On Free Will and Self-Causation

The question of whether we have free will or if we are just sophisticated machines that are guided by purely deterministic processes, has been discussed among philosophers and scientists for a long time.

Some say that free will is the freedom to choose otherwise. But how do we know if we could have chosen otherwise without a time machine that beams us back to the time before we made that choice and try to make a different choice? I find this definition a sort of an oxymoron in disguise.

Others define free will as the freedom to follow one’s desires.  But what distinguishes ‘desire’ from ‘will’? Is there a distinction? And do desires lead to a will to act, or rather is there a will to desire first?

By the way, can there be action without desire? Just asking, because there are people who claim to have attained higher states of consciousness by means of contemplative practices where the action becomes more effective, precise, and conscious than in the usual intellectual states of awareness, precisely because one acts without desire, motivations, preferences, or plans. If so, that causal relationship that we assume to be so obvious and self-evident between will and desires or motivations, is a very questionable one. We are using psychological labels, such as ‘will’, ‘desire’, ‘intention’, ‘motivation’, etc., but without knowing what they really mean, other than through some superficial subjective experiences bubbling up from our subconscious meanders. In other words, we don't know ourselves.

Ultimately, all the concepts of the philosophy of mind are based on these fuzzy waves of our surface personality. Perhaps we can't go further than that, but at least we should become aware of the limitation of our present state of consciousness and how it obfuscates the mental categories, and thereby our discussions. That would clarify at least what we don't know.

Nonetheless, here I would like to focus on another approach to the problem of free will, and that is based on a more scientific rationale. Namely the question of whether determinism is compatible with the freedom of choice? Are all our thoughts, desires and actions already predetermined by our brain-states and the outside factors that we can’t control? Or do we need some sort of indeterminism to save the concept of free will?

The point is that, if the universe is ruled by purely deterministic laws, then every event, including human actions, our brain-states, down to all the neuronal activity, are physically and causally completely predetermined by preceding events and previous brain-states. This leads many to believe that, despite having the illusion to be free in making our choices, we are ultimately not much more than biological automatons. A point of view that is quite widespread, especially among those with a naturalistic and reductionist bend.

However, there are a couple of other possible approaches to the problem of free will, that can be summarized in two philosophical positions, namely that of the ‘compatibilists’ and the ‘libertarians’. Both maintain that we have free will–that is, for each choice we make, we could have chosen otherwise. But, while the compatibilists believe that a purely deterministic universe is compatible with the concept of free will, the libertarian rejects this idea to be possible even in principle and maintains that free will is a logically coherent concept only inside an indeterministic universe.

However, both points of view, that of the compatibilist and the libertarian, are plagued by a dilemma that is summarized in the so-called ‘standard objections against free will’, and which goes roughly as follows.

a)      The ‘determinism objection’: If all of reality is ruled only by deterministic laws, then also all the choices we make must be causally determined by our brain activity and environmental factors that we can’t control. Therefore, we can’t have free will.

b)      The ‘randomness objection’: If, however, the universe is ruled by some indeterministic laws and random or chance occurrences, that would break the causal chain of events, this would make us behave randomly in an uncontrolled way that can’t be the result of rational deliberations and intentional actions. All our life would end in uncontrollable chaos.

Thus, either way, neither determinism nor indeterminism are compatible with the idea of free will.

The standard objections against free will are a subject of ongoing debate in philosophy. You will find plenty of diverging opinions.

Let me unpack briefly my standpoint.

I agree with the determinism objection. If we believe that all of reality is ruled exclusively by deterministic laws that can be described by a physical causal determinism of the laws of physics, and that predetermine the state in time of all particles, atoms, and cells in our brain by a strict sequence of predetermined events subjected to cause and effect, then every present brain-state in each instant is fixed by its previous physical state with its boundary conditions as well. There is no room, not even in principle, to brake this causal chain allowing for any sort of freedom to creep in.

However, the randomness objection can be circumvented if we ask ourselves what the words ‘randomness’ or ‘chance’ mean, after all? If we adopt these terms in this philosophical and psychological contexts, these are more buzzwords than clearly terminologically defined terms. In science, we use it to indicate something statistically unpredictable, and we shouldn't append it more significance than that. In science there isn't a definition for randomness that relates it to a lack of agency or (free or unfree) will, lack of motivations, desires, or planned action, and even not to a lack of goal-directedness. A phenomenon can appear random and yet be the manifestation of a willed and purposeful agent (think of an encrypted image: it looks like meaningless noise but, once we have the decryption key, it reveals the content of a meaningful message.) There is no logical and semantic connection between randomness and purposefulness or control over something. It is these sorts of unaware conflations that we have first to identify and deprogram from our thought patterns that instinctively imply or link one notion with the other, when there is none. Once we become able to do so, things appear much more clearly.

Another assumption we always make, more or less unconsciously, is that every event must have a cause. After all, how could it be otherwise?

But if so, we must be also aware that we have eliminated true indeterminism from the outset. What is the distinction between determinism and indeterminism? It sounds intuitive and obvious, but it is not at all. To avoid using conflating nomenclature (typical also among scientists), let me clarify the difference.

Indeterminism and determinism are mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories. Something is either a deterministic process or indeterministic. Consider the moment before you make a decision. At time T₁ you haven’t made the decision, at T₂ you have. Does your state at time T₁ cause your state at time T₂? If the answer is positive, we are talking about a deterministic process, otherwise, the latter case is considered an indeterministic one.

However, for the purpose of our free will philosophical ruminations we should be a little more careful with this and become more precise. Because, what we should always have in mind is that the above definition defines not two but three forms of causality: Determinism, pseudo-randomness, and ontic determinism which can be represented as follows.

Determinism: A physical event and/or the state of a physical system at time T₁ causes another event and/or state of another physical system at T₂ (such as a billiard ball colliding with another billiard ball, this causes the latter to acquire a momentum after time T₂ >T₁.)

Classical indeterminism (‘deterministic chaos’ or ‘pseudo-randomness’): Processes that are so complicated and involving so many particles and that are ruled by so many physical parameters that make it impossible to predict their dynamical evolution in time. But deep down, they are still completely deterministic. Such as the jittering of a pollen grain in the water, the air turbulence, tossing dice, etc. These phenomena are still ruled by deterministic laws. They appear to us as ‘chaotic’ or ‘random’ only because of our ignorance as external observers who don’t know every detail and can’t calculate all that’s going on. Thus, also in this case, events and states at T₁ cause events and states at T₂. It is not indeterminism at all, just a more complicated determinism we have lost track of. Ultimately, the distinction between determinism and pseudo-randomness is only conventional, not physically real.

Ontic indeterminism (quantum indeterminism): the only true indeterminism we believe to exist in Nature is in quantum mechanics. This is the only real indeterminism, and that, contrary to common belief, we never observe in our everyday experience (other than, perhaps, in human behavior?) It is an indeterminism proper to the world of elementary particles. And ‘true’ determinism means that a physical event or the state of a system at time T₂ was not (or not necessarily) caused by any previous event or state of any other system at T₁. In this sense it is an ‘ontic’, ‘inherent’, and ‘intrinsic indeterminism’ that does not depend on the ignorance of an external observer, but rather is internal to the process.

But what does it mean that we have indeterminism when an event or the physical state of something has not been caused by anything else? Many try desperately to answer this question somehow reconciling the ontic indeterminism with pseudo-random processes–that is, by recovering true indeterminism through some complicated deterministic processes. But that is a logical impossibility. Either something depends on something past, or it does not. One can’t bring them under the same umbrella. Having it both would lead only to contradictions and paradoxes.

So, again, what does it mean that a present phenomenon has popped into existence, and yet without having any logical and physical causal relationship to any past events or states of anything else?

The question doesn’t emerge because of a mere philosophical exercise, it is something very real that most physicists believe to be at work in several quantum phenomena. Quantum randomness is not considered pseudo-randomness but rather an ontic type of indeterminism. There are certain physical phenomena, say the instant at which an atomic nucleus decays, that happen by pure chance, without any preceding cause that determined that event to actualize in that instant rather than another. Quantum mechanics is considered a theory without hidden variables–that is, it is not a theory where the unpredictability of phenomena and its randomness emerge due to our ignorance, but rather is intrinsic. Physicists limit themselves to saying that quantum mechanics is a theory without hidden variables and rarely question what it really means other than saying that “well, everything is random, and happens without a purpose or an aim.” But this is not what the theory says. Quantum physics tells us nothing about the lack of purpose or aim in Nature. Whereas a theory without hidden variables means that there are no other variables–meaning physical causes–that led, say a particle, to hit a position on a screen rather another place. How should we interpret this, other than saying that it is all ‘random’?

There are only two ways out.

The first is to admit a sort of ‘magic’ that rules Nature where things just happen for no reason and where physical states came out of nothing. Yes, particles can quickly pop in and out of existence, and that’s weird, but we should stop questioning further this state of affairs. We should limit ourselves to the math.

The other possibility, however, is that to admit how a principle of ‘self-determination’, or ‘self-causation’ is at work in Nature. Something some philosophers of the past (such as Spinoza, Descartes, Hegel, and others) already considered even without any knowledge about quantum phenomena and called ‘causa sui’.

If you believe that to be a too illogical or a too weird concept to be acceptable, then you are left only with a principle of creation from nothing–that is, something that didn’t exist and suddenly appears ex-nihilo. If you prefer that, go for it. But, in my opinion, the idea that in Nature there are things that could self-determine itself has more explanatory power. Because it does not ask for a creation out of anything, rather it allows for a modification of something by itself and in itself, without an external natural necessity imposed by a law or external natural phenomenon leading to the change of state from the outside. Something that determines itself independently from outside causes might be not the kind of concept we are familiar with the Newtonian macroscopic everyday life but makes perfect sense as a definition for something having free will.

After all, also in our everyday semantics, we associate the notion of freedom pretty much with that of self-determination. If we have a problem with that in physics, it is because we are accustomed to thinking in these self-determining terms only in a sociological, and political context, not in the physical world. But quantum physics may tell us a very different story.

From the perspective of self-determination, or self-causation, or causa sui, the randomness objection acquires a different meaning. Because here, in the self-causative and self-determining paradigm, the indeterminacy, or what to us appears ontic randomness, is the expression and manifestation of will and agency. In this view, an individual’s will and agency are considered contingent neither on deterministic, or pseudo-random processes, nor on indeterministic quantum phenomena. The logical fallacy one makes with the randomness objection is that we imagine our mind, consciousness, or brains tapping into a ‘reservoir’ of indeterministic processes. Then the conclusion that we would be driven by erratic and uncontrollable behaviors is unavoidable. But if we admit the uncertainty of quantum phenomena being the expression of a self-determining will or mind, or eventually a universal mind in all atoms and particles, then the paradox resolves.

Self-causation reveals itself to be the opposite of what in our normal parlance randomness suggests. My actions are neither caused nor uncaused, but self-caused. I don’t do things accidentally and am not ruled by blind chance. Will, desire, planned action, or my preferences are not subjected to a whimsical destiny, they originate in free choices or, we should call them more appropriately, ‘self-deliberations.’

At any rate, it is time that science transcends its self-imposed classical anthropomorphic understanding of the law of causation and explores other venues. Then, finally, free will and self-determination may find their way back to themselves, again.