How Free Is Your Will?

The New York Times recently printed a column that was written by a prominent Canadian philosopher questioning the existence of free will.  I have waited 50 years for that column. 

His main argument is deterministic.  Since we did not have free choice when it came to picking our genetic and environmental influences, we are not free to choose how we react to new stimuli.  We did not create or choose our minds, bodies, parents, early experiences, immediate environment or even our tastes and personality.  Since we did not and can not choose the chooser, the argument goes, we are not free to control our choices.  In addition to not controlling who we are,  we also act without knowing all the possible consequences of our acts and so we can not be said to be making truly informed choices.

This flies in the face of all religions whose function it is to tell its believers what is right and what is wrong and implore the flock to do the former and avoid doing the latter.  Why tell the people what to choose when they have no free will?  And yet, most religions say that their G-d is infinite.  If He is infinite, doesn’t that mean that all finite things are under His control and therefore not really separate and free? And yet, the Old and New Testaments give hints about Man’s free will.

In the old testament, Moses is told to go to the Pharaoh of Egypt, at that time probably the most powerful person on Earth, and tell him to release millions of Israelite slaves held in his country.  The Pharaoh, seemingly making a free choice, said “no.” The Testament goes on to describe ten plagues that G-d created to force the Pharaoh to allow the Israelite exodus.  After several terrible curses on his people from blood in the water to locusts eating the harvest to total darkness, the Bible says that the Pharaoh was shocked and wanted to grant the slaves their requested freedom but G-d forced him to say “no” until the tenth and most terrible plague, the death of the first born.

In the new testament, Jesus is quoted as saying that it is by G-d’s grace that we decide to even believe in Him. He told His followers to look at the flowers in the field that do not toil and yet prosper.

Kabbalists believe that as their mystic rabbi Baal Shem Tov said, not a leaf falls to the ground without His knowledge and will.  They believe that everything that happens to us and everything we will do in response is known 40 days before our birth. That sounds fairly deterministic.  A person’s only free choice is said to be whether or not to believe in and follow the laws of the Creator.  If you believe in G-d, do you think that you chose to?  And if you don’t believe in the “unmoved mover” did you ever really sit down and decide not to? And wouldn’t that “choice” affect everything you did which was already known while you were still in the womb?

But if we have no free will, why do we think we do and why and how do we take responsibility for our actions?  The Canadian philosopher who wrote the Times column asked the same question.

I wrote to him and gave him the possible answer.

I have come to believe that life is and is not a paradox. The fundamental paradox is that the infinite is finite.  It would be illogical for there to be an infinite that is separate from all that is finite.

This paradox is even reflected in our brains.  It is divided into two separate halves.

 One half of our brain is universal, one with all things.  It feels the unity of the universe and does not know separateness.  It does not know or remember names, words or numbers.  It is the source of our intrinsic motivation - doing things for their own sake.  It is expressed as love. It is called our creative side.

The other half of the brain is concerned with the temporal and specific.  It learns names, words, numbers and distinctions between finite things.  It realizes that a chair is not a table and when said in French, each must have its own gender, male or female. The feeling of separateness engenders the basic emotion of fear leading to extrinsic motivation (I have to do it in order to keep my job, pay my rent, etc.)

It is believed that during strokes, epileptic seizures, LSD experiences and enlightenment, the universal side of the brain is more active than the other so speech is affected and a disorientation can occur.  A famous neurobiologist had a stroke making her temporarily unable to speak, write or recognize numbers.  She realized that what was happening was that her universal brain took over from the other half - the finite one. Also, the brain which is apparently finite, contains the mind that is clearly infinite.

In higher math (while seeking the square root of negative numbers) and in physics they have discovered a phenomenon called fractals, which are an infinite repetition of self similar geometrical shapes that exist in every finite object. Every finite thing has an infinite number of fractals proving that the finite is infinite as the infinite is finite.   

The two basics laws of physics articulate the paradox.  The first law is that all matter is energy and energy cannot be lost in the universe (because it is infinite). The second law is entropy - that everything becomes disorganized and changes its structure (because it is finite).

We are in the midst of this paradox. Our problems were not caused by Adam and Eve eating from the wrong tree. They are caused by the interplay of this constant paradox.

Our universal side realizes that we are all one and that everything already is.  This is why we are attracted to universals like G-d, science, the arts, religion, community, love or peace and doing things for their own sake.  Our finite side feels alone in a hostile world.  It feels that the individual must make choices, the right choices, in order to survive.  It senses that there are consequences to our actions.  It makes us feel that we must do things as means to greater ends.  We feel responsible, even if we are not.

So do we have free will?

Definitely, yes and no.