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Our belief in
free will forms the premise for why
we do things, and how we decide. It
is the basis for our entire
civilization, for our entire
society, and for our personal
lives. In order to create a more
understanding and intelligent world
that is in line with the way things
are, and isn’t based on a
misconception, we’ve got to explore
this matter. We’ve got to overcome
this illusion of free will. It may
take several decades, but the
purpose of this show is to help
create a better world for everyone
by helping us overcome this
illusion.
What do we mean
when we say free will? Basically,
we mean that our decisions are
completely up to us, and that
nothing that is not in our control
is influencing, or compelling, us to
make a decision. But, we understand
that we all have an unconscious, and
that our unconscious is where we
store all of our data, memories, and
thought processes. Every decision
we make is based on words, concepts,
memories and processes stored in
this unconscious. The unconscious
is not in our control. It’s
completely unconscious. That’s why
we call it the unconscious. If that
part of our brain is actually making
these decisions for us, we can’t
correctly claim we have a free
will. Something that we’re not in
control of is making these
decisions. Obviously, what we have
is a causal will, meaning that it is
caused. Everything has a cause.
Nothing happens without a cause.
Causality is the fundamental
universal process.
In order to have
a free will, we would have to
somehow circumvent causality, but we
can’t do that. Any decision we make
has to have a cause, because we are
making it for a reason. The problem
is that if we have a decision that
has a cause, and that cause has a
cause, and that cause has a cause,
and you’re going back in time in a
causal regression that ultimately
leads to before our birth, before
the Planet was created, and to the
time of the Big Bang, free will must
be impossible.
In the late
1600s, Sir Isaac Newton created what
we now refer to as Newtonian, or
classical, physics. This theory is
completely causal. We can measure
the position and momentum – meaning
direction and velocity – of objects,
whether they are planets or objects
here on Earth, and with that
information, we can calculate their
future. We can predict exactly
where they would be moments, our
years, later.
When we track a
comet through the sky, or track the
other planets, we know exactly where
they are going to be at any moment
thousands of years into the future
because these objects obey strict
causal law. The obvious conclusion
from this classical, Newtonian,
physics is that free will is
impossible because, again,
everything has to have a cause.
It was during the
early 20th century that
Warner Heisenberg, Neils Bohr, and a
few other physicists developed what
is known as quantum mechanics.
Heisenberg published a paper in 1927
that described what we now refer to
as the uncertainty principle. At
the macro level, let’s say we’re
measuring a basketball. We can fire
photons at it, and, with enough
precision for prediction, measure
its position and momentum. Light
particles do not substantially
affect the movement of the
basketball because the basketball is
so large relative to the photon.
But, when we get
to the quantum level of sub-atomic
particles, this is not the case.
When we fire one particle at another
to obtain that measurement of
position and momentum, the measuring
particle knocks into the target
particle, and thereby moves it into
a different trajectory. The crux of
the uncertainty principle is that we
can’t simultaneously measure the
position and momentum of a
particle. To the extent that we get
the position more precisely, we lose
information about its momentum. To
the extent that we get its momentum
more precisely, we lose information
about its position. That’s pretty
clear. We can’t any longer use
classical mechanics to make
predictions at the quantum level
because of the uncertainty
principle, so we rely on
probabilities.
We understand the
behavior of groups of particles, and
then develop probabilities for
them. At the quantum level,
measurement changes from being a
completely physical, direct, and
clearly causal process to a
statistical process, derived from
probabilities for individual
particles based on their causal
behavior within groups.
The problem for
the proper understanding of human
will came when those physicists then
interpreted what it meant that you
couldn’t simultaneously measure the
position and momentum of a
particle. Bohr, Heisenberg, and a
few others, came up with what came
to be known as the Copenhagen
Interpretation of quantum
mechanics. What they claimed – and
we can see the absurdity of it from
the onset – is that since we can’t
simultaneously measure the position
and momentum of a particle,
particles don’t simultaneously have
a position and momentum.
They also claimed
that because we can’t see what is
happening after a measurement, (once
we measure the target particle, its
position and momentum have changed
because of the impact of the
measuring particle) the particle’s
behavior was somehow uncaused. They
claimed that particle behavior at
the sub-atomic level had no cause.
I’ve read some of work of Heisenberg
and Bohr, and of some of the other
physicists who championed this
interpretation, and learned that
these guys were quite into
philosophy. My hunch is that what
they were trying to do with the
Copenhagen Interpretation was to
revive the idea that humans have a
free will.
They made these
claims, but the best they could do
with them was to assert that
particle behavior at the quantum
level is uncaused, or random. They
claimed that these things at the
quantum level happened for no reason
at all – for no cause. The problem
for the human will question is that
if something is happening for
absolutely no cause at all, it can’t
be caused by a human will, free or
otherwise. If it’s happening
arbitrarily, or at random, obviously
we are not causing it.
For some
phenomena, like this simultaneous
particle position and momentum
measurement, we don’t know
everything that’s going on. With
radio-active decay, for example, we
can know the half-life, or rate at
which a group of particles will
decay, but for any given particle,
we can’t precisely predict when that
radio-active isotope will decay, or
transform, into something else.
Because of that example, and because
of the Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle, physicists and
philosophers began to absurdly claim
that this radioactive decay must be
uncaused.
We’ve gone over
how causality makes free will
impossible. Let’s go through it
again, and then we’ll go through why
randomness also makes free will
impossible in a bit more detail, so
that we more clearly understand.
We make a
decision. Let’s say our decision
has a cause, and is not random in
the absurd sense of uncaused. There
is a reason for why we make a
decision, for why we chose what we
chose. Remember that everything has
a cause. Nothing happens that is
not caused. There was a religious
argument about this many centuries
ago about the Latin phrase “causa
sui,” meaning the cause of itself.
They would ask themselves “if God
created the universe – the world –
then who created God?” Their answer
was that God created Her/Himself.
Let’s say we
accept that God, or the universe –
the logic-transcending very
beginning – caused itself. After
that first cause, everything has a
cause. The best way to understand
this, as I’ve explained before, is
to consider the entire universe at
the state of the Big Bang, 13.7
billion years ago. The state of the
universe at the very next moment in
time was the exact and complete
result of that first moment. What
we have is particles moving
sequentially through space in time.
By bringing that state-by-state
evolution of the universe causally
up to the present, we can understand
that everything that is happening
now is a direct and complete result
of the state-of-the-universe
evolution.
We can also
understand this in terms of
decisions. We make a decision.
There is a reason for it. That
reason is a cause. And there is a
cause for that cause, and a cause
for that cause, and a cause for that
cause, each cause spanning further
and further back in time. We see
causality regressing into the past.
Everything has to have a cause, and
a cause must precede its effect.
By definition, a
cause cannot come after its effect.
The cause is happening a moment
before its effect, and the cause of
that cause is happening the moment
before that. If we follow that
chain of moment-by-moment causes and
effects, we can understand that
whatever we’re doing right now is
the direct result of a causal chain
that spans back to before planet
Earth was created. There is
obviously no room for a free will to
emerge from within this causal
chain.
Now let’s address
randomness. Randomness sometimes
gets confused because it’s given
various different meanings. Here’s
one that makes sense. I have a deck
of cards, and ask you to pick one
out at random. What we understand
that to mean is that you’re going to
pick one out without giving it any
thought. You’re not going to count
from the beginning of the deck to
the one you want, or use any other
system or plan for your choice. It
will be arbitrary. That’s the
conventional, colloquial sense of
randomness that we tend to use.
In physics,
however, there is a more precise
technical meaning of randomness.
Some physicists define randomness as
something that is unpredictable.
That’s a mistake. Sure, randomness
is unpredictable, but so is
causality, to a completely accurate
degree. Some physicists will say
that unpredictable means
unpredictable in theory, but not in
practice. But, as human beings,
with our subjective perspective on
whatever it is we’re trying to
predict, we can’t know all of the
information necessary. We’d have to
know the exact position and momentum
of every particle in the universe to
make a completely accurate
prediction of whatever. Secondly,
because of the uncertainty
principle, we can’t directly make
those predictions.
What is
interesting is that our quantum
probabilities would not work if the
particle behavior being measured was
not inherently causal. A single
particle acting randomly, in the
sense of unpredictably, and
uncaused, cannot suddenly become
causal when it joins other particles
within a group.
Some physicists
say that randomness means
unpredictability, but when we ask
them “what does unpredictable mean?”
they say that the particle’s
behavior is not being caused.
Again, such an assertion is
completely absurd, and based on
neither logic, nor scientific
method, nor empirical observation.
There is no such thing as true
randomness. There are random events
generators that will generate
“random” numbers, but they are not
completely random because
computations are completely causal
processes.
When some
scientists claim that something is
random, it seems they don’t
understand exactly what they are
claiming. They are claiming that
some things that happen do not have
a cause – that they happen
uncaused. Unfortunately, in
physics, this is not something they
like to explore very much. Most
college-level introductory physics
textbooks will not even have an
entry on causality or randomness.
They might have one on the
uncertainty principle. They
consider the matter theoretical,
whereas most of physics today
focuses on practical applications.
But, the theoretical understanding
of what is happening at both the
macro and quantum level is very
important as it relates to this
question of human will.
There is no such
thing as randomness in the sense of
uncaused. Everything must have a
cause. There has to be a reason why
something has happened. Again, the
best way to understand this is to
consider that if anything is
happening at this moment in time, it
is completely dependent on, or
caused by, the state of the
universe, as the most complete
description, at the previous
moment.
Let’s say there
was such a thing as randomness in
the sense of uncaused. The notion
of free will involves
accountability. With a moral
decision, a free will believer will
say “we decided something because of
some moral principle or principles.
” But, once we make that decision,
and describe it as a moral decision,
that’s our cause. In other words,
we made the decision because of some
moral principle or precept. Or, we
made the decision because you
“wanted to.” But, that want is a
desire, and that desire is a cause.
In physics, the
Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum
mechanics is actually what you will
find in most high school and college
textbooks, because most standard
physics textbooks are written by
physicists who have never delved
much into this matter of causality
vs. randomness. Most leading
physicists understand that physics
is completely causal, and that
quantum behavior is completely
causal, but this understanding has
curiously not made its way through
to many other physicists. This
embarrassment to the field likely
has something to do with the
question of free will.
Some physicists
clearly believe in free will. To
acknowledge that nothing can be
uncaused would be to admit that we
have no free will. Since the
Copenhagen Interpretation in the mid
1920s, philosophers have been saying
that particle behavior at the
sub-atomic level is indeterminate.
It’s random, so that leaves an
opening for free will. It’s a
completely irrational conclusion,
but that is what they conclude in
order to preserve their belief in
free will.
Heisenberg, and
Bohr especially, pushed the idea of
randomness and acausality on
physicists when quantum mechanics
was entirely new, and nobody really
understood it. Actually,
nobody really understands it
today. Admittedly, there is
amazingly counter-intuitive stuff
that is going on at that level.
Many physicists back then, with
little or no investigation of the
question, simply concluded that if
Heisenberg and Bohr said that
quantum behavior is uncaused, it
must be uncaused.
Einstein and
several other physicists attempted
to clarify the matter, but they went
about it in a misguided way. They
didn’t focus on the causality of the
matter; they focused on particle
measurement. Einstein and his
colleagues wanted to demonstrate
that although you can’t
simultaneously measure the position
and momentum of a particle directly,
such measurement could be
accomplished by proxy. That effort
led to a lot of experimentation, and
it turned out that a proxy
measurement will not work as a proof
for causality.
They didn’t take
the right approach on this back
then, but since the 1980s,
physicists have, more and more, come
to reject the Copenhagen
Interpretation of quantum
mechanics. They understand that
everything has a cause. This
Copenhagen interpretation has
actually been replaced to a great
extent by an interpretation of
reality that to my mind doesn’t make
much sense, but at least it’s
deterministic. It’s called the Many
Worlds Interpretation, and it says
that any time we make a decision,
there are an infinite number of
possibilities that can arise from
that decision. Each of those
possibilities supposedly takes place
in a different universe. There is
no credible evidence, of course, for
that conclusion.
The main thing
here is that various other
interpretations are now more in
vogue, and more accepted than,
Copenhagen. There have actually
been several polls conducted on
this. In one, the Many Worlds
Interpretation had over fifty
percent of respondents agreeing that
it was the dominant theory of
nature. In physics, the field-wide
transition from indeterministic to
deterministic interpretations of
quantum mechanics is already
happening.
The fact that we
human beings do not have a free will
challenges the very foundation of
our understanding of who we are.
We’re living an amazing delusion.
The irony here is that nature
herself – the causal past, or God –
has compelled us to have this
illusion. It’s like when we see
what we think is water on the
horizon while driving down a long
straight road in the sun. It’s an
illusion. Hopefully within a couple
of decades or sooner we’ll all
generally understand that our wills
are completely causal, that there is
no such thing as true randomness,
and that if there were, that would
also leave no room for a free will.
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