First of all, I need to say that, even if it is ignorant, I even do not bother to read philosophical speculations.
I am interested in empirical premises. I’ve heard that there is some research, where scientists, monitoring activity of a person’s brain, are able to predict which switch (s)he’s going to switch, before (s)he does, or maybe before (s)he’s conscious about the choice. This implies that our decisions are results of some chemical processes determined aside of our “free choice” and so called free will is only an illusion, a way in which alternatives presents to us, while the choice is made already deep in our minds unconsciously and maybe even deterministically. Does anybody know this research and could cite it?
Since I am constantly busy, I really sucks in the theory, so could anybody say what’s the Marxist stance on free will if any?
I’m sorry to disappoint you but with this topic you won’t really get around at least some amount of philosophy. The Marxist stance on free will is: “it depends what you mean by free will”. In general yes, Marxism acknowledges free will but not in a metaphysical sense, rather in the sense that it views humans as conscious actors in society. This is not a pronouncement on whether “free will” can exist scientifically, rather it has to do with how we view the interaction between society and the individual.
Scientifically speaking though, “free will” in the sense in which it is traditionally understood by most religions most likely does not and cannot exist. You don’t even need to get into any complicated neuroscience research to see why.
We know that our actions and thoughts are determined by the electro-chemical processes in our brain. No matter how complex those processes are, they are still subject to the laws of physics which determine how electrons, atoms and molecules behave. And here’s where the problem of definition comes into play: what do we mean by “free will”? Do we simply mean that we can’t know ahead of time what someone will think, or do we mean that a person can somehow, through some unexplained magic influence the physical processes taking place in their brain?
In classical physics neither would be possible as classical physics is completely deterministic and so the future state and behavior of any given system (such as your brain, which is a complex biological neural network) should be completely predictable provided you have a complete knowledge of the current state of the system (the location and position of every particle) and the laws of physics that govern it.
However classical physics is only an approximation that does not accurately describe the behavior of reality at the smallest scales. In reality the behavior of atomic and subatomic particles is governed by quantum physics which is non-deterministic. This means that the behavior of a given system is to some extent stochastic (i.e. it contains an element of randomness). Further, the exact state of a quantum system can never be known due to a fundamental uncertainty limit (Heisenberg).
All that this tells us is that it is impossible to predict the behavior of a complex system such as the brain with complete accuracy and certainty (though quantum randomness usually tends to average out on a macro scale, hence why in practice macroscopic reality is mostly deterministic, but this is beside the point). If you wish to call this unpredictability “free will” then that is certainly a definition you are free to adopt. However you do not have “free will” in the traditional, metaphysical sense since you have absolutely no control or influence over the way the “dice roll” of quantum randomness lands (unless you believe in some supernatural force that is capable of bending the laws of physics).
Thank you for this elaborate and knowledgeable answer, it is better than most pop science articles on the internet, and I will study it deeper.
I’m not as educated on the subject as you seem to be, but I think I fall in the determinism camp as well. Can I ask how it impacts how you live your life? For me I think I mostly just ignore it/live as if I did have free will
Just to be clear, i am not in the strict determinism camp, i believe our current understanding of physics says that there is an inherent element of randomness to reality, but it’s a randomness that we have absolutely no control over hence why it can’t be called free will.
It doesn’t impact my life at all. It’s a purely academic discussion with no practical application. For all intents and purposes it is impossible to live without the illusion of free will. And we also need to pretend that others have free will too else we can’t have a society.
Yeah I agree with that. I may have used the wrong term. It doesn’t impact my life either. But for some reason that doesn’t feel like a satisfying answer so I wanted to ask to see if anyone thinks about it differently
As I said, great answer, but I have still two concerns:
Even if in the subatomic level we have an element of randomness (is it a scientific consensus now?, please excuse my ignorance), then such random behaviour average out and presents at macroscopic level as deterministic, as you said, and as analogy to the temperature in thermodynamics. And I suppose our brains work at this macroscopic level, so randomness can be negligible in my view.
I have strong conjecture that human views are shaped by empirical observations and experience, what can be seen by the efficiency of propaganda and commercials, so I think this supports the claim that human choices, at least for majority of people, are not actually product of their free choice.
Besides, your point on definition of free will is very important, since earlier I made no distinction and I think by the free will I understood the traditional, religious definition.
On point 1: Yes it is the scientific consensus that quantum physics correctly describes reality at the atomic and subatomic scale, and this includes probabilistic (random) outcomes for quantum interactions. Whether or not we will discover in the future that the seeming randomness is actually not true randomness but the result of even more fundamental physics which we have not discovered yet (kind of how computers can generate pseudo-random numbers by applying sufficiently chaotic but ultimately deterministic mathematical algorithms) remains to be seen.
Yes the vast majority of quantum randomness averages out at the macroscopic scale, in fact you even see this demonstrated mathematically when you take a college physics course: you learn how to derive classical mechanics from quantum mechanics by a process of statistical averaging. That being said we know there exist systems which exhibit chaotic behavior, meaning they are more sensitive to very slight changes in initial conditions which can create “unpredictable” outcomes (i.e. not easily expressed in simple mathematical equations, though they can still be computed through numerical simulation methods).
Whether our brains are such systems in which microscopic randomness could snowball all the way into macroscopic changes is not yet clear, so we have to assume that there may exist at least a small non-deterministic element to our thoughts, though this may or may not be negligible in practice. As i said, we just don’t know. But it doesn’t change anything with respect to the debate about free will. This doesn’t mean that we will ever be able to completely predict human thought/behavior in practice, as i illustrated above with the example of computer generated pseudo-random numbers, even deterministic systems can still exhibit “unpredictability”, pseudo-randomness.
On point 2: I completely agree with you here. It is clear that much if not most of human behavior is the result of the influence of external stimuli. Our reactions to certain circumstances are strongly shaped by our past experiences, going all the way back to our infancy. Our environment has such a strong influence it can physically form new pathways in our brain’s neural network. This is not controversial or speculative, this is pretty much established science. And yes we can be very easily manipulated by those who understand human psychology, which is why it is essential for us as Marxists to do our best to understand it too. This is a much more worthwhile way to spend our time than engaging in pointless, borderline metaphysical speculation and endless academic debates about “free will”.
If it was up to me i would make every Marxist take a course in marketing psychology to learn just how people are manipulated because there is very little practical difference between advertising and political propaganda.
As you said, we do not know, but I have a strong suspicion that our brains could not work effectively, if processes in them would be very sensitive to some initial conditions or external factors, i.e. chaotic. As Stanisław Lem wrote in Summa Technologiae, I suspect that the more complex system, the more it needs to be regulated and homeostated, the less freedom should be allowed for components of the system (a nasty view for free market advocates ;)).
Yes Comrade, I got your allusion :) But this is so fundamental question that it is hard to not seek for the answer, even if it is doomed to failure or ill-stated. And it is not purely an academic concern, it has such practical consequences as artificial intelligence.
That’s an interesting point about more complex systems needing to be more regulated, i think i agree.
As for artificial intelligence, i think we’re still a very long way off from the point when we need to worry about whether they have anything that looks like free will. All that current “AI” is (if you can even call it that), are systems that are fed massive amounts of data and just learn to regurgitate it in ways that imitate the form of the inputs. There is very little actual intelligence there, and what there is has been programmed in by humans. It has a lot of practical applications for sure but i think philosophically it’s not very interesting yet.