Question by Jeffrey K: Is free will an illusion?
We feel as if we have free will but is it just an illusion?
Your body and brain are made of atoms which must obey Newton’s laws of motion, electromagnetism, and other laws of physics. You can not direct where atoms or groups of atoms go just by thinking about it. They will move according to the laws of physics. Your mind can not force them to violate physics. So every action must be deterministic.
If you consider quantum mechanics, atoms obey probabilistic laws. Your mind can not affect how a wave function collapses just by thinking about it. The collapse is completely random. So our actions are partly deterministic and partly random.
Where is there room for free will? How could your mind possibly control anything, even atoms or nerve impulses in your own brain?
Best answer:
Answer by mggzer
I guess it depends on what you believe. Wow a paradox.
Add your own answer in the comments!
Um… well, I’m a deterministic supporter myself generally, but not because of Newton’s laws – we are capable of moving our bodies through the energy ATP, supplied through respiration, and control movement through signals sent from the neuronal system. These materials are made of atoms true. But for example, neuronal firing is explained at a physical, atomic level, but not caused by that. The pattern of firing is caused by decision making and stimulus from outside, the system process of input-output. If this system was created from some theoretical alternative to atoms, the end result would still be the same. So deterministic maybe, but not because of what it is made out of. (The functional and the cognitive are two largely separate methods of looking at the brain. For example, taken one step up from atoms, our brains are biological and computer programs not (using silicone and electricity etc) but we are beginning to write programs that function and learn in the same way as basic brain systems (they’ll get more advanced) – the implementation be it atomic or other, is less important than the process.)
Newton’s laws do, however, prove duality (the theory that mind is separate from brain) is wrong, but that’s a slightly different debate.. And probablistic laws and atomic properties are what I think prevents pure determinism – the random misfiring of a neuron, the chance combination of minor physical events that tip the scales, etc, so it does have a role in functioning of the brain.
I think a good start to answer your question is a book written by quantum physicist Amit Gaswami called, The Quantum Doctor. In this book he tries to tackle the subjective experience from the stand point of quantum theory.
He seems to circumvent a lot of the usual paradoxes that come out of the discussions of free will by suggesting that the root of all existence is consciousness, not matter, as suggested by Newtonian thinking. From there, wave function collapses as a function of that consciousness. Further, consciousness itself has many levels, not dissimilar to the “collective unconsciousness” proposed by Carl Jung.
My personal thought is that since free-will implies action and therefore requires time, the answer to your question will require a more complex understanding on the nature of time, and by virtue of relativity, matter.