Randomness as the Key to Free Will

[Renegnicat]

Humans have free will, yes? It says so in the bible. It says so in all major religions. An yet, our bodies, science has shown, seem to be like machines(messy and disorganized machines, but still machines). Any self respecting biologist knows how ordered and complex the human body is, so how is it that we can say we have free will? Where does free will come from?

Previously, it was thought that we don't really have free will. We are just so complex that it seems like we have free will. In two identical situations, the same person would do the same thing in both. This idea, however, is not realistic. And as an example, I shall prove it.

There are two boxes in front of you, and someone has predicted which box you will open. If she predicted that you will open only the left box, then there is a million dollars under that box. If she predicted that you will take both, then there are only one thousand dollars under each box. And if she predicted that you will open only the right box, there is nothing. You don't know what she predicted. But you know the rules. Do you open only the left, or both?

It is inherently impossible to predict which box you will open! Any system, if it is ordered, is perfectly predictable, no matter how complex. We do have free will. But where does free will come from?

It is interesting to note that free will might be defined as an action that is self-determined. In order for an action to be based on free will, it has to have no outside direction. It has to be completely spontaneous. Self-Directed.

But that is impossible. We are made of nothing but chemicals. The same as a rock. But no object can act on its own. And no human has ever been shown to truly act on a whim. So there is a paradox, that humans seem to be perfectly ordered, and yet perfectly unpredictable.

This is a perfect opportunity for a religious person to say, "a-ha! See! God does exist, because he gave us free will!" 'tis typical. But once again, the religious person is wrong. Scientists have recently been able to directly observe the creation of protein in a cell, something never done before. And the resulting observations have rocked the foundations of biology. In the experiment, thousands of individual bacteria were observed in the process of making the protein that makes them collectively glow. And the scientists found that the process--wait for it--is inherently random.

There was not a single commonality between each of the bacterium. Of the 10,000 bacterium observed, not one of them had an identical process of creating the protein. What's more the process itself was so sloppy that no one bacteria could produce the protein individually. Almost all forms of the protein produced by any individual bacterium, apparently, are broken and ill-fitting to the purpose they were made for! And in each case, it was sloppy. It was random. It was inherently impossible to predict what form of the protein an individual bacterium would produce.

So what does this have to do with free will? Well, the biggest thing is that it connects biology with physics. The randomness inherent in all living things is the very randomness of atomic particles and molecules bouncing around randomly in space. Until recently, we had thought that as things get bigger, the randomness of gases and liquids loses effect in macro-sized objects. Now we realize that our entire functioning is based on that very random process. What this means is that, true to free-will, humans are not entirely deterministic.

This was rediscovered in parrallel in the world of neurology: It is now known that every single neuron in the brain misfires at a 30% rate. Meaning that 30% of the time, a neuron fires for a random reason! These are Neurons, the stuff of our brain matter. The thing that enables us to think, decide, love, hate, be everything we are. And every single neuron in our brain misfires at a rate of 30% of the time!

So, what does this mean?

It means that we now have a scientific explanation for human free will. We know that free will didn't have to be bestowed upon the universe. It is a fundamental property of a random universe. This produces some difficulties for the theist. One more thing that god wasn't needed for. But they can hardly claim that god is responsible for the randomness of the universe. That would make it "not random". If they say that god is controlling the randomness of the universe, then we really DON'T have free will, because it's not random. The very essence of randomness is that it is not controlled. This means that even if god did exist, free will could not have been a "gift" from him. If he was to bestow free will on people, well, he couldn't. He would have to not bestow it at all. Ah, but then free will isn't from god. It's inherent in the universe, thus god isn't needed. And once again, we've come back to the start.

Free will isn't unique to humans. It's the natural effect of a random universe.  

[Recusant]

Very interesting post, Renegnicat!  Thanks.  

I'm interested in the study of the bacteria that you mentioned.  I would imagine that it used Photobacterium phosphoreum, but I haven't yet found anything on that particular study online.  Do you have a link?

I do think that it's a reasonable concept that you're talking about here, regarding the natural origin of free will.  Pretty cool.

[Renegnicat]

Ah. Sorry. I don't have a link. I only heard of the study through science fridays on NPR, which is where I learned of it. Maybe you can find it somewhere on the National Public Radio website?

[Sophus]

Even with the brain performing random misfires it's not us willing it or its outcome. I don't think that perfected predictions are necessary for a Deterministic world. It only means that something else is determining our will.

Very interesting. Thanks for the post!  

[Renegnicat]

Well, technically, you can't have anything act of it's own accord, a la free will. If something's not completely random, then there was a cause to the event, thus the event wasn't self-determined, see? So, techincally, we don't actually have free will in the traditional sense. But our veritable unpredictability, and thus impression of free will, is apparently a natural consequence of a random universe.

I don't think free will in the traditional sense is ever possible though. That's like saying the universe came into existence of it's own accord, y'know?  

[Sophus]

Ah, I see where you're coming from. I can agree with that. Are you familiar with Ayn Rand's theory of Freewill? I don't agree with it but it's a very thought provoking contribution to philosophy. She basically agrees with the Schoppenhauer view that it's Deterministic but then says we have the choice to stop and think. And since we can do that we have "freewill".  Actually, I think there's an old thread on it in this section somewhere.

[Ellainix]

And thus now predestination is now valid?

[Renegnicat]

Nope. It's impossible to predict the outcome of a random occurence in the universe. Given that, the basic premise of ourselves, i.e. the firing of neurons, is random up to thirty percent, our thought processes are inherently un-predictable. Same with our actions.

In fact, given that the very basis of matter, at the quantum scale, is inherently random, everything is inherently unpredictable. Although, it's obvious we can predict how things will happen most of the time, there's always an "error factor" that might screw up our prediction with a certain percentage of probability.

It's like this, then: Since the random occurrences of our universe are mechanical, there is no escaping what happens. What's going to happen is going to happen. Mechanical processes are not 'self determining', so to speak. BUT! Because those same mechanical processes are random, neither can we predict what will happen with ultimate certainty.

Like I said, the basis for our thought, the firing of neurons, is thirty percent random. We are inherently unpredictable.