Understanding free will and how it can impact our behavior
date: "2023-11-28"
tags:
- "philosophy"
Do you control your destiny? Is it you who makes choices throughout the day, including what you will eat for dinner and which movie you will watch? Our everyday existence rests upon a seemingly unshakable foundation: that we possess free will, the ability to consciously dictate our actions and decisions.
However, as we delve deeper into unraveling the intricate connections between conscious experience and the brain, the molecular biology of the body, and various organs, including the brain, as well as the molecular biology of cells, the certainty of this assumption begins to waver.
Can physics rescue our concept of free will?
Classical physics asserts that all future states can be determined from previous states, implying a predetermined course of events. In other words, all future states are already predetermined. A deterministic interplay of cause and effect. However, this perspective is challenged by quantum mechanics. At the quantum level, particles exhibit wave-like behavior, and their positions are described by probabilities. It's inherently probabilistic; for example, one can assign a probability value, such as a 16.66% chance for a die to land on six.
Other atomic-scale entities, such as electrons, are found to exhibit the same behavior when fired towards a double slit. Additionally, the detection of individual discrete impacts is observed to be inherently probabilistic, which is inexplicable using classical mechanics.
Being probabilistic doesn't imply randomness or unpredictability. Instead, it means we can make predictions with a certain probability or accuracy. Cause and effect still exist, but there is always a chance that the same cause may not consistently produce the same effect.
To add complexity, there can be multiple variables or causes. However, even if you account for all variables, you still cannot predict the effect with absolute accuracy; there will always be some margin of error.
As a jest, we can predict the sunrise with 99.9999% accuracy, yet there remains a 0.0001% chance that unforeseen events, such as a black hole devouring the sun or a celestial dislocation, could prevent it. While 0.0001% may still seem big, it can also be infinitesimally small.
But the existence of probabilities does not imply the existence of free will, where we autonomously make our own decisions.
Impact on our behavior
A life with less anger:
Anger can arise when you dislike how others have acted or treated you, or when they treat your loved ones unfairly.
Although it's okay to feel angry, but you can delve deeper into the root causes of their actions.While it may sometimes be challenging to understand the causation, the effort to think rationally and seek understanding is valuable, preventing emotional drain.
A remedy for guilt and shame:
Guilt is rooted in the acknowledgment that one has committed a wrongdoing, potentially causing harm to others, whereas shame implies a personal flaw. Embracing the realization that not everything is within your control and that numerous external factors play a role can be emancipating.
An enlightened view of pride and privilege:
Whatever you achieve in life, whatever you have acquired, whether wealth or successful relationships, can be recognized as a confluence of factors beyond your control. Therefore, you are less likely to become a narcissist with inflated pride.
Increased empathy for others:
Understanding others' situations and trying to feel them can increase empathy. Understanding means trying to know the causation, which can prompt you to act with compassion to offer help. It can also contribute to a high degree of self-awareness.
Potential pitfall while talking about free will
It can also have a different and potentially negative impact if it's taken with a casual meaning.
Taking responsibility for your own actions:
You might start thinking that nothing is within your control, so why feel responsible for your actions? If everything is predetermined, why bother to act? The absence of free will is linked to the cause-and-effect relationship, and quantum mechanics posits that it is probabilistic. Your thoughts—how you think—have an impact on how you act, and how you act has an impact on others.
Meaning of life:
Thinking about the brain in terms of atoms, molecules, and chemical pathways can make life feel meaningless. One may fall into the fallacy of composition—no atoms are alive, so, therefore, nothing made of atoms is alive. However, being alive has a specific definition involving processes like respiration and growth. Form follows function, and different forms lead to different functions. Atoms don't have the same properties as molecules, and similarly, a human body doesn't have the same properties as individual atoms. At the system level, we are all interdependent and play specific, meaningful roles in terms of family, community, or the ecosystem.
Knowing about free will won't change the meaning that evolution has given us. Most of the time, you are likely to forget it. You will still continue to cook and enjoy tomorrow's food, gossip and laugh with friends, and work for your family or community.
It's a different matter that some big tech companies want us to transform into transhumans by attaching chips or producing genetically modified humans, disrupting the natural process of evolution. Such transhumans may not need food and won't experience human emotions. We derive meaning from our function, and altering our form will lead us out of existence.