4. Fate vs. Free will

4. Fate vs. Free Will

            To most of us the idea that we make our decisions freely seems obvious.  When we go through the decision making process, like what to eat for lunch, our brain is aware of the conflicting emotions and thoughts stirring within. When we finally decide, our brains then tell our bodies to take a left on main street towards the pizza shop instead of a right.  Most of us assume that the decision could easily have been a pastrami sandwich, or in fact, a thousand other choices of food at that moment.  We would all be surprised if there existed a book written thousands of years ago that foretold of your exact decision for pizza that day.  

 

But Humans have been questioning the notion of free will since ancient times.  The Greek playwright, Aeschylus, wondered how much of our decisions were pre-determined by outside forces.  In his play, “Oedipus”, the fates have foretold of a man who would one day kill his father, marry his mother, and become king.  Throughout the play, we as the audience hear the chorus (the fates) both understanding and scorning his destructive pride that leads to these acts. 

            Most societies today have embraced the concept of free will.  It is mentioned in the constitutions, the scriptures of religious text, and the law books of judicial systems.  Even in our everyday interactions, we make endless judgments about the actions of those around us.  We reward, love, hate, ridicule, and praise the acts of others based on the notion of individual merit and free choice.  We blame ourselves for the wrong choices we make.  We fill with exuberance when our choices lead to fortuitous ends.

Experiments in modern neuroscience, however,  have tipped the scales in favor of fate (determinism) in this ancient debate. Experiments have shown that our decisions must start from the unconscious part of our brain instead of the frontal cortex – the site of conscious thought.  Electric sensors were placed on both the frontal cortex and the nerves inside the forearms of human subjects.  They were instructed to move an object on a table whenever they chose.  The conclusions were unexpected.  The arm nerves charged up a split second before the nerves in the frontal cortex even made the decision. Apparently, our conscious brain was only made aware after the unconscious part of our brain had already made the decision. 

Although these results have been publicized in newspapers and magazines, the world hasn’t exactly run wild on the streets crying over the loss of free will.  Such a notion that we are nothing more than complicated robots is both unbelievable and threatening to many of us.  It’s one of those twilight zone scenarios where we suddenly find wiring behind our skin and a bar code beneath our scalp.  Many would wonder if the very fabric of our society would fall apart - where crime and greed could be rationalized.  Let me rephrase (since these rationalizations alread exist in a “free will” dominated world); we may fear a stark rise in selfish behavior.  The logic goes as such: why control our darkest desires since we can’t stop it anyway?

There are no signs that this new discovery registered anything more than a blip in our collective consciousness.  I will argue though, that the world would be a far more peaceful and happy place if determinism was embraced instead of the notions of free will.  It has been the belief in free will which has in fact rationalized many of humanity’s heinous atrocities throughout history.  Is not the basis of the fall of man in Christianity, the willful disobedience to God?   Human suffering exists as a punishment for choosing knowledge over God (although I don’t see how a few missing apples factor into it). 

          There were innumerable horrors carried out in the name of saving our fellow humans from choosing the devil’s path, not the least of which, a thorough burning at the stake.  The monarchs of old and many of today’s wealthy class have often expressed disdain for the lower classes for reasons similar to that debunked Lamarkian view of evolution –  that the rabble have chosen to be sloths and deserve no programs to improve their lot.    The privileged on the other hand, have picked themselves up by their own boot straps; and to the willful victor goes the spoils.

I would argue that tolerance and mutual understanding are more likely the result of a belief in determinism rather than free will.  By viewing the deficiencies and shortcomings of our fellow travelers as determined by circumstances beyond their control, I believe that we would be less judgmental of their failings.  We would understand that their lot may very well have been ours, had the universe been so inclined.  Social programs to alter the circumstances of future generations would be better funded.  Those of us, who are privileged, either in riches or talent, would not view our standing with such superiority as to devalue the humanity of others who are less fortunate.  Although our paths may differ greatly, the realization that our lives are determined by the same forces must have a unifying effect rather than not.  We may be on different ships, but we are all tossed about in the same seas.

Neuroscience is not the only argument for supporting a deterministic explanation of human decisions.  Several important concepts in physics have added to this debate – Newtonian physics and Quantum Mechanics. The former, with the help of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, explains almost every motion we see at the macro level – the precise movement of oceans, planets, stars, humans and everything in between.  Quantum Mechanics, on the other hand, describes the subatomic world of particles inside of an atom, which we will discuss, brings an aspect of uncertainty into the universe of matter.  Although these two laws may seem contrary to one another (at least for now, since scientists are scrambling for the theory of everything that would integrate these seemingly opposing laws), they both undermine the arguments for free will in their own way.

Take Newtonian physics.  In it is described the actions and reactions of everyday motions – gravity, friction, you name it.  It is a world governed by determinism, in which every event has a causative event that preceded it.  Time always seems to go foreword and never backward.  The coffee mug shattered because I pushed it off the table.  In other words, there could only be one outcome for a specific set of circumstances at a specific moment in time.

       Every decision we make – whether it’s deciding to eat a celery stick or a calorie filled brownie – is based on a past event (according to classical physics).  So right now, I’m typing this sentence at my favorite bookstore.  Let’s analyze how my decision to write this chapter today was a consequence of a string of cause and effects.  First off, some brilliant person came up with the idea of putting café’s in book stores with convenient little tables and chairs. Also thank goodness someone thought up the idea of a laptop. Since my penmanship is terrible, I would never have had the patience to write a book using paper and pen.  I’m glad I was born a human because claws are downright impractical for a keyboard.

I could go on and on – possibly to the first amino acids that came together billions of years ago to form protein chains that would ultimately create the first cell. You get the point.  Every decision is like a falling domino in a series of falling dominos: A causes B, which causes C, etc.  But here is the mistake that most humans make – we forget that the earliest domino pieces lacked even our slightest input.  Imagine how different our lives would have turned out if just one of these early events were otherwise:  your family, your sex, your genes (had it been another sperm or egg that united, your sister or brother would have been born – not you), your country, the century born into, and your species (thank the fates you were not born a dinosaur).

 If we did not choose event A, then why do we believe we freely chose Z today.  Is this not the same reason we don’t assign free will to our computer programs?

 A computer program called Big Blue defeated the then greatest chess player, Kasparov – and yet few would credit the program as having made its decisions freely. Why?  Dominos - that’s why.  We won’t give that program credit because it was created with a set of instructions.  Last time I checked, we were born with a set of instructions too – a code if you will: DNA.

                        Now let’s talk about quantum theory – which is a field of physics advanced by the works of Maxwell Planck, and yet again, Albert Einstein.  The most puzzling aspect of this theory is the question of why subatomic particles behave both like particles and waves at the same time.  Take light for example.  We know that light is made up of streams of energized photon particles.  But if light were merely particles, they would behave only like tennis balls thrown on the floor with a path predicted by Newtonian physics.  But any inquisitive child seeing a rainbow must wonder if there are red photon particles and blue photon particles that somehow turn into green photon particles when they mix.  Scientists realized light waves interfere with each other – imagine two waves in the water combining or cancelling each other out.  But how can something be both a single particle and a diffuse wave?

            In a famous double slit experiment, this phenomenon was clearly illustrated.  When one photon of light passed through 2 slits on a screen, an unusual pattern of alternating light and dark bands appeared on the far wall across the room. If light behaved only as particles, we would only see two narrow slits of light on the wall.  The many bands are a result of the tops and bottoms of many waves emanating from each slit interfering with each other - some constructively (bright bands) and some destructively (dark bands). 

           The matter was complicated by Heisenberg’s principal of uncertainty which said that momentum and position of any subatomic particle atom could never be known simultaneously.  When scientists determined the position of an electron, its momentum could never be accurately calculated.  When scientists calculated the momentum of the electron, the exact position was impossible to calculate.  To make matters worse, this meant that we could only know the probability of an electron particle in an atom being at a particular position at any moment.  For example, there is a 90 % chance that electron A can be at position 1, but a 10% chance it could be at a totally different place at position 2.

            So why all the talk about electrons?  Our thoughts depend on electrons.  It just so happens that our brain cells rely on the electrical differences created by electrons to send electrical impulses controlling thoughts, emotions, senses, and voluntary movment.  This electrical potential is achieved by the electron configurations in salt ions: Na+, K+, Ca+, and Cl-.  There is a reason why we have a taste for salt, it is essential for survival (at least in small amounts).

The supporters of free will have argued that uncertainty is an argument against determinism.  If electrons are needed to trigger human thoughts, and electrons are unpredictable, then our thoughts must be unpredictable. There are free will supporters who use this unpredictability to say – aha, this proves that cause and effect is humbug – free will wins.   The problem with this argument is that it merely reassigns the falling dominos to an earlier set of events that we still have no control over.  The beginning domino A is now the random instability of an electron.  What made these electrons unstable?  Who knows – cosmic rays…our souls?  And if it is our souls- the “ghost in the machine” – then who assigned this soul as opposed to that other guy who chose hot dogs over pizza.  Sheesh, it’s endless. 

Another problem with uncertainty is that it reduces the definition of free will to such a low standard that it is no longer distinguishable from determinism.  If I start walking to work, and all of a sudden I have the urge to jump in front of a train with no warning whatsoever, is that the definition of free will we are okay with given the uncertainty principle?  Let’s see, there is a 90 percent chance I’ll bring wine to your dinner party, and a 10 % chance I’ll bring a ticking bomb.  What’s the difference whether  the fates or misplaced electrons  made Oedipus kill his father?  In either case, it was out of his control. 

This random firing of electrons does in fact occur occasionally in computers.  I found this the hard way when a 30 page paper I was writing in college suddenly disappeared without a trace in my diskette (I know, diskettes, how old am I?) and in the computer’s hard-drive at 3 am the day my history paper was due.  Luckily, my brain’s electrons fired uncontrollable fits of laughter instead of homicidal thoughts.  Computers have random firings of circuits, which often result in our screens freezing or programs shutting down with apologies. 

Although our brains neural networks are not exactly the same as computer circuits, there are similarities.  Random firings of neurons happen a lot more in our brains than inside computers.  Our brains have a 30 % error rate compared to the less than 1 % error rate needed in computers to function properly.  That said, computers currently have nowhere near the complexity and processing power of the human brain.  Our brains just ignore the vast majority of these misfiring – that’s why we don’t see an object in front of us when there is none. Well, that is, if you don’t have schizophrenia or hallucinogens in your blood stream.

If one day, we are able to construct computers as complex as the wiring in the human brain, an interesting question will arise.  Will computers become conscious?  If they do, another dilemma will face humans which we will find hard to ignore.  What would it say about our notion of free will?  But still some will say, “Fine, maybe a program could make simple decisions, but surely, humans make immensely more complex ones. We live in such intricate societies, that only free will could lead to such things as cooperation and even deception.” 

Interestingly enough, robots with only 8 lines of program developed these very human-like abilities in an experiment simulating evolution.  A hundred four-wheeled robots the size of toy cars were fitted with solar cells to search for lights emanating from a floor as its food source.   The robots themselves could both emit and detect light. A computer randomly assigned each robot a set of 8 programs (genes).  Depending on these set of programs, a robot could react in several ways.  For example, after detecting light, some robots raced towards it, away from it, or had no reaction at all.  Also, some robots could flash their own headlights or not. The environment was a darkened room with a limited number of food stations. 

            The first trial represented the first generation.  Many robots just didn’t have the evolutionary lotto ticket and soon ran out of energy.  The minority few who fed and survived were allowed to “reproduce” with one another.  Since robots can’t mate on their own, the experimenters simulated reproduction by copying these winning programs and placing them into the other robots who didn’t survive.  To factor in variation – or genetic changes – a computer randomly changed one of the 8 genes in each of the robots in the second generation. 

            The experiment was run for many generations, each time letting only the successful genes pass into the next generation.  A curious behavior evolved among several groups of robots.  Some actually learned to cooperate with one another.  When one robot saw a food source, it flashed its blinkers to others – who then came to share the food.  By cooperating, these individuals were successful in this game of survival of the fittest.  But another fascinating behavior arose. 

Other robots became successful by doing the exact opposite of cooperation. These  robots falsely alerted others to a spot that had no food source.  While the others rushed to that dark void, the cheating robot would sneak towards the real food source.  Amazingly these simple 8 lined programs evolved the ability to deceive as well.  We can imagine how fine tuned these strategies would have gotten if the robots contained more than 8 lines of program.  Cooperating robots may evolve special signals and codes of blinking to recognize fellow friends.  The lying robots could in turn learn to replicate these signals.   This arms race of deception vs. detection would become ever more nuanced.

 So the difference between simple robots and humans may be one of degrees.  When we confront new people entering our lives, we have a bunch of incoming stimuli (behaviors, facial expressions, intonation, words) that we have to analyze to determine if we should trust them or not.  Much of this drama can be observed between men and women in the rituals of dating – but let’s leave that for another chapter.  To make matters more difficult, humans also have a myriad of responses to “choose” from when deciding how to act. 

The next obvious question is– why the self delusion?  Why did evolution even bother making a conscious part and make us believe we are making decisions there?  Many theorists have speculated that the extreme social complexity of human life required a mind that was partitioned into conscious and unconscious parts.  Lying to others and to oneself seems to be a skill humans specialize in.  This is why Tony Soprano has such a hard time revealing his motives to his therapist.  The best liar may indeed be the person who actually believes their own lie.  Rationalizations for discomforting desires and deeds can only happen if the unconscious withholds information from the self aware parts of the brain.  So you may smile and make small talk with the higher ups in the office, but in reality, the unconscious mind is left to do all the unsavory conniving it wants. 

In a society as large as humans, where tribes can develop into a city of millions, the concept of self-identity is essential in keeping order.  Man must always be aware of the relative status of their own identity versus the rest of society’s.  Although every person would love to be king, we can see how chaos would ensue if everyone thought that way.  The Romans hated the endless civil wars that erupted whenever there was a power vacuum, and were more than willing to hand Julius Caesar the title of Emperor.  In our lives – at work, in relationships, with our families, we constantly keep track of where we stand in relation to others.  This could only happen if our self identity was somewhat consistent and continuous.  If self identity changed as often as the wind, no society could function. There would be too much discord and a lack of cooperation.   It would be a world filled with people with multiple personalities disorders.

But we must not confuse self awareness with free will.  This is the confusion that most people can not get over.  We can be aware of our brain having thoughts without having any control over the thoughts themselves.   Feelings are a great example of this.  How great would it be if we could choose to feel whatever emotion we wanted, whenever we wanted?  Unfortunately, we wake up one morning and we are cranky as heck.  Another day we feel depressed and we can’t seem to shake it.  Sometimes we feel so happy, and we don’t know why.  So it is possible for us to be self aware and yet have no control.  Now I know some will point out that it can work in reverse too – thoughts can illicit feelings as well.  This is the whole concept behind Cognitive Therapy.  To that I’ll say….see above arguments concerning falling domino’s.

Even though free will may turn out to be only an illusion, we still experience life as if we had free will.  Should one buy the gas guzzling muscle car or the slow running hybrid?   Should one leave their spouse or continue on with the unfulfilling marriage?  Even if everything is determined, the conscious regions of our brain still carries the weight of our potential decisions – and that will never change. The key is to figure out how to use determinism in ways that helps us lead a healthier and happier life.