Q & A

Q: Do people have free will?

A: This is one of those deep philosophical questions I don't spend much time thinking about anymore. It is also one of those questions that have made me reject a rationalist epistemology in favor of skeptical empiricism. Whenever you have a dispute like this that has gone for eons unresolved, you are going to find that science succeeds where philosophy fails.

Everything you choose to do in life is the consequence of neurons and chemicals firing in your brain. We like to think that some part of us exists outside of this chain of material cause and effect. This is not the case. A brain injury or disease can change your entire personality. In this respect, determinism reigns.

On the flip side, physics and math demonstrate to us that there is a high degree of variability in spontaneous systems. This would be the study of stochastic processes. This is also why so many things in life made up of small and predictable events can be wildly unpredictable in the aggregate. This unpredictability and apparent randomness is where we get the concept of free will.

As I go along, I find this paradox again and again. It isn't just free will and determinism. Quantum physics throws similar paradoxes at us. What you think is so just ain't so. Or as another wise person put it, the universe is not only stranger than you imagine but also stranger than you can imagine.

The reality is that human beings are animals determined by their biology and programmed to do wildly unpredictable things. There is no conflict in nature but merely a conflict in our understanding of nature. Free will and determinism are rendered meaningless. This is why I don't waste time thinking about them anymore. Neither tells the full story.

Posted in: