(This is a prepublication draft of an article proposed for future publication in Philosophy Now.)
My topic here is modern denials of free will, specifically those denials based on neuroscience.
One ultimate basis for this denial is the assumption that science gives us the truth about the world, and neuroscience, like all science, gives us a completely deterministic picture of the world. A causes B, and B causes C, etc., leaving no room for the allegedly mistaken idea that human beings can be making and acting on free choices. Our actions are not due to free choices we make, but are wholly the results of events happening in neuronal synapses in the brain, which in turn cause our behavior.
On the one hand, (1) I want to argue in support of this view: If we are speaking of the world as it is in itself, apart from our perceptions of the world, it is indeed true that free will does not exist in this world.
Nevertheless, (2) I also want to argue that it is impossible for anyone to put this truth into practice in a completely consistent and thoroughgoing way. No matter what theories anyone holds, on an everyday basis all normal people will on an everyday basis continue to deliberate and make choices about what to wear, what to eat for breakfast, and whether or not to help someone in need. They will continue to perceive themselves to be making free choices. They will continue to perceive themselves in this way, and perceive the social world as populated by other individuals acting in this same way. All normal adults will unavoidably perceive some choices made by themselves and others as having a moral dimension, perceived as morally good or morally bad choices, for which they and others can be held morally responsible.
Neuroscience actually explains why all this is true: So far as the world-perceived goes, I can only perceive what my neuron-based perceptual and cognitive apparatus creates for me to perceive, and free-will is just one among many unavoidable features of this neuron-created world-as-perceived by all normal human adults. This is why, although on specific occasions we can choose to act on the intellectual belief that free will does not exist, this intellectual belief cannot be effectively put into practice in a completely consistent way that would completely cause free will to disappear from the world-perceived. No one can by their own efforts completely cease ever perceiving themselves and others to be making free choices. Doing so would assume that we are in complete control of our basic perceptions of the world, which we are not.
Putting these free-will issues in a larger context.
Free will is only one example of a conflict between the science-described world as it is in itself, and the (neuron-created) world as it unavoidably appears in normal human perceptions of the world. It is helpful to set this issue in this larger context.
Among other examples are:
Colors, sounds, tastes, smells. Mental images. Thoughts and thinking processes. Purposeful decisions. Beautifully colored sunsets and beautiful music. Meaningful and meaningless endeavors and experiences. Culturally-conditioned categories organizing the world-perceived, such as cars, houses, fences, streets, adults, clothing, steak and mashed potatoes, stores selling groceries or clothing, airplanes and helicopters. Meaning-bearing words representing these cultural categories, which are means of human communication.
To illustrate: Suppose I notice a bloody bandage on someone’s head. I ask about the bandage. The person lies to me and tells me they fell trying to climb a fence.
From a scientific point of view, what I perceive as the “red” color of blood on the bandage does not exist. Light waves of a certain frequency bouncing off the bandage deform receptors in my eyes, setting off a chain of electro-chemical interactions between nerve endings in nerve channels leading to my brain, somehow creating the perceived color “red” which does not really exist in the world as it is in itself.
Sounds coming out of this person’s mouth do not exist. A part of human anatomy in this person that we call “vocal chords” are causing compression waves in the air which strike other parts of my anatomy that we call “ear drums,” setting off a complex chain of interactions between nerve endings, processed in my brain in such a way as to cause me to perceive “sounds,” which in turn represent meaning-bearing “words”. These words bear meanings referring to culturally determined categories such as “bandage” and “fence,” which evoke human purposes for which bandages and fences are made.
So consider all this from a purely scientific point of view. In the world as it is apart from our perceptions of the world, no perceived colors exist. Sounds do not exist. No sounds representing meaning-bearing words exist. Word-meanings do not exist. Culturally specific categories implying purposes like “bandage,” “fence,” and “lies” do not exist. Purposes do not exist. No one ever chooses to lie rather than tell the truth. Neuronal interactions in one person’s brain cause vocal chords to cause certain kinds of air-compression waves, which cause neuronal actions in another person’s brain, causing this person to perceive thoughts of bandages and fences, but these thoughts only exist in the world-perceived, not in the world as it is in itself.
One purpose of going into all this detail is to call attention to how very immersed we all are in an everyday world-perceived, different from the science-described world as it is, and the practical impossibility of changing all of our perceptions of the world so as to bring these perceptions into accord with the truth about reality as it is apart from our perceptions of the world.
The observations made earlier about free-will–that it is impossible to cease actually making free choices, and cease perceiving ourselves to be making free choices–is just one more example of a much broader fact: the practical impossibility of changing so many of our basic perceptions of the world, essential to our normal everyday way of living and normal social life in the world, so as to bring all of them always into accord with the truth about the science-described world-as-it-is apart from our perceptions of the world.
The basis of science’s claim to give us knowledge of the world as it is apart from our perceptions of the world.
It is worth reflecting on the basis science’s claim to be giving us knowledge of the world as it is apart from our perceptions. This depends on our ability to bypass our human senses which only give us knowledge of the world-perceived. This ability depends on the use of scientific measuring devices, the only means that science has of bypassing human senses, to give us knowledge of the world as it is apart from our perceptions of the world.
Consider for example someone trying to measure the temperature of water in a glass. Dipping a finger into the water will only give this person knowledge of how “hot” or “cold” the water will be perceived to be. The use of scientific measuring devices is the only means that science has of bypassing human senses, to give us knowledge of the world as it is apart from our perceptions of the world.
A mercury thermometer is a simple example. Dip a mercury thermometer into the glass of water, and watch how the water causally interacts with the mercury in the thermometer. The result of such causal interaction will show up as a number on the thermometer, which can be inserted into mathematical formulae which are the language science uses to describe the invariant laws governing causal interactions in the world as it is apart from our perceptions.
Note that scientific method of this kind restricts the kinds of categories that can figure in scientific descriptions of the world as it is. It turns out that “warm” and “cold” are not such categories. Dipping a finger in some water can tell a person it is “very cold,” “cool, not very cold,” “warm,” or “hot”–but science cannot make progress with such perceptions because (1) such human perceptions themselves tell us nothing about the world as it is apart from our perceptions, and (2) because sense-categories like “warm” and “cold” cannot be precisely quantified and cannot figure in precise mathematical formulae.
Note, secondly, that because scientific method relies on causal interactions between measuring devices and phenomena being studied, science necessarily gives us a “deterministic” picture of the world-as-it-is. Science can only describe invariable causal chains: A causes B, B causes C, etc. If there are aspects of the world as it is that cannot enter into such deterministic causal chains, and so could not interact causally with scientific measuring devices, science could tell us nothing about them, and we would have no means of knowing about their existence in the world as it is apart from our perceptions of the world.
Nonetheless, it seems likely that the immense success of science in explaining how and why almost all conditions and events in the world happen the way they do, is good grounds for thinking that the world as it is in itself is actually completely deterministic. So far as we know, nothing happening in the world as it is in itself happens for a purpose. We cannot help but perceive ourselves as having purposes, but “purpose” is not a category that can figure in scientific mathematical descriptions of the world as it is in itself.
As science has made progress, more and more great differences have come to light between the science-described world as it is in itself apart from human perceptions of the world, and the world as humans perceive it.
To repeat and elaborate on some examples already given above.
Colors, sounds, smells, tastes, hot/cold are not scientific categories, and cannot figure in scientific descriptions of the world as it is in itself apart from human perceptions of the world.
The apparently solid surfaces and impenetrable density of many material objects do not exist in the world as it is. Material objects consist mostly of empty space, populated by electrons, protons, etc. in constant motion, facts unknowable so long as people were depending on their own perceptions of the world rather than on scientific measuring devices.
Human beings perceive a world always-already organized into culturally determined categories connoting human purposes: houses, cars, streets, fences, bandages, knives and forks, tables and chairs, doors and windows, floors and ceilings, lights and light-switches, etc. It would be very disconcerting and disorienting if suddenly I looked out on a world made up of collection of unnamed material objects describable only in scientific categories.
All normal human beings perceive themselves and each other to be making choices and acting on those choices, some of which have a moral dimension. If someone exists who never had any such perceptions, who never perceived themselves or others making and acting on morally “good” or “bad” choices, we would call this person a “psychopath,” unable to be included in normal social life. But of course moral “goodness” and “badness,” as these figure in human perceptions of the world, are categories belonging to normal human perceptions of the world, but are not categories that can figure in mathematized scientific descriptions of invariable causal laws governing events in the material world as it is apart from our perceptions of the world.
Aesthetic characteristics like “beauty”–as in the beauty of some sunsets, paintings, and music–are also categories belonging to the world-perceived, that cannot figure in precise mathematical descriptions of causal chains belonging to the world as it is in itself apart from our perceptions of the world.
This last example also brings up another issue. Suppose it were possible to change my perceptions so that I would no longer perceive any beautifully colored sunsets or the beautiful sounds of Beethoven’s Ninth. This would bring my perceptions more into accord with the scientific picture of the world as it is apart from our perception, in which there exist neither “colors” nor “sounds” nor “beauty.” Even if this were possible, would I really want to undergo such a change? I would say that personally this is not something I would want.
Note that all this has to do with basic categories. For example, in theory it may be possible to give a scientific, precisely quantified description of the combinations of light-waves or sound-waves that cause people to perceive some sunsets and some music as “beautiful.” In this sense one could say that, since in the world as it is, light waves and sound-waves exist and “beauty” does not, light waves and sound waves are what people are really perceiving when they perceive a beautiful sunset or beautiful music.
But of course in the world-perceived, things are reversed. “Beauty” is a category capturing the actual perceptual content of some actual perceptions. “Light-wave” is not a category capturing the perceptual content of any actual perception. No one has ever been aware of directly perceiving a “light-wave.”
Neuroscience explains why I am compelled to perceive a world full of features that do not exist in the world as it is apart from our perceptions of the world.
Why am I compelled to perceive the world the way that I do? Even more basically: Why do I find myself to be the kind of being who likes to live in this kind of world, and in many cases would not choose to change my perceptions to bring them more into accord with the world as it is in itself, even if this were possible?
The answer to these questions I think has to do with more implications of neuroscience that I think have not been sufficiently appreciated and emphasized.
Visual perception will serve as a relatively simple example here. It might at first seem that I am looking out through my eyes, and directly seeing objects in the world which are actually out there. Or at least images of objects out there are somehow making their way from the objects through my eyes into my mind which is where I see them.
But neuroscience has given us a completely different picture of what happens in visual perception. Light-waves bouncing off of objects strike receptors in my retina, setting off an enormously complex chain of electro-chemical interactions in nerve-endings leading from the eye to the brain and in the brain.
After events happening in the retina, nothing in this neuron-chain bears any resemblance to any objects in the world. I do not see any image existing on my retina, nor do I see anything happening in this neuronal chain. Somehow this neuronal chain creates the complete visual world that I see. I see nothing at all until this process is complete.
The human neuronal system has evolved in such a way that some aspects of this neuronal world represent with some accuracy certain features of the material world that science can show are actually there. These are quantifiable features such as the size and shape of material objects and their relative distance from me and from each other. This serves the practical purpose of preventing me from bumping into large objects, and handling them if I need to.
But this neuron-based system has also learned to create a world with features such as colors and sounds, beautiful sunsets and beautiful music, which do not exist in the science-described world as it is in itself apart from our perceptions of the world. It has also learned to create for adults a world-perceived organized into cultural categories (e.g. bandages and fences), and in which there sometimes occur visually beautiful objects, as well as human intentions and actions with moral characteristics.
But it is important to realize that the entirety of the world perceived–both those that can figure in scientific descriptions and those that cannot–is in its entirety a creation of our neuron-based perceptual apparatus. I never directly perceive the size, shape, and location of material objects as these exist in the world as it is in itself. What I actually directly perceive as a collection of spatially arranged objects making up the material world surrounding me, is in its entirety a creation of my neuron-based perceptual apparatus.
This is the ultimate reason explaining some of the observations above: The nature of human perception is such that I can only perceive what is created for me to perceive by my neuron-based human perceptual apparatus. This explains why my ability to change my basic perceptions to bring them into accord with the scientific picture of the world, is so severely limited.
Why do I find myself to be the kind of being who likes to live in a world full of many neuron-created phenomena that do not really exist in the world as it is apart from my perceptions?
I suggest the ultimate reason why I am the kind of being that I am, is that I myself–as a human subject who have preferences and desires, who perceive perceptions, who think thoughts, who make choices and act purposefully in pursuit of those choices–am just one more kind of being among the many other kinds of beings populating the neuron-created world-perceived, which do not exist in the world as it is apart from human perceptions of the world.
“I,” as such a human subject, do not exist in the world as it is in itself. But like many other basic features of the world-perceived, I unavoidably exist in this world-perceived, compelled by my neuronal system to exist in this world, as the kind of human subject I find myself to be. Making free choices is just one more capacity of this “I” that I find myself compelled to be, living on an everyday basis in the kind of world-perceived I find myself compelled to live in.
