From Not in Our Genes by Richard C. Lewontin, Steven Rose, and Leon J. Kamin:
Dialectic determination is still determination, and so, like the biological determinists, we must confront the idea of freedom. If all effects have causes (at least above the level of quantum mechanics), then what can we mean by freedom in a material, causal world? If any choice one makes is a consequence of one’s mental state at the moment of choice, and if mental states are part of a natural chain of causation from antecedent conditions, is one really free?
…
What characterizes human development and actions is that they are the consequence of an immense array of interacting and intersecting complex causes. Our actions are not at random or independent with respect to the totality of the causes as an intersecting system, for we are all material beings in a causal world. But to the extent they are free, our actions are independent of any one or even a small subset of those multiple paths of causation: that is the precise meaning of freedom in a causal world. When, on the contrary, our actions are predominately constrained by a single cause, like a train on the track, the prisoner in his cell, the poor person in her poverty, we are no longer free. For biological determinists we are unfree because our lives are strongly constrained by a relatively small number of internal causes, the genes for specific behaviors or for predisposition to those behaviors. But this misses the essence of the difference between human biology and that of other organisms. Our brains, hands, and tongues have made us independent of many single features of the external world. Our biology has made us into creatures who are constantly re-creating our own psychic and material environments, and whose individual lives are the outcomes of an extraordinary multiplicity of intersecting causual pathways. Thus, it is our biology that makes us free.
Emphasis mine
I found that inspiring as I do not believe in the concepts of “spirit” and “soul”.
The definition of free will I’ve heard of has to do with having a purpose, and either fulfilling the purpose or choosing not to fulfill the purpose.
This is a really old argument, though, don’t you think? For example, I know several teens who liken themselves as modern day anarchists. They want to be “free.”
Of course, they are not referring to the freedom of doing what is good and right in life. Just the freedom to speed on the highway, drink all night away and live on a constant high.
Sounds like he’s saying that we don’t have free will in that we are slaves to our biology, chemistry and physics. But the details of our biology, chemistry and physics are so complicated that we just choose to call the outcome “free will” because we don’t have enough data and computational prowess (yet) to connect all the material causes and effects in human behavior.
Lewontin et al. argue that our “free will” is derived from our own innate power to significantly manipulate our own environment. And, of course, 3.8 billion years of evolution has endowed us with such prowess.
For example, some people postulate the existence of “the gay gene” or “the god gene”. I do not think such genes have a profound influence on sexual orientation or religious experiences respectively, as our own “choices” are not determined by whether we carry a certain allele for those genes or not.
Why emphasis the 3.8 billion years? Are you saying that evolution is an ascendant process of which we are the current pinnacle result? Dawkins would bite you.
As for free will, it’s probably a host of factors. Even the strongest proponents of ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ will argue that our will is directly linked to the physical and material at least in interaction. Modern science has certainly discovered that man is not a very simple machine, nor is the universe. We’re still coping with the philosophical fallout of quantum physics (was reading up on retrocausality today. Interesting stuff.)
If any choice one makes is a consequence of one’s mental state at the moment of choice, and if mental states are part of a natural chain of causation from antecedent conditions, is one really free?
The quoted material seems to me to be self contradictory. The author starts with the above quote indicating that if our actions are part of a chain of natural causation, then we can’t really be free. Yet he ends by saying that our biology makes us free. A deterministic causal series leads to a non-deterministic end? It makes no sense. I still maintain that if matter and energy are all that exist, then determinism is inescapable.
…
Lewontin et al. defines free will as our “power” to manipulate our environment so we could set up our own discrete milieu. When this is restricted, we do not have free will. We are not marionettes controlled by our genes or our environment entirely; in fact, humanity is indeed unique because we can control our environment significantly. For example, the Neolithic revolution increased human carrying capacity dramatically with the invention of agriculture.
Why emphasis the 3.8 billion years? Are you saying that evolution is an ascendant process of which we are the current pinnacle result? Dawkins would bite you.
I do not argue that Homo sapiens are the apotheosis of life on Earth. We have to acknowledge the consanguineous nature of life on Earth; we are all descended from a common ancestor that formed from a rather enigmatic process on the early Earth.
Regarding Dawkins, I do not think he would significantly dissent from that sentiment. Instead, biologists such a Gould would object to the notion of “evolutionary progress.”
Many other animals besides humans have the power to manipulate their environment, and do so routinely. So I would say that manipulation of the environment is not unique to humans. But only humans get accused of crimes and misdemeanors.
Do humans have the power to determine their own behaviors in ways that exceed natural causes?
I am trying to see if, for example, I can avoid prosecution for tax evasion, if I tell the judge that my actions were (a) the inevitable result of natural physical (including psychological and emotional) causes, or perhaps (b) invoking quantum theory, that there was a 90% probability of my acting in this way, and this was just the way Schrodinger’s cat turned out when I opened the box.
Regardless of the complexity of my bodily and mental processes (all of which, under a materialist system) are ultimately the result of physical processes, is there some part of me that can overcome the material causes and make an independent decision? If so, that part of me cannot be material.
I don’t think Gould would be alone in this assessment. The moment evolution is considered in a teleological light, people get edgy. If there was an ascent (If there is a ‘better than before’) in the process, some important philosophical precepts come crashing down. Daniel Dennett has been firm on that much - seeing him have that deep of a disagreement with Dawkins would be a surprise to say the least.
Though JimG raises some good points. Whatever the case, I agree that whether or not there is free will or a ‘soul’, the physical certainly interacts with it.
Let’s see if a complex series of biological causes really makes us free. I propose a thought experiment. Suppose that we examine a single act of a human being, say taking a bite of green beans at the dinner table. Further suppose that for that single act we are able to identify all of the hundreds, thousands, millions, etc. biological causes (and all other material causes) that resulted in the act of that person taking a bite of green beans. If material causes are all that are at play here, would you now say that “biology makes us free”?
If the answer as “no,” as I believe it must be, then really freedom for the materialist is not being able to identify those causes that result in a particular act such that we have the illusion that we are making free choices. But here is the really strange thing. The study of biology seeks to fully explain material causes in living organisms. If it ever succeeds completely, then it will have destroyed the illusion of freedom. That is - by studying biology the materialist is destroying the “freedom” that natural biological systems are providing.
I first read Isaac Asimov’s short story “The Last Question” many years ago when it was first published in a science fiction magazine. Now that was a nice exposition of evolutionary teleology. And it proposes a God that perhaps even Dawkins could accept. (But not me.)
He can you be free if our actions are solely a product of causation? How does my will say to break from the chain reaction? It may be the most complex web of reactions, but if it is purely biological then the outcome is 100% determined already. There is no such thing as free will. Your actions 10 years from now could be predicted with 100% accuracy if there was a strong enough computer to take in all the data.
Lewontin et al. defines free will as our “power” to manipulate our environment so we could set up our own discrete milieu. When this is restricted, we do not have free will. We are not marionettes controlled by our genes or our environment entirely; in fact, humanity is indeed unique because we can control our environment significantly. For example, the Neolithic revolution increased human carrying capacity dramatically with the invention of agriculture.
What is the mechanism that allows this? Where in physics, Biology and Chemistry does it allow for one of the reactants to make a choice of what the product will be? It is all predetermined how the reaction will turn out. How is it possible for the mind to subvert chemical reactions and put new chemical reactions into progress?
Regardless of the complexity of my bodily and mental processes (all of which, under a materialist system) are ultimately the result of physical processes, is there some part of me that can overcome the material causes and make an independent decision? If so, that part of me cannot be material.
This sums it all up. If your will is determined by some material(your brain in a purely biological understanding) then it is completely determined. You can’t say that your brain somehow overrides the chemical reactions that act upon it and cause it to be as it is(I would like to see the mechanism that allows this).
I also thought of Asimov while reading this thread, specifically the Foundation series where science finally allows us to evaluate all causes and potential causes through a process called psychohistory. The end result is that the future can be predicted to a certain degree of accuracy using this method. Those were great books. I need to read them again.
Carl Rogers tried to be as neutral and agent about freewill as it is possible. But ultimately even he had to admit we are only as free as our knowldege, and experiences allows, so that our ‘freedom’ is limited by the constraints on our ability to act as free agent, which varies from individual to individual.
Having freewill implies having a mind but having a mind does not imply having freewill
It is possible that decisions are caused even though they appear to be freely chosen. If we were truely free then incongruence just would not happen. Have you ever made incongruent decisions, because I certainly have
Somewhere in that original trilogy Asimov somewhat backs off of a sort of “thought reading,” as a mechanism, making it clear that the psychohistorians were really reading—and affecting–emotions. Which has more plausibility.
I think it was somewhere in his autobiographicl writings that he mentions that at one point in the story about the Mule that he wrote himself into a corner, without having a way to resolve the situation. Another SF writer–can’t remember his name–met him in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge to discuss and assist.
The reason they met there was that the other writer’s wife thought Asimov was too weird, and wouldn’t allow him in her home.
DISCLAIMER: Catholic Answers has turned over the archive to Catholic-Questions.org and no longer owns, manages, or moderates the forums. For additional apologetics resources please visit www.catholic.com.
