Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2000994,00.html

by fogus • 16 years ago

47 44 16 years ago

msluyter• 16 years ago

I've long believed that free will is illusory. Empirical evidence includes studies that suggest that we may make decisions before we're actually aware of them (See Benjamin Libet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet) Your conscious mind is like a 6 year in the back seat with the toy steering wheel, pretending he's driving and making up stories about where he's taking us.

Despite that, I can't actually live my life as though I really have no free will. I tried it (briefly) as an experiment, and I merely sank into a sort of post hoc analysis of everything I did. "I was supposed to do that. That's what my unconscious made me do. Etc..." Indeed, I believe that free will is inseparable from identity to such an extent that even if we find unassailable proof that it's merely an illusion, we'll continue about our lives, "choosing," as if nothing ever happened.

marbletiles• 16 years ago

There is a fascinating book by Julian Jaynes called The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind that goes even deeper into this area.

Basically, he says, our two minds were previously split and "you" would "hear" your other mind issuing instructions about what to do. (Much like Snow Crash and the nam-shubs of Enki).

Over time the two merged, and we ended up with a single stream of consciousness. Among other things, he says, we can see the remnants in people experiencing "the voice of God", and the way we are extremely susceptible to commands spoken closely into our right ears.

To be clear: modern theories of consciousness and psychology have v. little time for Jaynes, but as a philosophical curio/thought game it's great fun.

rokhayakebe• 16 years ago

Interesting right ear findings:

http://www.google.com/search?q=spoken++right+ear.

dkimball4• 16 years ago

I looked at this article, but I don't think the experiment proves as much as Libet claims it does. Neither he nor subsequent researchers seem to have gone beyond toy problems (what EEG activity appears in someone writing or programming?).

Also, I find it hard to believe that free will "lives" in one or another part of the brain; neither determinism nor randomness is freedom, and a physical "organ of free will" would have to be either deterministic (from macro-scale physics) or random (from quantum-scale activity).

I agree that living without free will is probably psychologically insupportable; even Muslims and Calvinists, who believe in double predestination (and Marxists, who believe in historical determinism), live as if free will was true. (Read _The Pilgrim's Progress_ and tell me that Bunyan really believed Puritan doctrines...)

dasil0033• 16 years ago

We get angry when theologians try to overstep their bounds into science, so we should also get angry when scientists overstep their bounds into philosophy with all kinds of hamfisted assumptions.

I mean just because an assumption is necessary and reasonable for exploring the mechanics of the universe does not mean you can simply extrapolate to something as mysterious as the nature of consciousness and free will.

nooneelse• 16 years ago

Libet's EEG timings are only a problem for free will if you think that only the conscious mind can begin an exercise of our free will. Why think that?

FleursDuMal• 16 years ago

Is it possible to have a sincere discussion about this? If I falsely believe in free will then surely I don't have a choice in the matter.

mzl4• 16 years ago

Even if you have no free will, that doesn't mean that your mind can't be changed by arguments.

dkimball4• 16 years ago

But, he can only be persuaded by the arguments that will necessarily persuade him, not necessarily those which correspond to reality. What merit is it to simply find the right button to push?

jared314• 16 years ago

I have always wondered how well you can actually control psychological studies about why someone is thinking something.

Tichy• 16 years ago

In any case this area of research seems to open up a lot of opportunities for snake oil consultants.

grellas• 16 years ago

The law as it has stood for centuries has imposed different degrees of liability based on one's mental state and this is often tied to moral standards.

Just a sampling: (a) it takes "malice aforethought" or premeditation to support higher degrees of a murder conviction; (b) one must act with "scienter" (intent or knowledge of wrongdoing) to be held liable for various intentional torts such as fraud; (c) punitive damages may be awarded to punish a wrongdoer for conduct that is outrageous or wanton or done in reckless disregard of the rights of others.

When I read reports such as this piece, I always wonder how the science can be real and yet have such a disconnect with real-world application, i.e., if it is true that we fundamentally don't control our actions, why should we be held responsible for them depending on varying states of mind? Why should we incur larger penalties if we "intended" to take a wrong action if our intention is ultimately based on unconscious stimuli over which we have no control? Why should it be wrong to steal something if an uncontrollable impulse made us do it?

Given these sorts of disconnects, I wonder if society doesn't treat science of this type effectively as if it were really more like philosophy - interesting to contemplate but often having no real-world application. Certainly, if it is true science (verifiable, repeatable, etc.), the law should change to follow suit. Yet how would that happen without chaos ensuing in the areas of crimes, torts, etc. where people are supposed to be held responsible for their wrongs and particularly if they intended to commit them?

mzl4• 16 years ago

One reason that legal punishment can still work in the absence of free will, is that absence of legal punishment might make more of the moist robots do societally damaging things. Essentially, it is not about a moral decision, it is about preventive damage control.

mmphosis• 16 years ago

We only get to choose how to respond or not respond.

albemuth• 16 years ago

In addition to the up and down vote there should be a button to nominate the article for the "HN Classics" section, a new list dedicated to all those topics that seem to surface every other week

willfully_lost• 16 years ago

I think it's important to remember not to make free will vs determinism a binary argument. As I look at it, the truth is both and neither.

For various reasons certain people will be influenced and coerced down the path of least resistance by their environment more so than others. Free will is essentially something you must claim for yourself (of course I mean relatively, no one can ever be <i>fully</i> in control of the developments of their life).

dkimball4• 16 years ago

On actually reading the article: this title is a bad summary. (Makes me think of Slashdot.) What the article covers is the point, which I hope is uncontroversial, that stimuli give rise to responses, and influence the course of cognition: holding a warm cup of coffee makes you think more, well, warmly of someone you're interviewing; seeing a framed picture of a library causes you to speak more quietly; the smell of cleaning agents inspires you to keep your cubicle clean; long dint of repetition encourages you to decide that yes, in fact, you are having a Big Mac attack.

None of this is controversial, unless you're thinking in terms of Descartes -- the body and mind as purely separate and the mind as purely master of the body. There's a Catholic saying that "body and soul are one" -- what the soul (or mind, if you prefer) does, affects the body, and what the body does, affects the soul.

Another thing I'd mention: like evolutionary psychology, this article's research is highly culture-bound. They don't seem to be interested in determining whether pictures of libraries mean the same thing to Indonesian hill tribes, or whether the scent of Febreeze means the same thing to Moroccans (or red mages).

Also, as the article points out, this kind of unconscious encouragement can be overcome; you have only to be aware of it.

Matti• 16 years ago

Perceptual Control Theorists would argue that you don't understand behavior if you think that we, or other animals, respond to stimuli.

"The illusion of stimulus and response [..] What we see from outside the system is that the crosswind pushes sideways on the car and the front wheels of the car immediately cock into the wind, preventing any important change in the car's path. It looks just as if the car is being stimulated by the wind, and is responding by turning its front wheels into the wind. Of course we know that neither the car nor the driver can sense the crosswind; this appearance of stimulus and response is an illusion. The true explanation is a little more complicated than the stimulus-response explanation would be, but not much more complicated.

But we can see now how the impression that stimuli cause responses could arise, even if the system in question is really a control system that works as just described."

-- William T. Powers, A Brief Introduction to Perceptual Control Theory: http://www.benchpress.com/aboutPCT.htm

parallax7d• 16 years ago

I would argue that for practical purposes, free will should be redefined as the ability to face a choice, and the capability to choose. Our reasoning is irrelevant, the predetermined interactions of our particles is irrelevant.

The interactions of all atoms follow physical laws. Yes, in this regard the entire future is as set in stone as the past. The whole universe is like a burned CD playing until it ends.

Free will, for practical purposes is a higher level concept, that exists as a mental shortcut/concept in our brains to deal with what to eat for lunch, irregardless of the underlying atomic interactions which run this simulation we call life.

joshkaufman• 16 years ago

Here's a re-framing of "free will" that I find very useful - it's more like "free won't." The technical term is Inhibition. Our physical and mental processes may make us inclined to act in a certain way, but we have a limited ability to inhibit that initial response long enough to do something different by using willpower.

Think of a lion in the brush, ready to pounce on an unsuspecting antelope. The lion wants to pounce, but inhibits the response for a little while, waiting for the antelope to come a little closer.

Since willpower is depleted with use (a process called Ego Depletion), inhibition is a very limited power - it's difficult, requires a lot of energy, and can't be maintained indefinitely. Our natural inclinations and environment are extremely powerful forces, and we can't hold out for long.

That's why, if you're experiencing some form of temptation (wanting to do what you know you shouldn't), it's better to inhibit and remove yourself from the situation as quickly as possible vs. rely on your "free will" to save you. Otherwise, you'll progressively find it more and more difficult to resist until you act.

I find this definition very useful because it maintains human agency (the ability to choose your behavior), while respecting the undeniable power that environment and circumstances have on our behavior.

jokermatt999• 16 years ago

Couldn't you still be predisposed to go against your typical behavior in that instant?

benno3• 16 years ago

I agree on the power of inhibition, but I think the second point you alluded to is the larger one -- the ability to remove the stimulus.

Certainly it's hubris to believe that one can exercise "free will" to remain completely uninfluenced by one's environment. But what we can do is exercise a measure of intelligence and free will to anticipate the relationship between stimulus and response, and alter our environment accordingly.

I.e. if you're trying to lose weight, don't allow yourself to be exposed to fast food advertising.

Our brains may be heavily influenced by our environment in ways that we are not normally aware, but the existence of studies like these shows that we can begin to understand the dynamic of influence. Once we have understanding we can take appropriate measures.

As I see it, that's the true power of intelligence and human agency.

After all, as you point out, animals also have certain powers of inhibition. But none have the ability to comprehend their own minds and alter their environment accordingly.

benno3• 16 years ago

By pure coincidence, this ties in well with something Nassim Taleb just tweeted:

"Unless we manipulate our surroundings,we have as little control over what & whom we think about as we do over the muscles of our hearts."

aplusbi• 16 years ago

I believe very strongly that free will is tied to the existence of randomness. Without randomness there can be no free will.

From the little I've read it appears that true randomness does exist, in that there are experiments where all causally relevant variables are controlled and yet the outcome is still uncertain.

I'm not convinced that there is true randomness in the universe however, and I guess that means I subscribe to some sort of hidden variable theory with regards to the aforementioned experiments.

jaekwon3• 16 years ago

I don't think free will has anything to do with randomness. Rather, if you assume that free will exists, then you are cornered into looking for it in randomness.

And you say yourself, that you don't believe in randomness in the universe. Even if there were randomness, it wouldn't explain much more than determinism because there is plenty of chaos without it.

Read my other posting here and try to figure out why you want to believe in free will.

nlh• 16 years ago

I've noticed a similar phenomenon in certain business situations: Ever worked at a tradeshow booth or done product demos? One thing you'll surely notice is that over the course of interacting with hundreds (or thousands) of people, strong patterns will emerge. Different people will say the _exact_ same thing in certain situations, and they'll all think they're being super funny or super original and clearly the first person to think of that.

We may have "free will" in the conscious sense, but our brains are still, for the most part, wired the same way, and what we think is an original or free-response is likely part of a very common, very non-original pattern.

kranner• 16 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

I believe it is better to form a hypothesis about a pattern first and then go about trying to prove or disprove it, even if empirically, rather than to observe an apparent pattern and then consider the same observation as proof that it is real.

qubit• 16 years ago

I honestly don't understand how anyone can question that we lack free will unless one believes in a soul or some other kind of "magic". If all of our actions are governed by our brains, and our brains are simply a collection of particles obeying the laws of physics, where is the room for free will?

prewett2• 16 years ago

Physics may not be entirely deterministic. At the quantum level physics starts being about probability. (In fact, quantum physics is all about probability, something my grades wish I had understood while taking the course...) Maybe particles have free will: do I tunnel now or not? Not now, maybe later. Maybe the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is a reflection of the free will: you can determine either a particle's position or velocity as much as you want, but you give the particle an equal amount of free will to choose the other one.

jaekwon3• 16 years ago

Ask yourself why you feel the need to identify with Free Will. Are you free to choose otherwise (e.g. reject Free Will)?

You may find that Free Will is a paradoxical concept.

thecoffeeman• 16 years ago

but if I decide to think again, am I then doing it because it was my decision?

prewett2• 16 years ago

Lousy title: the article doesn't seem to contradict free will at all. If people are more likely to keep a clean desk with the smell of cleaning fluid in the air, that still means that some people were not affected. Obviously those guys have free will. Nothing in the studies they referenced said "whenever this stimulus is introduced, people always do X"; that would demonstrate lack of free will. The cited studies demonstrate the opposite of the title.

yason• 16 years ago

The article doesn't seem to be much about free will but rather about which choices are conscious and which are not.

Free will means that, out of all life's choices, I can choose whichever I want.

It doesn't mean I'm always conscious about my choices.

It doesn't mean I would not want to limit my choices consciously or unconsciously: suicide is very well within the free will of each person but few choose to exercise their free will that way.

It means there are no "don't"s or "can't"s. For example, if you think you can't act in some controversial way in some social situation, you're wrong. You surely could, if you wanted to. You might have internal limitations such as that you fear too much. It still doesn't rule out that you absolutely could.

As long as there's no gun pointing at you, you can choose whatever you want. In fact, if there is a gun pointing at you, you can still choose your own way, even if you end up dead.

eirene• 16 years ago

I'm digging the fact that scientists are finally catching up with the meta-humanity thinkers & tinkerers (philosophers, artists, writers, etc) i.e. unconscious will can be & has been extrapolated from first principles, i.e. this is old news. Still, exciting!

1) Rigors-of-academic-inquiry(oldnews) = new data = new model = new algorithms

2) Makes moving my research forward that much easier. Similar case: I went from getting an orders of magnitude brush-off from a theoretical physicist on the topic of string configurations and cellular-level biochemical reactions. A few years later, I see he is working with David Albert on Subjective Experience as a Window on Foundational Physics http://www.ctnsstars.org/enews/news_team5.html

+ the recent the quantum entanglement in DNA paper on arxiv http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25375/...

Embodied cognition, ghosts in biological machines, feels a bit like racing toward god. I can see how it can make some people feel uncomfortable. Still, it's what we're made to do, what the amalgam of our biology+experience gifts us with.

jaekwon3• 16 years ago

OMG guys, let's get over this free will thing ok?

Free Will is an oxymoron. Will is supposed to be determined by you. Free Will points at our desire to think that our actions aren't determined by our universe, i.e. the desire to separate oneself from the observed determinism of our own universe.

It ain't gonna happen so long as you are capable of thinking. If you are thinking, you are determining your will.

Can't live a happy life without Free Will? I'm perfectly happy knowing that my thoughts, actions, and wants are a timeless pseudo-determined reality of this Universe. I feel at one with everything around me including people and inanimate objects. Why can't you?

Probably because some of us are conditioned to reject authority, and what bigger authority than the big U? Guess what... the way the universe appears to you is determined by the way you think. For example, just about everyone sees time as always moving forward. Why is thermodynamics and entropy the way it is? Because that is how we think, in terms of time/causality/consequences. If you reject the observed determinism of your universe, you are really just rejecting the process of your mind.

Which is fine, reject your brain if you want. Just know, that you're not rejecting some higher authority, rather you're just rejecting yourself.

Think You're Operating on Free Will? Think Again

Related Stories