The Illusion of Free Will
My thirteen year old Sun Leo is at that age where she wants to make decisions and call the shots. It’s hilarious. She’s real quick to tell me what she wants ME to cook for dinner. I’m basically her personal chef and I need to flow with her appetite from day to day. To give her a sense of say-so, I give her a variety of recipe options to choose from daily— based on what I’ve already bought from the grocery store. Let’s say I took out some chicken breast to thaw out earlier that day. I then cook what she wants and all is well. But did I cook what she wanted or did I cook what I wanted? I’d already been to the grocery store and made the food choices for the week. Telling her she could make a choice is somewhat disingenuous isn’t it? Did she exert her free will to choose or was she a victim of my free will without knowing? LET’S DIG IN!!!
Let’s define it:
Free — Not under the control or in the power of another.
Will — A fixed and persistent intent or purpose.
Free Will — Expressing your intent without the influence or arrangement of outside control.
These definitions are going to frame this post so we’re on the same page. Everyone has their own thoughts on free will. At the end of the day, most of the time I hear it defined as “I can do what I wanna do.” Or I hear “The ability to choose God. He’s not going to force you!” That sounds really, really good but when I observe people and how they express their free will it’s more about being able to choose what they want, when they want. Nothing more. I ask again though; Who is making the choices you have to select from? Who is telling you that Jesus, Allah, or Zoroaster is the only way, for example? Who is dictating the choices?
You can find historical debates among psychologist, philosophers, scientists, and theologians. We’ll dip our little toe in the waters of each.
Science
Specifically, neuroscience. What does neuroscience say about free will. Let’s focus on Readiness Potential. What’s that?
The readiness potential (RP) has been widely interpreted to indicate preparation for movement and is used to argue that our brains decide before we do.
In decision making, there’s a school of thought that your brain already calculated a decision prior to you making that decision. I’m thinking the free will piece of this puzzle is “did you go along with what your brain said?”
Have you ever been behind someone in Subway and you’re waiting for them to finish ordering so you can order. You observe them staring at the menu and being indecisive. My thought is always “You obviously wanted something specific from here and that’s why you came. So what’s the hang-up??” I’m thinking the Readiness Potential signaling has been disrupted somehow. LOL.
Psychology
In psychology, let’s focus our attention on human behavior. Earlier, I spoke on the notion of who exactly is making the choices you have to choose from where you are displaying your free will. You have the ability to behave how you want. But, do you?
Here we can examine external and environmental factors that may or may not say you can express yourself. If you grew up in a predominately 7th Day Adventist household, do you have the ability to behave outside of that format? This is something external to you that is dictating your internal motivations. I mean, you don’t want to disappoint your mom and dad do you? You don’t want to be the black sheep of the family do you? Psychologically, going against the grain may do damage.
If you didn’t organize this environment, who did? Do you have a say so in it being restructured?
Philosophy
Plenty of philosophers had a take on free will. I can’t hit on all of them but one stood out to me. Baruch Spinoza lived from 1632 to 1677. He was a rationalist. He also was a staunch believer in determinism. What is determinism?
The doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions.
From Spinoza’s perspective, you have no free will. Your choices are based on events and causes that came from previous events and causes. Basically, you’re really not able to exert your free will because you are limited in what you can do based on what was done before. Yes, I’m oversimplifying this a bit.
Keep in mind, Spinoza was a rationalist so this thought process makes sense in that light. I’m not going to debunk or criticize determinism or Spinoza in this space because I’ve observed people — without knowing what determinism is — operating as if they do not have a say-so in anything.
Theology
I had a conversation about free will with one of my heavily, religious relatives. He referenced two conflicting things (although he didn’t see them as such). He said that God knows all and created you. He then said God gave humans the ability to choose between right and wrong. In his mind, this is the free will that God allows. My rebuttal was “What if I’m not interested in either right or wrong? What if I want to create my own parameters?” He said, “That doesn’t make any sense.”
From a religious perspective, nothing can determine our choices. It is up to us to choose good or evil. Regardless of the influence, you still have final say. You have the power and this is what you’ll be judged against in the End. How did you use what was given to you, when it’s all said and done?
That all sounds very inspiring. From a free will perspective, my choices are limited here but that’s the ideology most adhere to. It’s either right or wrong. Unfortunately, right or wrong is subjective and wholly based on who you’re talking to at that moment.
Carl: “So is it wrong to smack your grandmother in the face?”
Scott: “I don’t know. What did she do?”
Conclusion
Free will is a hot button topic, regardless of your education level, ethnicity, race, religious background or class. It’s a centuries old debate and will continue to be amongst the people.
From my perspective, it’s not much of a debate. Did you make the choices or are you picking from choices? Did you literally make the choices. Shoot, do you have the desire to make the choices that others possibly pick from?
Let’s reverse to earlier in the post:
Free — Not under the control or in the power of another.
Comb through you life. Let me know how often you were expressing your free will to later find out that you picking from what was already determined. If I ask if you want to go to Las Vegas with me, obviously you can say Yes or No. That’s your decision, but I set the parameter that you’re choosing from already. You’re limited to this one destination, per my request. Feel free to offer an alternative destination though. It doesn’t matter. Ha!
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