(104/366) – Choices and Free Will

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April 13, 2012 – It’s interesting how things just “happen” at the right moments sometimes. Today I got to work and realized I’d forgotten my iPhone. It’s an issue since I use it to create a hotspot for my Mac, since the government will not allow me to plug my Mac into the network (it’s a PC world in the government). No iPhone, no internet for my MacBook. No biggie. But when I went to grab my gym gear I realized that meant I didn’t have my music. No problem, I grabbed my iPad and headed up. There are some magazine holders that slip over the control panel on the elliptical machine and I could use that to hold the iPad while I ran. So I set up my run, plugged my headphones in and started to run. Then I realized the iPad afforded an opportunity for more than just staring out the window while I ran and listened to music, I could read!

I am reading an interesting little book by Sam Harris at the moment, Free Will. The author presents an interesting and compelling argument that our choices are somewhat predetermined, that free will is really an illusion and that our choices are based on neuroscience and past experiences. We are programmed to make our choices. Programmed by instincts, experiences, physiology, and the effects that others may have on our directions. While some argue that belief in a lack of free will can do nothing but create despair and apathy, Harris argues that accepting a lack of free will creates more moral sensitivity by making us less self-absorbed.

I particularly like this part:

“Let’s say your life has gone off track. You used to be very motivated, inspired by your opportunities, and physically fit, but now you are lazy, easily discouraged, and overweight. How did you get this way? You might be able to tell a story about how your life unraveled, but you cannot truly account for why you let it happen. ANd now you want to escape this downward trend and change yourself through an act of will.

You begin reading self help books. You change your diet and join a gym. You decide to go back to school. But after six months of effort you are no closer to living the life you want than you were before. The books failed to make an impact on you; your diet and fitness regime proved impossible to maintain; and you got bored with school and quit. Why did you encounter so many obstacles in yourself? You have no idea. You tried to change your habits, but your habits appear to be stronger than you are. Most of us know what it is to fail in this way – and these experiences are not even slightly suggestive of free will.

But you woke up this morning feeling even greater resolve. Enough is enough! Now you have a will of steel. Before stepping out of bed you had a brilliant idea for a website – and the discovery that the domain name was available for only 1- dollars has filled you with confidence. You are now an entrepreneur! You share the idea with several smart people, and they think it is guaranteed to make you rich.

The wind is at your back, your sails are full, and you are tacking furiously. As it turns out, a friend of yours is also close friends with Tim Ferriss, the famous lifestyle coach and fitness guru. Ferriss offers to consult with you about your approach to diet and exercise. You find this meeting extremely helpful – and afterward you discover a reservoir of discipline in yourself that you didn’t know was there. You are transformed.

You feel entirely different about your life, and the role that discipline, choice, and effort have played in your resurrection cannot be denied. But how can you account for your ability to make these efforts today and not a year ago? Where did this idea for a website come from? It just appeared in your mind. Did “you”, as the conscious agent you feel yourself to be, “create” it? (If so, why not just create the next one right now?) How can you explain the effect Tim Ferris’s advice had on you? How can you explain your ability to respond to it?

If you pay attention to your inner life, you will see that the emergence of choices, efforts, and intentions is a fundamentally mysterious process. You might have a story to tell about why things were different this time around, but it would be nothing more than an post hoc description of events that you did not control. Whatever it is, it’s not a difference that “you” brought into being.

You are not in control of your mind – because you, as a conscious agent, are only “part” of your mind, living at the mercy of other parts.”

In Western Society we base our self identities on personal freedom and particularly, on free will. But is free will real? Are we really free thinkers, or is our self identity actually based on something bigger? Is our identity really our own? Are our ideas really our own? Logic would say, probably not, simply based on the fact that we are bombarded by television, newspapers, magazines, and the apparent free thinking of those around us. Do we subconsciously model ourselves on others? Probably. Central to our sense of self is the idea that we are free thinkers, that we are the authors of our own actions and desires. But maybe not?

Researchers at the University of Chicago, suggests that because our bodies and brains are ruled by the laws of physics, the arrangement of molecules is determined by our environment and our genes. Nature rather than nurture. It is suggested that our decisions result from electrical impulses and chemical transmitters and because of this, our “choices” are dictated by the laws that govern these biological and physical relationships. According to a number of studies, the decisions that we perceive to be conscious actually have an unconscious basis and can be mapped as electrical impulses in the brain up to ten seconds prior to our “decision” process. It is our unconscious brain which makes the choices, free will might just be an illusion, an unconscious bias. Well, that would certainly explain why sometimes my brain is telling me to hit one key and I hit the wrong one three times in a row before managing to get going in the right direction again.

Are we merely creatures of habit, subject to instincts engendered by our society, and in which we perceive a personal autonomy that doesn’t really exist at all? Do we simply follow the rules set out by the society that we are governed by?

We humans like to think of ourselves as individualistic. As not governed by the thinking of others. But it’s a fallacy, we can’t help it. We are influenced by the actions, words, ideals of those around us, both close and at a societal level. It has been argued that we don’t like to be caused, that it conflicts with our ideal of self actualization, and points out that if we truly have free will then we should be able to simply will ourselves free of love, lust, anger, envy, or jealousy. It doesn’t work though. Anyone capable of rational and logical thinking knows that well enough. We can’ make something happen just because we think about it hard enough.

So, interestingly, when we “think” that we are exercising free will and free thinking, the odds are that we are not. It is more likely that our choices are predominantly influenced by those of others around us. By the choices of those we admire or are attracted to on some level. It’s not a negative thing, as long as we exercise morals.

It is an interesting concept.

References:

The End of (Discussing) Free Will – By Owen Jones

Free Will Is an Illusion, but You’re Still Responsible for Your Actions – By Michael S. Gazzaniga

You Don’t Have Free Will – By Jerry Coyne

Free Will – By Sam Harris