the two diametrically opposed frameworks of determinism and in-determinism. 

Determinism says that the universe and our reality is pre-determined. Varying degrees of pre-determination give rise to many definitions of free will. In-determinism means the universe is not pre-determined and again varying degrees of indeterminism gives rise to many definitions of free will here.

Determinism

One definition of determinism tell us that any event is completely bound by its previous states, and every event can cause only one future event. According to the ‘Information Philosopher’, an event is the necessary and inevitable consequence of an antecedent set of affairs. From within this paradigm emerge the contrary ideas of hard indeterminism and compatibilism.

Hard determinism

Hard determinism suggests that we have no free will at all, and we behave in typical ways because influences beyond our control formed our characters. Parentage, genetics, nurturing all included. We are no more responsible for our actions then, than for our skin colour or the shape of our nose. In this type of determinism, you have no free will and hence you are not morally responsible or accountable for your actions. 

Compatibilism

Compatibilism claims we do have some degree of free will within the context of a reality which is largely predetermined.   We have free will in the sense that we can still make free choices unhindered, without the restraint from other individuals or institutions. The latest term coined in the context of compatibilism is ‘response to reason’, which suggests that we can take rational actions even if a situation constrains us. Walter-Sinott-Armstrong, professor of philosophy at Duke university says that a free action is one where you are free to do as you wish in the absence of  physical or psychological barriers. At one level, this way of defining free will feels intuitive, but once we increase the degree of complexity of the argument , it sounds less convincing. Ramakrishna, a famous Indian saint, described compatibilism as a cow tied to a stake by a rope. The cow has the freedom to eat, sleep and graze only within the radius of the rope, but otherwise it is not free. 

How free is free then? Who will decide what is a constraint, a restraint and what is not?

These definitions of free will always depend on the ‘degrees of freedom’ used in their defining.

But then, if genetics and nurturing determine our personalities all-together, as determinism says they do, what does a conscious choice mean at all? Do you see the contradiction? If we are a guided each moment by personalities not due to us, how can we be making any free choices?  So compatibilism defeats its ownself, trips up its own definition.

In-determinism

As one definition tells us, an undetermined world is one where antecedent events do not cause future events and it has a characteristic of overall uncertainty. There are various interpretations of the term indeterminism too, each with more qualifications than the other. It seems that many of these differing interpretations are merely retrospective workings; trying to fit different intuitions about free will into a broad theory.

Hard Indeterminism

It tells us that reality is totally undetermined and all that we think, decide and do is random and arbitrary. This is the neuroscientist’s view too; zero free will in a random universe. Our neurobiological impulses guide our actions and thoughts and YOU have no say in the matter.

Libertarianism

Libertarianism says that the universe maybe undetermined, but that does not mean we have to be helpless. We need not be at the mercy of randomness, Alfred Mele, professor at the University of Florida tells us. We can still control our decisions, and at many points we can have more than one alternative to choose from. We could always choose differently. This definition makes the most sense for accountability of our actions. Since we could choose differently at all moments, all transgressors must face punishment for not having made better choices. This idea is also the basis of our current legal and moral systems.

Like compatibilism, this idea seems to satisfy our intuitions, but if you look closely, you will see its problems. When our genetics and upbringing are not in our conscious control, when we do not create our own psychology, how much free will can we claim to have? Maybe somebody who acted wrongly felt justified to act that way. Many criminals come from troubled childhoods and backgrounds and they feel compelled to behave the way they do. Maybe they haven’t seen and known better. Then who is to say what is good/ bad, right/ wrong except in the broadest sense? 

When we cannot always determine what our next thought will be, or the next emotion that will well up inside us from some uncertain trigger, how can we talk of free will? When any good or bad impulse simply pops into our heads and hearts, what does a free choice even mean? 

Also, this type of free-will within a random world is even less helpful. Remember a time when you had multiple choices before you? Was it any easier when you had to scrutinize and weigh each option against the other lest you missed out on something? Having plenty to choose from feels comfortable as an idea, but it is difficult and confusing to execute.  With a multitude of choices, you could suffer from decision paralysis. Peter Van Inwagen, professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame asks us.”How much free-will do you have in this high level of confusion and uncertainty?”

Why A priori theories of free-will fail

So you see, both these distinct paradigms of free-will suffer from the similar problem: they make sense only in very simple terms. As soon as you investigate deeply, become more incisive, the logic of the structure fails. They make intuitive sense initially, but that is is just a deceptive red herring.  An oversimplified false trail, which is a characteristic of most a priori rational theories.

A priori reasoning means to make deductions only with logic, without empirical observation.

Our common sense intuition is the basis of all these a priori theories. The problem is that we cannot blindly trust our intuitions. More often than not, intuition is a matter of conditioning and common-knowledge which can quickly change. The earth intuitively feels flat, the sun intuitively seems to move around the earth, but the evidence is shockingly counter intuitive. No? What feels like truth might not be the truth. Science has taught us this in the past, but when will we truly learn? When will we learn to not put too much faith in our common sense intuitions, in what our senses show and tell us? When will we learn to be more perceptive, more observant, more incisive, more than prima facie?  When will we be open to alternate theories, alternative possibilities on all dilemmas including existential ones like free-will?

Religious definitions of free-will

There are many theological (religious) perspectives of free will too which fall both in the determinism and indeterminism categories.

Some philosophers say  ‘God’ created the world  and everything in it. Hence he causes our actions and determines the results. In this model life is totally predetermined and we have no free will at all. This is the Hard determinism of theology.

Theological compatibilism begins with the argument that ‘God’ himself stands outside time. God created us and determined everything but he does not cause us to act. We have free will to do as we please but he has determined the results already. ‘God’ does not get into the nitty-gritties of the affairs of our largely determined world, says Hugh McCann, professor of philosophy at the Texas A&M university.

Matthews Grant, professor of  philosophy at the university of St. Thomas argues for compatibilism as well. He says that God causes our actions, but he does not determine the result. In an undetermined universe, God is causing us to act but does not decide what the results will be. The result of our actions can be good or evil but that is not God’s doing. This definition of free will is rather funny because it makes ‘God’ less powerful than the believers ask us to imagine! 

There is a third contrary view in theology which says that if God decided everything, then he decided we should commit evil, which we invariably do. This would be a paradox because God cannot choose evil since as he is a perfect being. God causing evil is a theological impossibility and hence this argument is wrong. This logic eliminates determinism and compatibilism, because if God determined the world, he could not have allowed evil to happen. Thus we are left with libertarianism according to Brian Leftow, professor of the philosophy of Christian religion at Oxford. He says that in an undetermined world,  God created us and is just overseeing us while we do good and evil. We are being watched and judged; we determine our future ourselves. So then we have a libertarian kind of free-will in this scenario.

In conclusion, theological definitions of free will seem ridiculous because they do not even have a consensus on how powerful their ‘God’ is. It seems there are just different ideas to suit the mentalities and sensibilities of different types of believers. It is funny that even the powers of this God change according to what feels right and wrong to the theologians defining free will. 

Additionally, I stumble right at the assumption about ‘God’ in these theological definitions. GOD exists, how is that even intuitive? Yes, I agree that our common sense and intuitions are not truly reliable. In fact, they are many times grossly incorrect. However what is the argument for ‘God’ himself for such a definition? Ask people, take a poll and please ask the atheists. They will not go beyond this first principle before putting these theories in the trash can of nonsense.

Conclusion: Do we have a satisfying definition of free-will?

Do you realise that all a priori, pure logic based definitions of free-will are lacking, one way or another? It seems logic in itself will not resolve this bone of contention. The most trustworthy explanation, at least for most people comes from neuroscience. Sadly it has made the ominous, fatal and categorical declaration that we have no free will in the least. Does that make you comfortable, this idea that you are not in control of your life and will never, ever be? Don’t you shudder at the dreadful finality of this conclusion? Don’t you want to have free-will?

Can we have another definition of free will then? One which takes care of the problems in definitions we have already discussed? Can we have a system which is less amorphous with fewer contradictions? 

There maybe. One that has always existed.