What is the evidence FOR human free will?

Answer 1

Great Question Joe

Is there really any such thing as free will? Some scientists say yes!

Science has long been associated with the belief that free will is only an illusion and cannot really exist. That is because science has been associated with naturalism and materialism.

And it makes sense, too: If you are really only a material entity, you cannot have free will any more than a brick can. Case closed.

There are a couple of problems with this thinking, however. Quite apart from the fact that it does not square with human experience, the model of the universe that it comes from is outdated.

Isaac Newton, whom many consider the greatest scientist who ever lived, developed the laws of gravitation. We owe him an inestimable debt for figuring out just why apples fall but the moon circles the Earth. The universe he described was tidy and orderly, but it did have a problem. It did not seem to leave much room for immaterial notions like free will. If the apple doesn't have an opinion about whether it falls, why should you truly be thought to have an opinion about whether you will tell the truth or tell a lie?

Of course, you can say that you know by faith that you have a mind or a soul, but if these entities cannot be described scientifically, they will likely be discounted or disbelieved.

And that is a big problem! It means that a science account of human beings becomes quite different from what we humans say about ourselves. Surely there is something wrong with that. A good science account of human beings should coincide with what most humans know to be true about themselves.

The question of whether there can be free will turns, on at least one level, on whether there can be truly undetermined actions in nature. Albert Einstein said no, God does not play dice with the universe. His friend and debating partner Niels Bohr, a founder of Quantum mechanics said yes.

The answer turns out to be yes. At the molecular level—and that is the level that is relevant to thinking, because our brains are operated by molecules passing electrical charges back and forth—there is only probability, not certainty, about what will happen. That does not prove we have free will; it merely provides a possible basis for free will in the real world.

A recent paper by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Henry P. Stapp, and Mario Beauregard, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society offers a basis in neuroscience for free will. The paper can be a demanding read, but it demonstrates that quantum effects provide a science-based—but not materialist—account of free will in the brain.

Essentially, this paper argues that materialist ideas that deny free will are rooted in outdated notions of classical physics. The authors understand the brain in quantum mechanical terms instead. A quantum understanding of the brain does two things: 1) It provides a science-based account of how free will can exist, and 2) the account squares with neurological observations.

Lead author Schwartz, for example, has successfully treated obsessive-compulsive patients by getting them to deliberately refocus their thoughts and reorganize the relevant sections of their brains—something they should not be able to do if there is no free will.

The paper concludes,

"Materialist ontology draws no support from contemporary physics, and is in fact contradicted by it. The notion that all physical behaviour is explainable in principle solely in terms of a local mechanical process is a holdover from physical theories of an earlier era. … In this account brain behaviour that appears to be caused by mental effort is actually caused by mental effort: the causal efficacy of mental effort is no illusion. …

"A shift to this pragmatic approach that incorporates agent-based choices as primary empirical input variables may be as important to progress in neuroscience and psychology as it was to progress in atomic physics."

I would think this should be bad news for those who put a lot of effort into denying free will. Of course, it is bad news for me too because it means that I must accept responsibility for the bad behaviour that I wish I did not have to take responsibility for. Frankly, I would love to blame my bad behaviour on my genes, but I know perfectly well that those genes did not do it. I did.

St. Paul characterizes this dilemma very well, when we writes,

"So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:21-24, NIV)

Paul has the capacity to know what is right and wrong, and the free will to do the good and avoid the evil, but the trouble is—like most of us, he doesn't want to. At least not with a unified mind. He wants to want to do what is good, but he often doesn't. Is there any help for a problem like that?

Yes there is, he says: "Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Divine grace does not usually overrule us and remove our free will; it strengthens us, as it strengthened Paul, so that we can more easily choose the good things that are God's will for us.

Full disclosure: Mario Beauregard is the lead author on a forthcoming book on the spiritual side of human beings, as seen by recent findings in neuroscience. I am the co-author.

Denyse O'Leary is a Canadian science writer/journalist living in Toronto. She can be reached at [e-mail].

Source: http://www.christianity.ca/faith/weblog/2005/7.20.html

Hope this helps ;0)

Answer 2

Before you can collect evidence for or against something, you first have to have something approaching a firm, testable definition. But I have yet to hear even that much as far as free will is concerned.

Consider: A person with free will COULD freely choose to make identical choices at every decision point. How then would we ever know that they COULD have done differently?

Consider: The only way to completely test that the same pre-conditions allowed different outcome when a different choice was made would be to replicate the pre-conditions EXACTLY. Something theoretically possible, but practically impossible.

It bears mention, however, that though the latter condition is untestable, we can approach it. We can make the differences less and less. And in tests of this nature, different outcomes still do occur. Those who are strict determinists are forced into the position of saying that smaller and smaller variances are causing the different outcomes... still, this hardly invalidates their theory as it is not hard to produce situations where even the minutest change can produce drastically different outcomes.

Answer 3

I have a book called the case for the creator. In it there is a doctor who will remain nameless as I have lent the book out and do not remember. He was if I believe correctly the father of neurosurgery. He became convinced of the existence of a soul as he would stimulate the nervous system and ask the person on the table to exert force against the force he was using. I don't know all the details of the experiments but it led to the belief that we are more than just chemicals. That we have a central self that can exert force against our bodies. I can only suggest reading the book yourselves to get possible a more accurate description. Author is Lee Strobel the former legal editor for the Chicago tribune and an investigative reporter.

Answer 4

The Baron de Montesquieu once said that our evil nature must be kept at bay through a strict social order. in retrospect, if his statement were true, there is no such thing as free will, because we live in a society were conscious and even afraid of what other people might say or think. If you would consider anything as "free will," then look at prisons were those who expressed their free will, through whatever means, are incarcerated. One might also see free will as civil disobedience like in the Civil Rights Movement, civil wars or even terrorists attacks. The fact of the matter is that the only true form of free will is through expression, which again, would probably land us in some sort of trouble in one social circle or other.

Answer 5

Subjective Experience. That's it. What would even be an example of something that would qualify for evidence of free will? Each of us has intimate experience with the feeling of having a free will, so many of us believe that free will exists.

Long ago people used to hold the belief that we were given free will by god(s) and possessed a soul which governed our actions in a free manner. Luckily that faded into the dark ages of our intellectual traditions.

Currently many of the attempts to "prove" free will relate to quantum effects. To current scientific abilities, it appears that there are actions of subatomic particles which may be random. When the free will proponents heard this they came clamoring out the shadows that the destruction of intellectually respectable religion had left them. They cried "Oh look! Free will is scientific again! If there are random effects that occur on a quantum level then we can be free again!"

Of course this makes no sense. That response is the result of another false dichotomy: Either materialistic determinism is true because we are made of atoms which follow physical laws...or we have free will! If it can be proven that atoms do not act deterministically, they say, we have free will again! But this is clearly ridiculous. Ultimate randomness permits no more freedom than does ultimate determinism. They are replacing one shadow with another. (Let alone that what occurs on one level does not necessitate truths on another level)

Those who have studied the subject in earnest and are intellectually honest are compelled to admit that there is no philosophical reason to continue to hold the belief that humans have free will. There are bevies of elaborate philosophical works on the topic of free will, but if you get right down to the nuts and bolts, the fact is that free will is merely an illusion. The important question then becomes: what is the best response to that strange realization?

Answer 6

According to a good deal of physics there is no evidence like the "Grandfather paradox" for example. However I choose not to view this subject in the way of complex mathematics and probability physics as some people who are hell bent on believing they have no free will. If it is our destiny to do something, that means we have no choice in the matter of fulfilling it, however the antithesis of this would be we had all the choice in creating our path of destiny. I guess what im saying is, you can do whatever you want (inside laws both created by man and nature) and by doing whatever you want mentally it shouldn't matter if the physical manifestation of your destiny is set. Since the path you took to get there was your own.

Answer 7

Science does not hold the answer to this, since free will is immaterial. The scientific method can only be applied to physical realities. The answer lies in experience. Do you feel like you have control over your actions? Why would you feel bad about doing something wrong if you had no free will?

Answer 8

We call the electrical discharges between nerve cells in our brain which are connected loosely or strongly depending on the physical and emotional experiences we have gone through, a decision.

So, yes, it is a electrical/chemical reaction determined by the way our cells are connected and therefore it might look "pre-determined" to you. And yes, because it is unique for every individual, you can call it "free" will, too. And no, no "outside being" determines what your brain will look like, it is your genes and outside influence working together, therefore it is "free from predetermined fate". Now, ask me if there is a god.

Answer 9

1) There is no free will; I don't believe I have free will.
You are destined to believe this, and you just happen to be right.

2) There is no free will; I believe I have free will.
You are destined to believe this, and you just happen to be wrong.

3) There is free will; I believe there isn't.
You are free to believe that, but you are wrong.

4) There is free will; I believe it.
You are free to believe that. And you are right.

1&2. It doesn't matter what you believe. You are destined to believe the way you do.

3. If you have free will, it is absurd to believe this.

Answer 10

are you talking about fate vs. free will like in Oedipus Rex and Dante's inferno