Free Will exists until it does not

In this monograph I explore the idea of Free Will and as such, it is only fair to give you the necessary information upfront so that you may use your judgement to decide whether to invest your time in this reading or not. This monograph does not offer any answers, in fact it may end up raising more questions and make the idea of Free Will even more unsettling than it already is.

Also, these are just my thoughts at this point in time and as such there are no direct references to external articles, studies, research papers or books.

Universe 1

Defining Free Will

Let’s start with a very simple definition through an analogy. You go to a Cafe and the menu has both Coffee and Tea on offer. You decide you want Coffee and order and pay for it. You sit down and enjoy your Coffee. Congratulations! You just exercised your Free Will! Or did you?

Why did you Choose Coffee over Tea?

You may simply say that you just like it more. Well how did you come to like it? It could be series of circumstances and random events, your upbringing until this moment, your genetics etc. all of them conspire in a way to build your personality and mindset or the so called ‘neural network’ to choose Coffee over tea 86.5%* of the time (* a made up number). So, does this mean that you are forever trapped in this paradigm?

What if I told you that you are more likely to choose Coffee over Tea?

You may choose Tea over Coffee the next time. In fact the next 10 times and then boldly say that you proved that I was wrong and that you do in fact have free will.

Well, to that I would say that me telling you was also an external influence that changed your network to now choose Coffee over tea only 56%* of the time.(*also a made up number)

Is it all Destiny?

So everything is already decided and you and I are just actors on the world’s stage enacting someone’s script? Well, this does not feel right, does it?

Universe 2

Let’s try again

This time around you are at the bar with friends. It is a lively and fun atmosphere and you love your drink. Unfortunately, assume that you are following a Sober January pledge i.e. you, out of free will, decided to not drink in the month of January. Don’t self-pity too much, you did this to compensate for all the partying in December.

But, then you are tired of all the mocktails and really feel the need for a drink. It is almost the 30th of January, just one more day to go. Ah! It is tempting! You finally give up and do a shot of Tequila!

You wake up the next day, bleary eyed and feel really disappointed with yourself!

So, did you exercise your free will? You may say no and continue to blame yourself for the bad choices.

Alternate Scenario

You went to the party on the 30th of January and it was all fun but you continue to resist the temptation to drink. But, you just realize that it is one of your friend’s birthday. Everyone hounds you and swears on your friendship to make you do just one shot.

Once again you wake up the next day, all bleary eyed and feel really disappointed. Did you exercise free will? You could say yes and blame yourself. You could also say no and blame your friends for pressuring you. As you can see, there are 4 cases possible in total.

Volition-Action-Outcome

Where exactly does free will actually exist. Is it in the Volition? ( Volition or the Intention). Or, is it the Action?, or the outcome?

By choosing not to drink, you made a volitional choice to not drink. But, your action was to drink. So, did you exercise your freewill in making that choice but you were a helpless victim in the sense that you were ‘forced’ to drink by your friends?

This can be made a little bit extreme and clearer by using the example of mugging. If someone gives their wallet to a mugger. Their action is clearly not what they chose. Isn’t it?

But, there is a flaw in attributing free-will to volition alone. The reason is, in the case of your friends ‘forcing’ you, it was ‘you’ who gave in and chose to drink. It could be said that you changed your volition itself at the drop of a hat and chose not to upset your friends and in the other scenario, the mugger with the Gun.

It kind of seems obvious that outcomes are not determined by free-will although they can influence them. Like, you did not want to drink but your cheeky friend drops a shot of liquor in your mocktail and you chug it. Only to realise that you drank against your will. Even if you took the action of taking the drink to your mouth and swallowing it.

Clearly you exercised your free will but the outcome does not align. Perhaps you are blameless in this scenario

The big R word

So, Regret — The curse of the conscientious. Previously, we saw that every action is linked to free will. Even in the scenario when one is forced to do that action at gunpoint. This means that there should be ZERO regret in the world! All actions are based on free-will, morality and rationality aside.

An addict choosing to do the next hit is probably irrational but the action is backed by free will. This tends to imply that It is useful to differentiate between what one hopes, wants or needs from free-will. It seems like free-will is sort of this instantaneous phenomenon occurring right before an action.

If delta time tends to zero (concept of limits), then it would almost imply that there is no difference between volition and action, just volitional actions.

Kind of reminds me of the standoff situations in old western cowboy movies. Fire-not to fire-Fire loops run through the cowboy’s mind endlessly until he actually shoots (or gets shot).

To Regret or not to Regret?

So, to recap, from Universe 2, Free will exists within Volitional actions and we are responsible for all volitional actions.

From Universe 1 it seems like all our volitional actions are dependent on our past and we are mere victims and blameless.

It seems like in both cases there is no need to regret. If you made the choice then there is nothing to regret. If you never had a choice also there is nothing to regret.

How do we make choices?

The human neuro-motor system is generally built to survive. The jury is still out on the pre-cortex. That is the reason why even the most suicidal cannot hold their breath to kill themselves.

This survival response is usually relegated to something lowly, animalistic and referenced as instinct. I believe it is very much an integral part of ALL our decision making process.

Getting startled at a loud noise, flinching in pain, pupil dilation when in wonder. All of these responses are actions but there is no volition involved. Or, rather, the cognitive part of the brain is not aware of it. This means that there are volitions and drives that exist beyond the realm of cognition. Our actions can still be influenced by them.

Mostly Social?

Free Will or the concept of it is socially useful and our whole economic system is dependent on it. Imagine if people did not pay their bills!!!

At a cognitive level, it seems like we make decisions based on some criteria. Almost always these criteria have a heavy social context to it. Either consciously or subconsciously.

For example, expert persuaders use this trick to get people to try something unusual.

They ask the unsuspecting person if they would describe themselves as ‘fun and adventurous’. Most people say yes. They then follow this with the intended question, if they would like to try this cricket protein cookie. People like to maintain consistency, not just with others but with themselves. This is not a conscious action but a sub-conscious tendency. People do try the cricket cookie out of Free Will.

Or is it all reverse Justification?

Like consciousness, free will might be an emergent phenomenon, an illusion created by the brain for mere survival advantage. Attributing consequences to actions performed by individuals is deeply ingrained in human social and cultural DNA. It could merely be cultural evolution pressure, where cultures who believed in taking responsibility for one’s actions out-survived and thrived over cultures who did not.

For the sake of sanity, the idea of free will could very well be our minds rationalizing what we did in the past.

Try this next time, just set a timer for some arbitrary duration like 13 minutes and continue with your day. When the timer rings, stop what you are doing and ask yourself why were you doing whatever you were doing? For example, if you were just scrolling through social media when the timer rings and you ask this question to yourself. You will come up with a perfect explanation. You may be surprised at how well everything fits.

This kind of reverse justification and establishing causality is the bedrock of the ‘reality’ we live in.Our language, our minds, our consciousness are all built on the edifice of a causal universe.

In Ted Chiang’s Story of your life, the protagonist learns a fundamentally different linguistic system from the visiting heptapod Aliens. Their language is non-sequential, reflecting their way of experiencing reality as completely symmetric. They don’t have a train of thought, like we do but experiences and thoughts are directionless (independent of direction).

As she progresses through learning their language, the very structure of her consciousness and memories change. She begins to think like them. She knows and has experienced the future, does she have free-will?

Dreams?

Do we have free will in dreams then? In a hyper-realistic dream it seems like we mostly continue to make choices like we would in real life. But the whole construct of the dream is false. Or, so we say because it is not ‘Reality’. It could be said that our consciousness is also a waking dream. A simulation to cope and survive in reality. Does the same logic apply upwards dream to real-life or downwards, Real-life to dream?

Quantum?

It seems like Free Will is analogous to Quantum Phenomenon. It seems to exist in everyday experience but vanishes when examined closely. Just like Quantum phenomenon, Free Will might exist in the micro, like I am free to lift my fingers to type this, and I did. But, kind of becomes messier in macro. Like, why did you marry ‘her’?….gut feel?

Conclusion

As promised in the beginning. I did not offer any answers in this monograph but might have raised more questions. These are interesting topics to think and explore. For both myself and you.

Note: Please Clap and Share, not because I ask you to but because of your own Free Will :)