Free Will

Something, it seems to me, that everybody takes for granted is the assumption that we have free will. I take it for granted myself, unless I start seriously thinking about it, like now. I can choose to do many different things right now. I can stop writing this article and go and have a cup of coffee. I can go for a walk, or read a book, or even take a nap. Of course, taking a nap implies that I am tired in the first place, otherwise the chances of my deciding to take a nap are minimal. Okay, in a bid to convince myself that I have free will in the matter, I could decide to take a nap even though I am not tired. But that doesn't prove much, does it?

The problem is that all these areas are of no great importance in life. They are not the big issues. They are not the life changing issues which might make a meaningful difference. Look at it this way. I didn't choose most of the major things in my life, where I was born, colour of my skin, parents, siblings, sexual orientation. I didn't even make the choice to be born! I happened to be born in Dublin to catholic parents, hence I am white, Irish, heterosexual and originally catholic. Now there's a thing. I was born catholic and eventually changed to something else, at present agnostic. So here is a good example of free will. Or is it? I'll discuss this further below.

What about a life changing experience such as choosing a partner? Is that a free choice? Many will say yes, definitely, but think about it. What about all those girls or guys you fancied but who didn't fancy you? No choice there! The girl you choose had to like you as well. You can't make her like you. So you fancy somebody and ask them out. They have the choice to say yes or no. If no, that's it. You didn't have much of a choice there. If they say yes, you go out together, but don't get on. Not much choice there either. So you continue making choices and eventually find somebody who does like you and does want to marry you (or these days simply become your partner) and maybe have children etc. Then your marriage goes west! So, really not a lot of free choice here at all.

Now let's get on to religion. Initially you have no choice in the matter. You are what your parents decide they want you to be, usually what they themselves are. So you start life being a Christian, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist or even Atheist. Some of us begin to think for ourselves, maybe in our teenage years, maybe later and decide to switch our religion. Usually it's from a religious faith to none or even agnostic. Sometimes it's the other way round. But again, I ask what choice is there in that? What about those who don't change. Did they choose not to change or did they even think about it? And what about those who do change? Do they exercise a really free choice or was it just their way of thinking which made them sit up and change? Our education system is so bad, that most people aren't thought to think for themselves. They are just thought things by rote and are told that's the way it is, learn up or else. They probably never get to question. And those of us who do question things, what's there within us that makes us do that? We didn't decide one day by free will, I'd better start to ask questions. So I don't really see much choice there either.

Consider your likes and dislikes. Do you have a say in this? For example, if you like sport, did you decide to like it or did you always like it? And take something you are not interested in, say history. Did you decide not to like it? Go into a library and take down a book on history and try to make yourself like it. You probably won't succeed, and if you do, well maybe you did like history in the first place but didn't know it. You'll notice that your likes change over time. For example, if somebody told me twenty years ago that I'd read books on church history, I'd have laughed at them. What a boring subject. Yet today I devour them and I can confirm there was never a time when I decided I was going to enjoy such books. Gradually I got interested in the subject, but there was never a "decision". So again, I ask, where's the free will?

In fact a lot of things change about you over time. Not only do certain cells in your body get replaced, a lot of the body you have today is no longer the one you were born with. However, more importantly for our purposes, your ideas and outlook change over time. A lot of these mental changes depend on the environment you live in, the friends and acquaintences you keep, the books and newspapers you read, the films and television you watch. Each of these has an influence on you whether you like it or not and you may find that your ideas begin to change almost imperceptibly over time, sometimes influenced by the above. But seldom do your ideas change overnight. It happens subtly over time. So exactly where or when can you say you made a free decision to change one of your ideas? For example, you might believe passionately in a particular idea or you might follow a particular football team. If you think about it you'll most likely find that something you were passionate about years ago, you are no longer so. When did the change occur? I'll bet you that you can't really say. But more importantly you can't say that you ever sat down and made a decision to change in this area.

So where exactly does free will or choice come in? Take something as simple as deciding to have a cup of coffee or tea. If you consider the situation carefully, you'll find that you don't really make a choice. You either feel like a cup of coffee now or a cup of tea. Then again, you can sit down and say you're going to give this free will stuff a whirl. I'll make a firm decision. Even though I feel like having a cup of coffee at this point, I'll exercise my free will and have a cup of tea instead. Very good, but you're actually taking an idea and deciding to defy it. Or are you? Are you really deciding to decide to defy it? Or are you just in the mood to do an experiment.

Some scientific experiments appear to show that we do not have free will. For example a famous experiment some years back has shown that approximately 10 seconds before a person made a conscious decision to do something, the brain had already taken the decision. Of course, these experiments were only dealing with very simple decisions, for example whether to press a button on the right or on the left. A lot too depends on how the MRI imaging which was used is interpreted so the issue is far from closed.

Of course, if we don't actually have free will, this leads to the troubling question as to what, if any, responsibility must we take for our actions? For example if a serial killer has no conscience, no remorse and simply enjoys killing, is he responsible for his actions as he has absolutely no choice in the matter? I'm not defending him and believe he should be locked up for life (in fact he deserves the death penalty, I'm not a namby-pamby do-gooder). But if he had no other choice, what can we do? Well, I suppose lock him up and tough! He can't be allowed to be free if he threatens others in this way.

So if we don't have free will, do we give up? Throw our hats at it? No free will, what's the point? Another interesting experiment was carried out a year or so ago which tried to find out a little more about the effects on society if free will does not in fact exist. A number of participants were given passages from a book to read. Half of the participants got a section of the book to read which stated that there was no such thing as free will, our choices have already been predetermined and we can't change them. The other participants got a section which concentrated on the importance of studying consciousness and didn't mention free will at all. After reading the passages all the volunteers in the study were asked to complete a survey on their belief in free will. Then they were asked to complete 20 arithmetic problems which would appear on a computer screen. But they were also told that when the question appeared they needed to press the space bar otherwise a glitch in the computer software would make the answer appear on the screen. They were told that nobody would know whether they pressed the space bar or not, but they were asked not to cheat. The results showed that those who read the text which stated that there was no such thing as free will cheated more often. The researchers also found that the amount somebody cheated correlated with the extend to which they had rejected free will in their survey. Doesn't bode well for us if we don't have free will!

Which leads me to believe there must be some choice somewhere, but I've no idea where.

Now, what made me write this blog?...I guess I just couldn't help myself!

Help, I'm a rock!