On Free Will
Since the dawn of consciousness, humans have not only questioned their own existence, but they have driven themselves mad trying to understand the choices they make. Countless thinkers and theorists have spent decades solely searching for either a confirmation or refutation of the existence of so-called “free will.” At times, free will seemed like a paramount part of existence, an idea with which society could not at all function without. One interesting argument stated that whether or not free will existed, all civilized people must have believed in it, for otherwise society would crumble. Without a belief in free will, no one would have any sense of moral responsibility, as each could simply blame his actions on the inability to change that which was bound to happen anyway. And so it went. The existence of free will no longer mattered, all that was important was that which people believed.
Of course, on the contrary, a theory arose called determinism, which essentially stated that every action, while not necessarily predictable through human means, was inevitable. Someone or something had written all the pages in the book of time and people were simply flipping through them one by one. The emergence of various scientific discoveries further aided in the evolution of determinism. With the advent of classical physics, a fundamental science to which theoretically every other science could be reduced, it seemed that if one could potentially know the position and momentum of every particle in the universe, one could predict exactly the state of the universe at any other time in either future or past. This became the crux of classical mechanics. Experiments with the same initial conditions would always yield the same results, and everything in the universe seemed utterly deterministic.
These two theories presented somewhat of a paradox. Even though classical physics easily proved the determinism of the universe, and science dictated that humans were indeed a part of the universe–though a very complex part, at that–human minds still conformed to thinking that their actions were their own and not at all predictable by mere calculation, and society still stood firmly upon its moral ground.
Many years later, in the middle of the 20th century, a science known as quantum mechanics arose, one of the most bizarre and non-intuitive branches of human thought in all of history. When scientists began to peer deeply into the inner workings of atomic and subatomic particles, they saw that these “particles” neither acted nor were anything at all like the macroscopic entities of the everyday world. In reality, their very existence could not even be defined. Scientists could only describe particles or energy patterns as having tendencies to exists, or tendencies to perform certain actions. Each possible future of a “particle” carried only a certain probability; however, it was uncertainty, a game of quantum chance, that ruled the playing field. These discoveries completely uprooted the determinism of classical physics and once again made philosophers reconsider their feelings towards that elusive free will. The problem now was not between free will and determinism, but between free will and complete unpredictability, between conscious choices and paths undefinable even by infinite calculation.
And as such remains the problem today. Do we control our own actions or are they determined by quantum randomness? In order to tackle this question we must, as per usual, define it and analyze it in its most fundamental state before beginning to search for an answer. This almost algorithmic approach to any philosophical problem is highly necessary, for at times, it even may yield a refutation of the logic of the question itself. In fact, that is what I hope to do in the following explanation.
The latter part of our question is relatively straightforward, basically stating the possibility that we have no way of influencing the quantum probabilities governing the actions of the atoms and molecules of which we and the world are comprised. The former part, however, requires much digestion in order to understand its true nature. “Do we control our own actions?” leaves much unexplained. Foremost, what does “we” mean in its most fundamental sense, and how is that related to freedom of choice?
Most people, myself included, imagine the essence of themselves to be well within their body, most often within their head, within their brain. So if we ask what it means to make a “free” decision, we might say that a “free” decision is one in which our brain processes certain information and decides upon a route of action, executing that action through the neurological connections to the rest of the body. Fair as this may be, however, it brings us to another question. If the brain is where the decision-making power of the body lies, then wherein lies the decision-making power of the brain? Although I am not well versed in either neuroscience or psychological phenomena, I assume that some spots within the brain can be identified as wielding less of this power and some spots as wielding more of this power. Ergo, each action we perform is controlled by our body, which is controlled by our brain, which is controlled by certain neural centers. Again, we must now define the construction of each of these decision-making neural centers. Certainly there must be a process within each one that relays information and assists us in our decision-making ability (of course, each one could not stand alone, as their interrelatedness is necessary; that, however, doesn’t affect this point). Something must have some kind of control over even these sites within us. And thus the search continues.
If we continue breaking down this human decision-making ability into more and more fundamental parts, eventually we arrive at the interactions and workings of the various so-called “elementary particles” that comprise every little piece of our body. Now here, if we assume that nothing more exists than the uncertain quantum peculiarity of the subatomic world and its butterfly effects on the macroscopic universe, we may stop, and assume that the latter part of our original question is true, that we have no free will, that our actions are unpredictable and unchosen, dictated only by some fundamental laws of quantum mechanics. However, we do have another option that we may examine. Let us say, simply for the sake of argument, that there does indeed exist some kind of “soul,” some entity within us that is immeasurable by scientific devices, a reality undetectable when filtered through our five senses. Let us thus assume that this “soul” further governs the quantum randomness of the particles in our neurons. In other words, something else exists other than just these packets of energy bouncing around within us, something that indeed provides some kind of “free” control. Despite this entity being unquantifiable and undetectable, if it exists, its actions must further be governed by something else. However, the only two “patterns” capable of governing any system are order and disorder, almost by definition. If this “soul” of ours is governed by the latter, then we have consequently disproved free will. If it is governed by the former, per contra, then we return to the exact same question at which we were stuck beforehand. What governs this deeper order, order or disorder? And such, if we keep choosing order as our governing process, we become stuck in an infinitely long chain of control, one from which we can never derive any sort of freedom, as there always exists a “higher power,” if you like, a deeper level of control. If we ever then diverge from this infinite chain and choose disorder as a governing power, then we again have disproved free will.
All in all, that we have “free will” is a statement neither true nor false, but one that is illogical and undefinable simply by its own wording. The concept of “free will,” when analyzed, proves an almost paradoxical one, for how could any choice truly be free? There always exists a superior authority beyond each level of decision-making. Of course, we still find ourselves necessarily believing in this odd, undefinable concept, as society stands, and most people are at least convinced of their own moral responsibility, even if they are unable to define it by any familiar terms. Thus, the entire idea of free will ought to evaporate, for even the best argument could only either disprove it or become stuck climbing down an infinite ladder. We all believe in free will, but we can never logically admit it.
