Mark asked:

Is reason ultimately powerless without free will?

It seems to me that indeterminism (as in quantum mechanics) is as much a lack of choice as
determinism (as in Newtonian mechanics). Without something between these two dichotomies, it
seems we are all ultimately powerless to choose our own destinies.

I understand the argument that reason allows us to execute "right" actions based on conditions, so
that we can "decide" what to do. But for me, this is still unsatisfying. It says I am a programmable
computer, but someone or something else is doing the programming. So reason is still just a "reflex"
mechanism and I have no "control".

Is it possible that self-observing quantum mechanical systems begin to open the door to
self-controlled determinism?

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Yes, a good set of questions. One way of avoiding answering them is to question what you mean by
"free will". Many modern philosophers have either avoided this or hedged as to what this means, and
for good reason. Just what doesit mean? What is "free"? Uncaused? Ok... what's that? Random?
Well, as you have intuited, that doesn't help the problem, because then you're not "willing" anything,
you're just generating random numbers or flipping coins, in effect. How about free as "uncaused by
physical causes". Well, what does thatmean? "Mental" causes? What are they? Suppose that one
thought (let's say for the purpose of argument that we've determined that thoughts are non-physical)
causes another... so now where's free will, anyway? We've just created a "mental" realm in which
causality works with "mental" objects instead of "physical" objects. No help there. So the bigproblem
here, which I personally have not nor have I seen a satisfactory answer to, is, what is neither caused
nor random? I have no idea.

Now, you can talk about quantum mechanics (QM) all you want, but it doesn't help. First, QM is about
physical systems. Second, while there are things that happen in QM which are "uncaused", they are
probable, to some degree, i.e., we can in theory at least compute and assign probability functions
and/ or distributions to them. Well, what's a probability, such that it is beyond the category of
causality? A probability distribution (or, really, its square root, the wave function) is just matter spread
out in space-time. It interacts with other matter with certain probabilities. But all we've done here is to
say that causality is not 100%... and the rest is randomness. No help there for free will, any more than
flipping a coin would help.

You want self-observing? Well, what that does (i.e., what you get with recursive systems: nonlinear
dynamics) is make the systems extremely complicated and resistant to analysis, i.e., we get "chaotic"
(a misnomer, really) systems. It's taken the advent of "super" computers to even approximate
solutions to the simplest of these (and if you don't believe me about simple, go look at the equations
generating some of them... they're disgustingly simple), and as for the complex ones, forget it, for
now, at least. Walter Freeman likes chaotic neural circuits in the brain, and there seem to be some.
But they're just physical systems, subject to physical laws. Where's "free will" in that? You can get out
of it that an infinitesimal initial perturbation can cause a finite change to the state of the system, but all
that's saying is that the causative factor is infinitesimal, not that there is none. A huge difference.

Now if you want to call free will "self-controlled determinism", fine... an interesting way of putting it,
but what does it actually mean? The problem is that no one really knows what the meaning of "free
will" shouldbe, unless you're a theologian, like Aquinas, and then you can talk about free will as an
aspect of the divine (of course, you've just pushed the problem back to determining what "the divine"
is, but there usually the theist throws in the towel).

No, this is a real problem... but no one knows what the problem is, really. Strange, isn't it? Until you
can come up with some sensible formulation of what "free will" is, i.e., one that relates reasonably
and coherently to something else we actually do know, you're stuck. Something not caused and not
random, subject to non-physical determination which isn't really determination because you can
"change your mind". Whoopee. Well, Idon't understand what that could be, and since I'm not a theist
I don't have a religious answer handy.

The best I can come up with is this hedge: how are we analyzing the universe, we human beings?
Through mathematics and philosophy, to some vague extent, with the feeble resources we can
muster (i.e., our cortex, spread out, is 6 layers of neurons deep and about a square yard — yes, that's
all we've got to think with, believe it or not). If there is a solution, it is either yet to be discovered in
some otherway of formulating our descriptions of the universe (and maybe Wolfram doeshave one...
who knows — you'll see what I'm referring to shortly), or, we just don't have the mental resources to
do it, and won't until we engineer ourselves smarter, one way or another. Or, there is none, and we
are indeed systems subject to physical causality, like everything else we are (so far) aware of.

Ok, now what? Well, I think that we might as well go on acting as we have, since we a) don't know
what's going to happen, b) don't knowthat our analysis of the universe as causally functioning is
correct. That is, as far as we're concerned, we dohave free will, or near enough as to make no
difference. There's no computer big enough to predict what we're determined to do (assuming we
are), nor will there be in any conceivable future. So, the problem is in that sense mute: determined or
not, we'll never know what it is we're determined to do, andthere's randomness involved (because of
QM, at least), andwe do have the feeling,at least, of willing, a feeling that we cannot avoid, which
may, in some way we do not at this point understand, be accurate. Given all the various uncertainties,
theoretical and practical, I think the best (i.e., the most ethical) course is to proceed as if our feelings
(of willing) have some basis, until proven otherwise. If we're right, we've acted ethically; if we're
wrong, it didn't matter anyway.

Steven Ravett Brown

For me, the problem you identify is one reason why the free-will/ determinism debate is so intractable
— and so interesting. The other reason is that we have such an overwhelming experience of freedom
of choice at times that it seems to me we cannot just dismiss it. Of course, we want these choices to
be for good reasons, under our control, and hence the choice can seems to be determined by these
previously existing good reasons — and we are back on the merry-go-round again.

I'm not sure I like your metaphor of the programmed computer — this implies for me a programmer
and some sort of deliberate guidance. It seems likely to me that, if we do lack free-will, it is a result of
chance prior circumstances (including chance collapses of QM wave functions).

As to your last suggestion, it is possible (though I don't see how the details work out). Your idea
seems to me to be a version of 'emergence', where unexpected properties (free-will) emerge from
seemingly different circumstances (a deterministic world), and cannot be explained at the level of that
world. I can't help thinking that some sort of emergence theory is the solution to this problem. I cannot
see how it is done, though — and I've been thinking about it for years.

Tim Sprod

If there is indeterminism there is no free choice because the implication is that we choose at random.
But we can choose and we do this freely because of the complete and complex individuals we are
rather than because of physical determination, and there is nothing entirely random about actions
issuing from a complex individual, it is just that there is no possibility of reductive explanation.

You are right that reason is powerless without free will. Reason does allow us to make decisions, but
we can act against our reasoning and do not always know what we are going to do until we do it.
Reason enables us to make decisions and allows us to think, but we can choose to do whatever we
desire or will regardless of reasons and in most cases we act without any deliberation at all. Our
choices then look like a "reflex". Reason itself is not a reflex, but neither is it causal; it is a description
of the way in which the mind thinks. The mind is a reasoning thing because it uses language and
language abstracts and simplifies from the real complexity of ourselves and from the reality of what it
is to be a willing and free individual.

Explanation and conscious deliberation are linguistic and rational (sometimes irrational — which just
means your inferences or values are off course), but conscious states are highly complex and not
reducible to language and reason (and language includes all concepts, including the emotional and
evaluative). In a recent answer, I mentioned that the neuroscientist Edelman has said that the brain
can never be in two like states. For instance, I see a particular state of affairs which I have seen
before. But that was in the past and now I have new associations so there is a different background to
the experience in this new instance. This holds for brain states, which underlie complex mental states
in which not all elements are present to consciousness. At the level of self-consciousness or of
mental explanation, it can seem that we act on reflex, but there will be relevant motivation of some
kind. But this does not mean determinism is true: Nothing is repeatable: Exact brain states do not
recur. If this is so, then if we could be self-observing, we could not predict anything. If no brain states
is ever the same, how could we know what any particular state determines? Furthermore, since
rational deliberation alone is not sufficient for action and we cannot know in advance what we are
going to do because the will is will-in-action, or a force only manifested as action, prediction is not
possible.

Causal laws of nature, which are needed for determinism, are between determinate states. This is
like rational thinking: A particular content determines the next. In both cases, there is simplistic
reconstruction of what takes place. In reality, the brain and the mind are never in a determinate state
but constantly moving in a creative process. The brain is in such a complex dynamic interaction of
movement, with so much input and output, it could move any way. At a conscious level, this is also
true: We don't necessarily know what we are going to do until we do it: there are many things we
could do, all manner of considerations and motivations. Determinism relies on the regularity of
causality which is the way we understand our experience of the world and is the framework in which
scientists and psychologists work. But the brain and the mind don't have to abide by such law. Causal
understanding applies to the world of objects. Linguistic thought and reason pin down and make
determinate our conscious mental life, but the dynamic facts about our brains and minds are
incommensurable with the determinacy of causal states.

There may seem to be a sequence of pure rational thought at the conscious or psychological level but
rational content abstracts from the total complex informational interconnectivity of the brain states that
underlie the mental. At the brain level, there is no such thing as a "content". Content is theoretical. On
the psychological level, or the level of being a self with free-will, there is no such thing as being
caused to act by rational deliberations or a sequence of contentful thought. So you cannot be like a
computer at all. As an individual self or personality, you are driven by your current beliefs, desires,
motivations etc and the will acts on one set of beliefs and motivations or another and there is no need
for the notion of cause for us to make sense of this. This does not mean we're determined and have
no free will. We are not caused to act by the laws of nature, but we act because of the sort of person
we are. And this does not mean that historical facts about us determine what we do because by
means of free will we are able to change.

Rachel Browne