It has been some time since I assembled an entry on the topic of free will even though I consider it a topic of highest importance. As I have stated previously, I am convinced that human beings have free will due to my years of experience living as a human being. People are responsible for the choices they make. I say I am "convinced" of this because it seems to me to be the most obvious condition that I experience every moment of every day, and I just can't deny the obvious despite some well-reasoned arguments against it.
In this
entry, I'd like to present some basic assertions that kind of summarize my
thinking and then, in the next entry, delve into an issue that I believe is
directly related to free will: creativity. It doesn't seem to me that philosophers talk
much about creativity, but maybe I've just missed it. My thoughts on this topic may be naive - I
really hate finding out I'm just restating what others have been saying for
centuries - but I'm going to dive in nonetheless.
First, I
have previously alluded to the concept that the existence of free will implies
that there are three different categories of events. To be specific, these three categories are:
1. Caused events
2. Random events
3. Willed events
The
materialist + hard determinist probably only accepts the first category of
events. Actually, that may be true of
most people, even if they haven't thought much about the topic. Indeed, science itself can only really allow
for caused events. Specifically, we, as
scientists, assume that every event has a cause and we try to understand what
that cause is. Science is an exciting
exploration[1]. We also expect that such causes are
repeatable, and therefore we can perform experiments that allow us to determine
the cause of the event under study. Through
science we have discovered that many events that might have been considered "random"
or "willed" are actually caused by some natural and material
precursor. In fact, I'm guessing that
most scientists believe that eventually every
event will be shown to be caused. I
believe that also implies that most scientists expect that every event is
repeatable and thus can be the subject of an experiment. In my view, at least some human decisions -
those made via free will - are not
repeatable and thus cannot be subject to scientific experimentation.
Before I
move on to the third category of events, just a brief word about random
events. I don't know if they really
exist. It could be that all events that
appear to be random actually have either a cause or are willed. I'm not really sure there is a way to
disprove the existence of random events unless you could demonstrate that every
event fit into the other two categories, and that seems pretty difficult! But, to me, it seems likely that they do
exist.
The most
controversial - and most interesting - category of events are those in the
third category, which I call "willed events." Willed events, by my definition, have no
cause, at least no cause in the normal way we use the term, and they are not random. How can something be not caused and not
random? It's very hard to conceptualize
such an event, although frankly it is no harder to conceptualize than quantum
entanglement! But, just because willed
events are difficult to conceptualize does not mean that they must not exist. In fact, plain logic dictates that there has
to be some original cause that is uncaused.
That could be "God" or something else. Christians say that God is the uncaused
cause, but how did God start? We might
say that such a question is outside of our realm of understanding, but that is a
highly annoying and uncomfortable answer for most human beings. We naturally want to understand and explain
everything. I know that some physicists
propose some kind of matter+anti-matter (="nothing") or quantum foam or
something to claim that "something" can come from "nothing"
and therefore you can eliminate the problem of a first cause. In my view, that is just redefining
"nothing" to equal "something" and then saying
"see: you really can get something
from nothing - you don't need any God or any original cause." I don't accept that line of thinking as being
logical in any way. Therefore, I
conclude that there is at least one uncaused cause. However, from this argument alone, all you
can really say is that there must be at least two categories of events, because
the one necessary original cause could have been either random or willed.
I put free
will and uncaused causes together into one category because I do understand the
logic behind the determinist's argument that every decision, when you work your
way back, seems like it must have a cause.
If the decisions we make are not caused by our genetics and our
environment, then what are they caused by?
If we have a soul that determines our character (i.e. is the cause of
our actions), then how did that soul come to have the character it has? There must be something that caused our soul
to be the way it was. Or if, on the
other hand, you claim that God created our souls, then God must have
established the character of our souls when He created us, so therefore God is
the cause of our character. Since I
claim free will is a real thing for each
human being, I have to accept the
implications. The major implication, as
I see it, is that the exercise of free will has to be, in some way, a
"first cause" all on its own. That
would mean that every time a human being exercises free will, they are
establishing a new uncaused cause. I
recognize that is difficult to accept.
Also, for those who believe that God created us (as I do), this concept
has its own set of difficult implications, but I will have to deal with those
in a future entry. What I want to say
here is that I accept this implication
fully. In fact, it excites me, as I
will explain in the next entry.
Thus, the
claim of real free will implies that we make decisions that, by our own
actions, assume the existence of something that is not fully caused, not fully
determined and not random. We make a decision and we are responsible for
it. Of course sometimes people do things
that are entirely determined by their environment or physical condition or even
genetics (or a combination of all of these), and I don't consider those actions
to carry moral responsibility. Further,
I don't think we actually exercise real free will very often. As I have discussed elsewhere, true free will is rare. But even rare free will is sufficient to make us responsible for our
actions.
I think
willed events are non-material in origin and thus require the existence of some
kind of supernatural realm. I also think
that the concept of eternality - that God exists outside of time (and space) -
is also somehow a part of category #3. I
will have to think that through in the future, but caused events seem to
require some concept of time and therefore it seems to me that uncaused events
and timelessness somehow fit together.
I think willed
events can only be generated by a "person"[2]. Within my knowledge and experience, there are
only two types of "persons":
human beings and God. God, if He
exists, surely has the property that He is an "uncaused cause." And God certainly has free will. Whether human beings can really exhibit a
will - a free will - an uncaused cause - is obviously open for debate. I don't think you can say the same thing
about God. You could debate his
existence, but if he does exist, he must
have this quality of being able to generate willed events. So, I think all theists would also have to
accept that willed events are real.
I'd like
to give an example that helps illustrate what a willed event is like, but any
time I try to give such an example, I end up having to use a human agent acting
with free will as part of the example. And so my example becomes circular. I don't apologize for that problem: that's just reality.
But, to
conclude this particular entry, for me the argument for free will always comes back to our daily, moment-by-moment experiences. If my experiences are so unreliable that free
will is an illusion, then I cannot rely on my thinking at all and I might as
well give up reasoning about anything. Besides,
I really like having the freedom to choose to believe that free will
exists. For all of you who deny free
will, you are stuck having to be told what to believe (i.e. your belief was determined
by something other than you). I would
hate that!
