The Paradox of Choice

For the first time that I can remember there are three books recently released that deal with Free-Will, all of which are getting attention from critics, philosophers and even the corner edges of the general public. Why such a topic would be news worthy now is a funny thing. Free-Will is addressed within the first two pages of the Judeo - Christian Bible. Plato, Descartes and Sartre all wrote about it. It is a perennial topic amongst the religious and the philosophically minded. Maybe this is why when I want to talk about it over dinner for the 100th time, my wife rolls her eyes. Or why when I mention that Sam Harris’s book called “Free-Will” is 13,000 words she say's “honey you spout out more words than that on free-will every-night while I am trying to sleep.” Perhaps this is one of those things that should be left alone as unsolvable. The thing is, there has actually been recent scientific research done on the question of free-will, that some claim disproves  the possibility, leaving only for a deterministic, or random universe. I am one of those people. I feel that humans may be unique in many things in this vast universe, but being the only matter in nature capable of decision making seems overly myopic, so I discard it simply for that reason (though apparently I take many more words in doing so). So the books by Michael Gazzaniga, and Harris were both good reads and I respect both authors, and of course I am not a neuro-scientist so I learned a lot. Still they didn’t inform me greatly on the issue of Free -Will itself. There is one thought provoking idea that somewhere around word 5000 of the Harris book that occurred to me. The major point that Harris makes in the book is to point out several experiments in which an EEG was taken on a person choosing cards. The results of the study showed that the brain registers a choice of which card to choose, before the conscious person does. This is fascinating, as it does point to consciousness as being an observer of other neural actions. In others words if we are who we think we are, we are just watching, not controlling. It is our vast nervous system that is running the show. To me that doesn’t really address free-will so much as conscious will. Perhaps free-will does emerge in other ways not associated with consciousness, though personally I don’t think so.

What this all did was make me try to close the gap as far as I could between consciousness and unconsciousness. Picture if we accept two things; that consciousness makes us have the feeling of free-will, and that consciousness is merely observation of our bodies actions. So consciousness is the illusion of control. So is it then possible to be in a state where we are completely conscious, but aware that we have no free-will?


There is one that I have experienced and that is the playing of completely improvisational music. I am not speaking of music which is an improvisation on a song. It is rather an improvisation that just starts and finishes, leaps and drags as it wants for as long as it wants. There comes a time in which the delay from thought to action becomes unnoticeable, and I become aware that the word free jazz is actually wrong, as it is the moment when I know that consciousness is not controlling the music. I am not free. It is just as much my music, as “God Bless America” was Irving Berlin’s, but it didn’t come from deliberation, and I would say it didn’t come from choice. The distance between conscious and unconsciousness had been narrowed to the point where it was fully immersed in the whole self, without the need for decision. (to hear some of this type of playing go here. I am uncomposed and unrehearsed with Frederico Ughi, Daniel Carter, Demian Richardson and David Moss)

While this is my experience, my guess is that others have used other means to allow consciousness to be a pure observer without the need for deliberate action. LSD, or too much Ambien (I have tried this one) for example can do this. This is also why booze  frees, or in reality takes away the feeling of choice. Some writers produce inspiring work drunk and others don't. You can feel it in the style. Kerouac wrote without conscious meditation, and was drunk the entire time. Like with jazz which was considered free, I would guess that Jack was not expressing freely what he willed himself to feel, but rather the opposite. He was allowing himself to write free from the illusion of freedom. This is the strange paradox that binds us in a life where rational decision making is required, but for experiential and ultimately scientific reasons we realize that freedom is illusory. While that sounds like bondage, I would look to these arts, and see if when we are really in touch with the moment and have narrowed the conscious band to a sliver of recognition, we are not for those rare moments seeing ourselves as we are. We are blindly, euphorically and honestly determined.

A Conscious Eureka Moment

I have endless debates about things that appear to be purely philosophical, but to me are now applicable. Sometimes this is a reach. Recently my great friend (who is welcome to identify himself but it would be impolite for me to do so) was discussing via Facebook the issue of consciousness. I have been prodding this friend to start a blog and he, likely half jokingly said, “when I figure out consciousness I will start it.” Pointing out that I may have to wait awhile to read his blog, he felt that figuring this out was not a matter of science, in that it likely didn’t involve more experimentation. Instead he felt a Eureka moment may occur, and therefore an ancient question resolved, and his blog launched. Until very recently I would have said that he was 100% wrong. Now I think there is that possibility, though my thoughts on why are likely different than his.

 It is possible that consciousness is not to be found, but rather conceptualized. An excellent book by Thomas Metzinger called “The Ego Tunnel” deals with this directly, giving evidence that consciousness itself may be an illusion. I am sympathetic to this theory, as it fits very nicely with my well documented (and likelyboring to my friends and family) strong belief that free will is an illusion. If you are interested in this, look here and here for my views, and here for an opposing view by Massimo Pigliucci. The ideas of a no free will self are hard enough to digest. It means that we are complex parts of nature, but no different than anything else in nature itself. We can be predicted in theory if we had enough information. There are only two possibilities, either everything is determined, which is the large stuff, or involves quantum fluctuations, which are random, with the small stuff. Either way there is not free will.

I have taken this debate past the philosophical to help engineers and myself who are interested in artificial intelligence learn how to create it. That is to allow a system to have options, but only one right answer. A machine that has feeling is more complicated of course. How does a machine feel that it is choosing, like we feel that we are choosing? I don’t have an answer but assume that it can be accomplished the way I think it is accomplished for people. The reasons for the perception of free will must be somehow tied to an evolutionary need at some point to feel free. Perhaps this is why we care for our children, or for the purpose of creating technologies. I have no idea, yet any of those things can be programmed.

 So what if the same is true for consciousness itself, and why should we not think that it is? This is an open question to myself, and more importantly to people who know something about this. It is also my shot at a simplistic Eureka to beat out my friend.

 Ha! Eureka, I get consciousness. It doesn’t exist! Or maybe I am wrong...

Will Thinking in Pop Culture

I have felt pushed into a prison of disconnect with pop philosophy. This can lead down paths so promising, only to be destroyed by pseudo-science, superstition, and religiosity. Most obviously this is “The Secret”, that best seller of self delusion, and Deepak Chopka, the man most responsible for teaching the world the the words quantum mechanics, without having the slightest idea of what he is talking about. I know that I, and thousands of bloggers, make this complaint so often that we have become like street corner preachers, who are unheard even though they boom their voices through megaphones and amps. This blog however is not about this, but rather about signs that American culture may be as polarized as American politics. This is actually a relief to me, as I have not heard scientific reason applied to popular culture in any major way in a long time. The practitioners  of the movement I mention above I will refer to as the willful thinkers. They tie various unrelated elements in science, which they don’t understand, into a basic theory that puts free will in a more powerful place in society than it has ever been historically. Never before have people connected neuro-science, physics, and free -will in such broad ways as this. This type of self determination likely has some commercial motives, like convincing people to use a lot of credit on useless books, because they are capable of earning enough money to pay it back. Or it could be politically motivated in order that people feel they are never stuck in despair, but instead vote for candidates that promise that they will change things. It basically puts the responsibility for happiness and success on the individual by some spiritual connection with a universal energy. The reasoning goes that even if your individual energy is limited, your will can allow you access to a larger life force that can aid in success. This is a lot of science-like talk which really is just explaining free will the same way it is explained, rather unconvincingly to me, in the Bible.  

There are books that I consider rational alternatives to this thought, but they have significantly less readership. Just this week though I had two examples, one light of substance but entertaining, and the other much more profound. "Fringe" last week had this compelling plot line, where (in a parallel universe, but that is not so important) a man was on a drug trial designed to increase the intellectual range of very low IQ people. The trial worked better than expected, and this particular man ended up being hundreds of times more mentally capable than other humans. I know that already it seems hypocritical for me to blame the will thinkers for scientific faking, when the entirety of “Fringe” is so clearly unscientific. This is the case with this episode, as I don’t feel that there is a superpower capability of the human brain, but still this provided a nice metaphor on free will. The character was not only smart, but extremely proficient in probability, so much so that he could predict the future of events. In other words he understood the deterministic nature of existence and to connect the dots from the past and present out into the future.  This is more thought provoking than the average prime time sci-fi episode. It makes us think about a relevant question: how much information would we, or a computer, need to have in order to statistically know future events? That then leads to the question of whether, if such events can be mathematically predicted, there is any role for free-will.

The other deeper look at free-will, is the large, and brilliant new novel “Freedom” by Jonathan Franzen. It is  the story, through various perspectives, of a woman, a family and the the ideals of recent generations. There is too much here to talk about, other than to refer back to the title “Freedom” where we see Franzen’s characters forever unable to escape the past in order to create an independent future. They are, like all of us, trapped by causality, and therefore freedom itself alludes them.

It may be that the answers, such as will thinking, are the most satisfying, which is why they may always remain in society. That said, a slow enlightenment seems to have risen on the horizon of mainstream culture, at least enough to start making us all question what it means to be free.

Longevity in a Time of Certainty

The big news last week in science was the discovery of a gene that is believed to be linked to longevity. Though there is some disagreement about this finding, for the sake of this blog I will assume that it is valid research, and that indeed it is possible to find out if we carry the genes necessary to live to be over 100 years old.  On a personal note, while I would have this test or any genome analysis which would give me insight into my inner cellular self, I can be nearly certain that I do not have this enviable gene. I have had far too many illnesses which don’t seem to be purely environmental. Because of these illnesses I have wavered between two cliché philosophies on how to live. The first is the hedonistic, and second being the hypochondriac.  These may be opposites as one involves living only for the moment, and one is obsessed with having a future, yet both stem from my intimate acknowledgement that life will come to an end. The uncertainty of when it will end is what leads to the fluctuation of healthy and destructive habits. If for instance I knew that if I didn’t drink alcohol I would live to be 90 and that if I did drink alcohol I would die at 40, there is no question that I would not touch another drink. Unfortunately there has not been such information available. I may know that drinking is not great for me, but I also know that most people who drink fairly moderately do not die from complications related to drinking, so I continue on, as my inner risk assessment tells me that it is not so bad. All of my behavior including hamburger eating and stress probably does make a difference though; it is just that those differences are not quantifiable. That is they have not been quantifiable in the past. Genomics may change this.

I attended a wonderful World Science Festival event called Our Genomes Ourselves, which explored the state of the art and some of the philosophical implications of understanding our own genomes. This was before the longevity gene discovery of last week, but the concept of genetic information informing decision making was still a focus. A prime and rather moving example involved a family of women who had been tested for a genetic pattern responsible for breast cancer. It was a mother who had the cancer gene (and the cancer I believe) with three daughters in their late teens and early 20’s, all of which were tested for the genetic defect. The results would not only tell them the strong likelihood of whether they would develop breast cancer, but just as importantly give them options. They could for example make the radical choice of having double mastectomies before even having the cancer, guaranteeing that they would never get it. This is interesting in itself, but something even more psychologically intriguing to me happened when the daughters received the results. Two of them had the breast cancer disposition, and one did not. Immediately the one without started crying uncontrollably. She was apparently feeling a sense of survivor’s remorse, before the others had even gotten sick. This is touching and encouraging as it shows the power of human empathy. It is also an indicator of things to come as more such genome analysis reveals our futures.

I have spent a lot of time on the question of free-will and my belief that we essential live in a deterministic universe. I am involved in a movement called Applied Naturalism, the application being that by recognizing humans as a part of an ordered and determined part of nature, we can approach justice, politics, science and psychology differently. Essentially in my view it is the opposite view point of books such as The Secret, where power is assumed to be in the individual. I find The Secret model of existence to be harsh rather than compassionate, as it places a responsibility for action in humans which is impossible to achieve.

It is easy to see how Applied Naturalism and Genomics can be viewed through the same philosophical lens. That is, the breast cancer is predetermined. The young women tested could be said to have freewill to decide what to do with that information, but it could also be argued that the personalities and predispositions that they have will predetermine the action. Some people are just more likely to have extremely invasive preventive surgery than others. The issue of the longevity gene however is even more deterministic. The knowledge that you have a gene to live to be very old may keep you off of motor cycles with a knowledge that if you don’t die in an accident you will be around for a long time, but I think that is unlikely. People generally don’t ride motorcycles, nor goes skiing or any other dangerous activity thinking that it will kill them. More likely the information gained by knowing the longevity gene is more important in an existential context. 

The most profound aspect of Heidegger’s “Being in Time” in my view is when he describes the core difference between the authentic and inauthentic self (Dasein). There are many aspects to his long description but the one which remains for me is that the authentic self acknowledges life and death. This is not so different from the Buddhist key principle of emptiness. It is acknowledging that there is a frame in which we exist, and one in which we don’t. This applies whether we know when that end is, or don’t, but could be seen as easier to deal with if we do have an idea of when the end is. Suicide is generally an act of depression, but I don’t believe it always is. Sometimes it is just a way of framing life and death, so that it is not unbearably unknown. If both Heidegger and my hypothesis on suicide are right, then the longevity gene test could very well be the most important biological discovery of all time. With knowledge of our life expectancy we can frame a productive life, even though we may not live it all that much differently. We will view our illnesses, our accomplishments and our children in new, more enlightened ways. It is true that the test itself should not be necessary for this, but I think that it may be for a lot of us. The human desire for answers may be too great to overcome through philosophical revelations of Heidegger or any other philosopher. It may come only from an understanding of something deep within us. Something in our genes.

Living a Dream

Free-will is one of the longest running philosophical and scientific struggles. I am certainly not an expert on the history of this issue, but have encountered it in a completely counterintuitive way with Physics, where Quantum Mechanics, possibly the most relevant set of theories to my field of physics, and Newton’s determinism collide. Determinism in my mind is the same as free will, though this may not be a proper philosophical comparison, as I am too uneducated in philosophy to determine that. Anyway, despite a Ph.D. in physics, I fail in a huge way. Neils Bohr, a founder of quantum mechanics said something like “if you are not shocked by quantum mechanics you don’t understand it”. Well, I am shocked. Certainly confused, if that is the same thing, but I am not sure if the destruction of Newton’s classical view of an ordered universe changed my perspective, as it is too damn difficult to comprehend. While this observer based world of quantum mechanics was taking shape, a larger natural prediction of the universe was putting to rest some very progressive ideas of free will. Mainly this is that we are a part of a natural system, which can be predicted, with knowledge of enough of the variables. This is understood in probability. We can think of ourselves as containers of atoms, all organized by our genome. While there is a lot of complexity in this system, it is one that has been recorded, and can be studied. Our brain is also a cluster of atoms, cells (neurons) that are bundled in convenient groupings to create extremely efficient processing. Also, this is not completely understood but, the concept is directly observed. In essence through both the understanding of the genome and neuroscience, humans are shown to be natural, in that they are no different than any other matter, plant or animal, and can be studied and observed in the same way. This bundle concept, that the body is arranged in bundles of atoms, including the brain, does away with the concept of the soul, as the soul no longer has a place to reside. Our atomic structure is interchangeable with all other atoms, whether they make up a rock or a cock roach. So, does a rock have free will? From everything we know about rocks it does not. It rolls with classical certainty, breaks from predictable forces, etc. The same is true of humans. So this now the excepted way of viewing the situation, but as with quantum mechanics, it just never felt right, and was shocking.
So I have been thinking about those two problems, both being problems of intuition, not problems of science. Science makes clear that quantum phenomena occur, and also that free will does not exist, in any spiritual sense. I have also, at the same time been haunted by something that seemed unrelated. I nearly always remember several dreams a night, and have since I was a young child. Like most people (so studies say) a majority of my dreams are nightmares. They seem to be lifetimes in themselves, and each time, I am relieved to wake up. Psychologists often say that nightmares are a productive way of coping with anxiety, but for me I think they cause more anxiety than they cure. None of this gets me anywhere with this thesis, but it does set up my state of mind, which in general has led me to not wanting to go to sleep at night. I take sleeping pills, but still have these worries about the dreams. Then it occurred to me that my philosophical lack of intuition where free-will is concerned might be in some way informed by my fear of the dreams. Since I remember my dreams so well, I realize that the thing that is most disturbing about them is that they are completely out of my control, completely me, and completely personal. Often the bad, or even in the rare case happy, ending of my dreams may be known to me, or my character as experienced in the dream, before the end of the dream, which make it all the more frustrating. Unless I am having my yearly wet dream. Why should conscious existence be any different from unconscious existence? Perhaps it is this determined, uncontrollable outcome of life that makes the dreams so upsetting. Maybe I now can intuit what existence and lack of free-will feels like. It feels like a dream.