The Illusion of Determinism: Why Free Will Is Real and Causal

By Edwin A. Locke

Determinism is the doctrine that everything we think, feel, believe, and do is caused by factors outside our control—that we have no choice regarding our character, our thoughts, our actions, our lives. There have been many forms of determinism but the one that is most popular today is based on neuroscience and physics with the enthusiastic support of many psychologists, philosophers, and physical scientists (e. This version argues that we are controlled by our physical brains with the brain being set in motion by environmental factors. The debate continues because many people disagree with determinism and assert that they have, in some form, free will. Determinists insist that such a belief represents "folk psychology," an illusion held by people who are ignorant of what science has allegedly proved.

Determinists typically believe that:

-Consciousness is the same thing as brain activity (as opposed to requiring a brain).

-The conscious mind, though real, plays no significant role in human life.

-The human mind is not significantly different from that of the lower animals such as chimpanzees.

-All causes are material (or mechanical).

-Goal-directed action applies equally to people and machines.

-The concept of a self or the self as a causal agent has no intelligible meaning.

-Key neuroscience experiments have proven that intentions to act appear only after the brain has already decided what to do.

-Determinism is not only compatible with objective knowledge but is also the only guarantee of objective knowledge, because it is based on scientific truth.

-Determinism has to be either proved or disproved (rather than being an axiom) based on philosophical and/or scientific arguments.

-Free will, at best, is a necessary illusion.

On the other side of the coin, various free will advocates typically believe that:

-Elementary particles which make up our brain act at random, thus refuting causal necessity

-Free will and determinism are compatible.

-Religion validates free will.

In this book, published in 2018, I show that all of the above beliefs are mistaken. I will also show that free will is, as many have claimed, self-evident, even though most people have not validated it or correctly identified what it consists of—what it is, and what it isn't.

NOTE: I was recently included in a free will documentary which purported to be an overview of all the different positions, but, it was very biased in favor of determinism. Despite having taped me for two about hours, the editor omitted about 90% of what I said including almost all the most important points that I made such as the fact that determinism involves an insuperable contradiction. So you really need to read the whole book to get the full argument. (BTW: In, my book I mention the late, world-famous physicist, Stephen Hawking. I said he was a Nobel Prize winner but he was not, though his core ideas were validated after his death).

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543914238

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The Illusion of Determinism

Why Free Will Is Real and Causal

Edwin A. Locke

Print ISBN: 978-1-54391-422-1

eBook ISBN: 978-1-54391-423-8

Publisher: Edwin A. Locke

© Edwin A. Locke, 2017. University of Maryland. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

To Cathy with all my love

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

The Brain

What is Consciousness?

Causality

Goal-Directed Action

The Self

The Libet Studies:Much Ado About Almost Nothing

The Fatal Flaw in Determinism

What Free Will Is—and Is Not

Concluding Remarks

REFERENCES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following people for their help and advice: Dr. Aurora LePort for her expert help on the nature of the brain; Dr. Dale Stevens for his insights into the Libet studies; Dr. Gregory Salmieri for his insightful comments on the nature of animal cognition; Dr. Evan Picoult for explaining the actual meaning of entropy; Dr. Ben Bayer for pointing to useful books on the subject of free will and certain issues in the field of philosophy; and Dr. Onkar Ghate, who made valuable comments on and suggestions for every chapter. I also want to thank Jenniffer Woodson for her outstanding job of copyediting. Finally I want to thank my dear wife, Cathy Durham, not only for her continual support but also for her help in identifying many passages that needed clarification.

No one above is responsible for any errors that may remain in the book nor for any critical oversights.

PREFACE

The issue of free will has occupied philosophers as far back as the ancient Greeks. Plato and Aristotle were not much concerned with the concept of free will; the Stoics may have been the first to introduce the issue explicitly (Frede 2011), specifically Epictetus, who viewed free will as giving or not giving assent to your emotions. Alexander of Aphrodisias, a Peripatetic, put emphasis on the use of reason as a determinant of whether one acts on one’s emotions or not.

Christian philosophers (starting with Origen in the third century and Augustine a century later) took up the issue from the Stoics, but free will did not become an official church doctrine until the fifth century. This issue caused a great deal of controversy which persists to this day. In Genesis God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, but they disobeyed him and God banished them from the Garden of Eden. According to scripture, we have been paying the price ever since—such as being made to work for a living. To some Genesis may imply free will, but it also represents Original Sin, which is taken by some to mean that man has an innate tendency toward evil—which would imply free will but with loaded dice. There have been endless debates on the issue among Christian (and Jewish) theologians. The problem is that if God were omniscient and omnipotent, then many claim he would have to have foreknowledge of who would obey and who would sin.  This would imply predestination (as in Calvinism), but this would contradict free will. Some have claimed that humans are simply unable to understand God’s higher truths, though it is not clear by what means we could even know that he had higher truths. There can be no resolution to these contradictions in religious terms, since the whole basis for the debate (including the existence of a god), is grounded in faith and not reason.

The development of modern science added fuel to this debate. The discovery that the body was a machine which operated according to the laws of physics and chemistry (including electricity), and that consciousness depended on the existence of a brain, threatened to totally materialize man. Consciousness was dismissed by many as a mystical anachronism or as an incidental by-product of brain activity which served no function. In this view all causal relationships were mechanical. If science were to be taken seriously, then it was assumed that determinism had to be true. Thus, free will would be a myth. This view is still prevalent, though not universal. The philosophical debate has continued through the centuries within and outside of religion and is still debated today.¹ I believe that my book can help to bring about a resolution, or at least to move the debate forward. This may sound optimistic, but I think that progress has been blocked by looking at the issue too narrowly; in short, by the failure to deal with key issues that underlie the debate: the nature of consciousness, the nature of causality, the nature of goal-directed action, the locus of choice, and the failure to take the law of contradiction seriously.

Some years ago the authors of an article in a well-regarded science magazine reported the survey results of eminent evolutionary scientists (Graffin and Provine 2007, 294-97). Overwhelmingly, the scientists were not religious and equally overwhelmingly, they believed in free will. The authors were quite upset about the latter. They ended with, Belief in free will adds nothing to the science of human behavior (297). Unfortunately, the study did not ask the scientists to identify what they meant by free will—what it consisted of. Further, we shall see that without free will there could be no science of human behavior at all—in fact, there could be no science of anything.

At the same time, defenders of free will have not made a convincing case. They often base free will on indeterminism (randomness), an idea taken from particle theory. This does not work. Randomness is not control.

I hope in this book to set the record straight. I must acknowledge at the outset that my key philosophical points are based on Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, including her theory of volition. I have enlarged and expanded the discussion of the issue but am in full agreement with her views. Many of the ideas in this book are consistent with the penetrating insights of psychologist Albert Bandura. Bandura’s (2008) views are his own and not based on Ayn Rand.

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1 See Pereboom 2009 for a sampling of the debates. (See reference section for this and all other references)

INTRODUCTION

As noted in the Preface, the issue of free will vs. determinism has been debated for centuries—seemingly without resolution.

Determinism is the doctrine that everything we think, feel, believe, and do is caused by factors outside our control—that we have no choice regarding our character, our thoughts, our actions, our lives. There have been many forms of determinism but the one that is most popular today is based on neuroscience, with the enthusiastic support of many psychologists, philosophers, and physical scientists (e.g., physicists). This version argues that we are controlled by our physical brains with the brain being set in motion by environmental factors.

The debate continues because many people disagree with determinism and assert that they have, in some form, free will. Determinists insist that such a belief represents folk psychology, an illusion held by people who are ignorant of what science has allegedly proved.

Determinists typically believe that:

Consciousness is the same thing as brain activity (as opposed to requiring a brain)

The conscious mind, though real, plays no significant role in human life

The human mind is not significantly different from that of the lower animals such as chimpanzees

All causes are material (or mechanical)

Goal-directed action applies equally to people and machines

The concept of a self or the self as a causal agent has no intelligible meaning

Key neuroscience experiments have proven that the intention to act appears after the brain has already decided what to do

Determinism is not only compatible with objective knowledge but is also the only guarantee of objective knowledge, because it is based on scientific truth

Determinism has to be either proved or disproved based on philosophical and/or scientific arguments

Free will, at best, is a necessary illusion

On the other side of the coin, various free will advocates typically believe that:

Elementary particles which make up our brain act at random, thus refuting causal necessity

Free will and determinism are compatible

Religion validates free will

In this book I will show that all of the above beliefs are mistaken. I will also show that free will is, as many have claimed, self-evident, even though most people have not validated it or correctly identified what it consists of—what it is, and what it isn’t.

One might ask, in relation to this dispute, why it matters. Is this merely a dispute among academics, e.g., philosophers and scientists, with no implications for the rest of us?

My view is that the implications are momentous. I will show that:

Without free will there could be no such thing as objective (actual) knowledge

Without free will there could be no such thing as morality or a moral society.

That should be incentive enough to explore this issue thoroughly.

There is another benefit to this book. Many people are not very skilled at introspection and may have been confused and/or intimidated by the onslaught of determinist arguments in books and the press. This book provides the intellectual ammunition one needs to be certain that free will is real and to know what it consists of (and does not consist of).

1

The Brain

This chapter is not a primer on the brain; neophytes who want details can find many books on the subject, such as Neuroscience for Dummies. This is simply a summary of a few basic facts (which were checked by a neuroscientist).

The brain is the hardware that makes consciousness possible and regulates (non-consciously) the functioning of one’s whole body (e.g., the internal organs). Its volume is 1,400 cc. It consumes 20% of the body’s metabolism or energy use. It contains between eighty-five and one hundred billion neuronal cells. Each neuron has dendrites or branches that connect to several thousand other neurons. Each dendrite contains thousands of synapses or connectors which signal each other in sequence.  There are some one hundred and fifty trillion synapses in the brain. The neuron sends out signals along another type of branch called an axon, which connects the dendrites to other neurons. Signaling in the brain is done by chemicals and electricity. Experience and thinking affect the strength of the synapses. The brain also has other

Reviews for The Illusion of Determinism

[belega george · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Easy to understand and has very good points i liked it very much

[Tsvetan Vitanov · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Finally found the answer of what I was feeling so strongly on instinctual level. It’s a must read for anyone who wants to show to determinists who don’t believe in free will why it’s actually as real as their delusional minds.