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 cafĂ©’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.