Philosophy Now Forum

The case for the compatibility of Free Will with modern science can be summarized very briefly: Modern science believes that the processes in my neural networks can make decisions; I am my neural networks; therefore I am free to make decisions.

Woo writes that alternatives are only apparently available to "the decision-maker", because the outcome is actually determined by "the state of the world ". In doing so, he is assuming dualisticly that the state of the decision-maker in NOT part of the "state of the world". In fact nearly all the supposed arguments against Free Will involve the unjustified assumption of dualism on the part of the Free Will advocate. The "causal closure" argument, for example, is an argument against dualism, not against monist Free Will. It is although these sceptics cannot really believe the full implications of saying "I am my neural networks" (and therefore within the causal closure loop).

It may help to distinguish the concept of a "Free Will Device" unknown to physics, which imports Free Will into a world otherwise lacking it, from the concept of a "Free Will Capability" which is present without any special device. Compatibilists (like Dennett and me here) are only claiming the latter. It is the "Free Will Libertarians" who claim the former. If the deniers are only denying the need for a Free Will Device, perhaps we can agree.

Obvious Leo wrote

We can say that the behaviour of the constituent atoms under these conditions has CAUSED the water to be wet. However this property of wetness then becomes a causal agent in its own right which in turn CAUSES the hydrogen and oxygen atoms within the molecules to behave in a specific and particular way

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While I completely go along with the general argument in this post, (about chaos and emergence) I think confusion can be created by stretching the everyday notion of causation in this way, unless this is clearly flagged. By everyday causation I mean the relationship between some initial condition (the cause) and some subsequent condition (the effect). The sentence above by contrast talks about two accounts of the case at exactly the same instance. Given the laws governing the items concerned, each account (atomic behaviour or wetness) logically implies the other. Does the pressure drop in a venturi cause the fluid to accelerate, or does the acceleration cause the pressure drop? It depends where you draw the boundary for analysis, so the direction of the causation in this case is actually an artefact of the explanation. I would rather say that the acceleration and the pressure drop are mutually implied, or that both are parts of the same solution of the equations expressing the relationships governing the situation.

Where this distinction enters the determinism argument is something like this. Tracing cause and effect from the start of time to the present, everyday causation only accounts for causal chains at a given order of complexity. The fact that every atom making up planet Earth is where it is can be explained as a series of events affecting that atom - including indeterminate quantum events which break the chain as a determining chain. The fact that the aggregate of all those atomic positions has the properties of a planet is an implication rather than an everyday causal relationship between the positions of the atoms and the position of the planet. The fact that planet earth is here can only be explained deterministically by events at solar system and cosmic levels which are very largely indifferent to the atomic and quantum level details, and if we go back far enough we will reach a time when there is nothing which can act as a cause at this level. Hence at a given level of complexity, novel structures can emerge from the workings of the laws governing that level and neighbouring levels. In the everyday sense these are "ultimate causes". Given the complexity of the human brain, there is ample scope for new ideas to emerge as ultimate causes in this sense. It is only when sequential causation is mixed up with causality in the sense of logical implication that the Big Bang and quantum events appear as the only "ultimate causes".