Posted January 9 2016.
Those who argue against free will frequently say that we are not capable of choosing between two courses of action. When we think we make a choice, we are in fact doing the only thing we are able to do at that moment because ultimately our decisions have a physical cause in the brain that is itself caused by something in our genes or our environment or both.
I am not convinced and suggest this thought experiment to demonstrate our ability to choose between different courses of action.
Imagine an experiment conducted by Laplace’s Demon. He knows everything about your brain and your mind and the way it works. He knows all about your genetic inheritance and how it affects your thinking. He knows all the environmental influences on you from the hormones in your mother’s womb to the ideas in your head and what you had for breakfast this morning.
This demon creates a two-item menu designed in such a way that no genetic or environmental influence of any kind makes you more likely to choose one item rather than the other. He then says, “Choose now or you go hungry.”
I would contend that if we are hungry, any of us is capable of quickly choosing one item on the menu rather than the other. But there is no reason why we could not equally have chosen the other.
Some notes:
- I do not claim that this decision is conscious
- I do not claim that this decision is freely willed
- I certainly do not claim that this decision is made by a homunculus residing in our head or by a spirit that is somehow divorced from physical reality
- For all I know this ability to make choices is merely the result of some random event at a quantum level that is amplified by the complex systems operating within the brain
- I accept that any such random fluctuation is not free will
However, what this thought experiment suggests is that as organisms we are capable of making choices. These choices are made by us and we own them.
I would also contend that if the demon ran a similar experiment with a dog or a cat that is trained to get its food as soon as a bell rings otherwise it will go hungry, that animal would also be capable of quickly choosing between two equally appealing bowls of food. I suspect that all mammals and birds would be able to choose in the same situation. Whether a starfish, an ant or an amoeba would be able to do so I am not so sure.
Why are we and many other animals capable of making such choices? Because we have evolved to do so. This ability has survival value: it makes it harder for predators to catch us, for our prey to escape from us and for our rivals to predict what we are going to do next.
Yes, I accept that most of our choices are constrained by genetic and environmental factors. Few menus contain two equally appealing items, and even if they do we are likely to be swayed by what our companions choose or what we had for dinner last night.
I do not claim that this thought experiment demonstrates free will. But I do claim that it demonstrates that we can under certain circumstances choose to do one thing rather than another.
Paul Clark 