Free Will and Science

[Anselm33]

“We must believe in free will; we have no choice!”

(Isaac Balshevis Singer)
There are several experimental and theoretical results from science that demonstrate the above quote (although there is debate about their interpretation):

1. The Libet delayed choice experiment: electrodes are attached to a subject’s head and the impulses and time measured when a) the subject decides he/she is going to punch a button, b) when the button is punched. The interesting thing is that there is a pre-decision rise of the brain potential (starting as much as 2 seconds before the subject is consciously aware of his/her decision), so something is stirring in that mass of jelly we call the brain to compel? or recognize? a decision. Lots of online references, but here’s a Youtube video that describes the experiment concisely and accurately:
   youtube.com/watch?v=IQ4nwTTmcgs
   In this connection I recall an anecdote from Roger Penrose’s “The Emperor’s New Mind” in which a Canadian neurosurgeon does brain surgery (to correct seizures) on a conscious patient, gives an electrical impulse to the motor area of the brain, the patient lifts his arm as a result, but says “it feels like someone else was moving the arm”. And this signifies?
2. The quantum mechanical "delayed choice experiment proposed by John Wheeler and realized experimentally most rigorously by Aspect in 2007 (?). If a particle goes through a two-slit arrangement (properly arranged) then a Young interference diffraction pattern will occur, i.e. wavelike behavior; if one of the slits is closed, then classical behavior, i.e. no diffraction. Now if a slit is closed AFTER the particle has gone through, then it will behave as if the slit had been closed before it had passed, through, i.e. the experimenter’s free choice (if indeed, he/she had free choice) reached backwards in time. Wheeler’s original gedanken experiment was to use a galaxy as an optical lens, and so create a two beam path from a star behind the galaxy; the delayed choice experiment would then reach back in time millions of years. Here are some web sites to flesh out the above short description:
   onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3615
   bottomlayer.com/bottom/basic_delayed_choice.htm
   Responses from psychologist/neurologists, philosophers, physicists sought and welcomed.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I don’t imagine Mr. Balshevis Singer would find those persuasive, and you shouldn’t either. We don’t need to find scientific support for free will – and, of course, there is no possible scientific support for it. Science presumes that all actions are explained by prior physical causes; if this presumption is true, then free will (in any meaningful sense) does not exist.

 

[Anselm33]

I don’t imagine Mr. Balshevis Singer would find those persuasive, and you shouldn’t either.

We don’t need to find scientific support for free will – and, of course, there is no possible scientific support for it. Science presumes that all actions are explained by prior physical causes; if this presumption is true, then free will (in any meaningful sense) does not exist.

I think your view of science and what it says about free will dates back about 150 years or more (i.e. pre-quantum mechanics and chaos theory). This is in fact the point of this post, to show that contemporary science does admit of free will, but thanks for posting; it’s good to see how the other half thinks.

 

[Just_Lurking]

Superdeterminism (see here) has been used as an out for the quantum mechanical delayed choice problem, by positing that the particle knows exactly what to do in the past because it has correctly predicted what the future configuration of the slit (i.e., open or closed) will be.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I think your view of science and what it says about free will dates back about 150 years or more (i.e. pre-quantum mechanics and chaos theory). This is in fact the point of this post, to show that contemporary science does admit of free will, but thanks for posting; it’s good to see how the other half thinks.

See, but I don’t understand how “causation after the fact” is any different than any other form of causation. At any rate, do you believe that human beings are *merely *physical beings?

 

[Anselm33]

Superdeterminism (see here)

has been used as an out for the quantum mechanical delayed choice problem, by positing that the particle knows exactly what to do in the past because it has correctly predicted what the future configuration of the slit (i.e., open or closed) will be.

I’ve looked at that article, and from what I can gather it’s just a variant or another hidden variables theory, a la Bohm, one that denies locality (so that quantum entanglement and the violation of Bell’s Theorem will not be violated). Moreover, it’s a stretch I think to attribute “free will” or choice to the particle. That’s what I think is wrong with the Kocher-Conway (sp?) Theorem for free will; what they’re calling free will I call indeterminism. That being said, a superdeterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics is conceivable, but there’s no way to show that it’s true, and unless it’s an interpretation one chooses to believe (which I don’t), one can disregard it.

 

[Anselm33]

See, but I don’t understand how “causation after the fact” is any different than any other form of causation. At any rate, do you believe that human beings are *merely *

I don’t quite understand your comment, but I think what you call “causation after the fact” is free choice by the experimenter. And I do NOT believe that human beings are merely physical beings, i.e. can be totally explained by physical theories, but I’m not sure how a soul, presumably the origin of free will, is connected to the physical part. Do you have any ideas on that?

 

[Apollos]

Sorry if this is too berief, but (1) only proves that the soul uses the body as a tool, not that free will is an organic phenomenon; (2) strikes me as a little tenuous because it’s an argument about a model, not an argument about the way things are in reality, and models can be wrong. For example, hypothetically, if the electron knew ahead of time that the experimenter would close the slit, this does not imply unfree will, for you still haven’t explained what caused the choice. And maybe the quantum model has a flaw we haven’t discovered yet. I know this is weak, but it’s a critique.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I don’t quite understand your comment, but I think what you call “causation after the fact” is free choice by the experimenter.

Wasn’t the experimenter’s choice determined by the movement of atoms in his brain, or at least by his previous psychological state/history? Then how do you say it is free?

And I do NOT believe that human beings are merely physical beings, i.e. can be totally explained by physical theories, but I’m not sure how a soul, presumably the origin of free will, is connected to the physical part. Do you have any ideas on that?

The soul is the FORM of the body; the body is not separate from the soul. The human person (body and soul) is not a merely physical thing, but an agent. We, like God, create certain actions ex nihilo. There’s no “interactionism” here

 

[tonyrey]

That’s what I think is wrong with the Kocher-Conway (sp?) Theorem for free will; what they’re calling free will I call indeterminism.

Indeterminism is not a rational basis for responsibility. Self-determinism is! It is the self that determines what choices and decisions are made…

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Indeterminism is not a rational basis for responsibility. Self-determinism is! It is the self that determines what choices and decisions are made…

I’ll echo that. Indeterminism is simply playing dice – not a good basis for freedom.

 

[Anselm33]

]

I’ll echo that. Indeterminism is simply playing dice –

not a good basis for freedom.

and me too…what I was trying to say about the Kocher-Conway theorem is that it did NOT show “free will” for the particles, but merely indeterminism…that being said, no one has commented (in detail) how the Libet experiment or the delayed choice experiment does / does not demonstrate free will on the part of the human subject/ experimenter, which is what I would like to see. General comments that science = determinism I don’t think are accepted by most philosophers or scientists at this stage of science.

 

[Just_Lurking]

For the Libet experiment, I would want to know about the correlation between the electrical signal and the free will decision. Is it 90%, or 99%, or 100% in practice, or 100% in principle?

If I leave a cookie out on the table where a little child will walk by later, and I establish via repeated experimentation that the child always takes and eats the cookie, does that mean that the child doesn’t have free will? I don’t think so.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

General comments that science = determinism I don’t think are accepted by most philosophers or scientists at this stage of science.

That’s just because most philosophers and scientists haven’t thought about the subject deeply enough (i.e. they are “compatibilists”). Unless a scientist defines a person as an agent (*ex nihilo *creator), the scientific method precludes ascribing the cause of an action to a person’s free will. But I’ll stop my general comments at this point, since they’re not wanted.

 

[Anselm33]

That’s just because most philosophers and scientists haven’t thought about the subject deeply enough (i.e. they are “compatibilists”). Unless a scientist defines a person as an agent (*ex nihilo *

creator), the scientific method precludes ascribing the cause of an action to a person’s free will. But I’ll stop my general comments at this point, since they’re not wanted.

I’m not sure where you got the notion that your comments weren’t wanted, but I’ll add something that you may not have known about. One interpretation of quantum mechanics is that the observer (“agent”?) does act on the system by the act of measurement–see
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner’s_friend
and other sites, and also early on, Von Neumann gave a rigorous mathematical foundation for quantum mechanics in which the final link was that of the conscious observer; see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics
and other links from a Google search using “Von Neumann” and “quantum mechanics” as search terms.
There are also several other interpretations of quantum mechanics that rely on the final step in the measurement process to be apprehension by consciousness, including one rather weird, a “many-minds” theory.
So, I don’t believe it’s altogether correct to say the current science (with respect to quantum mechanics) ignores the observer, i.e. the human agent. But please rebut this if you have some other ideas.

 

[Anselm33]

The soul is the FORM of the body; the body is not separate from the soul. The human person (body and soul) is not a merely physical thing, but an agent. We, like God, create certain actions ex nihilo

I agree, and the Church’s stated doctrine (dogma?) is that the soul and body are one. But what puzzles me as a physicist is how the “soul” achieves physical realization in what it wills. And I’m not willing to believe in physics on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and Church dogma on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays…they should be integrated. There is one truth, not two.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I’m not sure where you got the notion that your comments weren’t wanted, but I’ll add something that you may not have known about. One interpretation of quantum mechanics is that the observer (“agent”?) does act on the system by the act of measurement–see
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner’s_friend
and other sites, and also early on, Von Neumann gave a rigorous mathematical foundation for quantum mechanics in which the final link was that of the conscious observer; see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics
and other links from a Google search using “Von Neumann” and “quantum mechanics” as search terms.
There are also several other interpretations of quantum mechanics that rely on the final step in the measurement process to be apprehension by consciousness, including one rather weird, a “many-minds” theory.
So, I don’t believe it’s altogether correct to say the current science (with respect to quantum mechanics) ignores the observer, i.e. the human agent.

Looking at some of the material you’ve mentioned here, I can see where you’re coming from. However, it seems like the mainstream science community thinks that Wigner’s proposal is not properly scientific – it involves extrascientific assumptions. I agree that these assumptions look a whole lot like a theory of agency.

 

[Just_Lurking]

In Quantum Approaches to Consciousness by Henry Stapp (see here), he uses the Quantum Zeno Effect to explain the Libet experiment. I can’t say I understand it myself.

 

[Anselm33]

In Quantum Approaches to Consciousness by Henry Stapp (see here

), he uses the Quantum Zeno Effect to explain the Libet experiment. I can’t say I understand it myself.

Thank you for the reference…I haven’t read anything by Stapp…I’ll have to look that up.

 

[BTW]

(Isaac Balshevis Singer)
There are several experimental and theoretical results from science that demonstrate the above quote (although there is debate about their interpretation):

1. The Libet delayed choice experiment: electrodes are attached to a subject’s head and the impulses and time measured when a) the subject decides he/she is going to punch a button, b) when the button is punched. The interesting thing is that there is a pre-decision rise of the brain potential (starting as much as 2 seconds before the subject is consciously aware of his/her decision), so something is stirring in that mass of jelly we call the brain to compel? or recognize? a decision.

Responses from psychologist/neurologists, philosophers, physicists sought and welcomed.

I am a neurologist with special interests in neuropsychology/neuropsychiatry, but also a believing Catholic. I wrote an article about the Libet experiments and the more general question of Free Will and Science, but it was rejected by several neuropsychology journals, with one reviewer saying my argument that free will could not be scientifically disproven could just as well be applied to the existence of Santa Claus. Nevertheless I think my argument is valid. Here is the abstract.

I**n Defense Of Free Will
A Neuroscience Perspective

Summary: Scientific judgments carry great weight in the modern world, so that unrefuted claims that neuroscience has disproven the existence of free will are likely to have a major social impact. In this paper I describe a version of free will that I believe accurately characterizes the essence of a traditional moral doctrine that has very deep roots in Western religious beliefs, but also in Western ethical and judicial systems. I do so to demonstrate that there are fundamental scientific reasons why neuroscience cannot now make the observations necessary to test for the existence or non-existence of even this very strong dualistic version of free will. I base my argument on the known, and very marked (i.e. thousandfold), quantitative spatio-temporal resolution limitations of current neuroscience technology relative to that which would be required for the study of precise brain informational content.**

I’d be happy to share the whole article with you if you are interested and provide me with a way to forward it.