Free will

The question of free will is an age old question in philosophy and vast amount of speculation has gone into it. All sorts of issues from dualistic Gods, determinism, randomicity, etc. has been brought into it.

It is pertinent to note that these discussions are for those who like philosophical speculation only. Society at large has since time immemorial settled the question firmly in favor of everyone having a free will and the ability to make a decision on their actions, and thus being responsible for their actions. When we catch a murderer, we immediately produce him in court hoping to punish him. We are sure that he has killed on his own decision, and want to punish him for it. The judge also does not pontificate about free will but imposes a stiff sentence, considering him fully responsible.

Not just the criminal justice system but virtually all our institutions like marriage, government, companies, etc. depend on their functioning for this assumption that the persons involved in that institution have free will and can act on their own judgment.

Even those who indulge in such speculation do not actually believe that there is no free will in their practical lives, as they are also part of the same institutions and support them without question. Such speculation has no practical basis and exists merely to serve its own end of giving us something to speculate on, a ‘time-pass’ activity as we say in India.

Arguments about the absence of free will are rather like arguments of Mahayana Buddhists – Yogachara or Madhyamika, when they make their solipsistic arguments that the whole world is a dream that we are dreaming. We know right at the outset that they are completely wrong, even though we realize that we may have a hard time proving that they are wrong.

The basic problem with all arguments about ‘free will’ start from the use of the terms ‘free will’ itself. This is because we cannot really define ‘will’. What actually does it mean? Does it not mean our ability to do anything we want? In that case, what does ‘free’ indicate? The word ‘will’ should by itself convey the capacity of ‘freeness’. Again, other questions arise like where does will originate, etc. Any definition of will must rest on a clear definition of consciousness, and since we cannot define consciousness exactly, we cannot define will also.

Most of the confusion about ‘free will’ originates from here. Contemplating deeply into the question ultimately brings up the basic problems of these terms, and hence ensures that we remain muddled up forever.

Hence it is better to start off by trying to define this more exactly.

We must avoid definitions of free will which include words like consciousness in the second term.

In the future the question will undoubtedly arise whether a particular computer has free will. In these discussions, adding ‘consciousness’ to the descriptions of free will add immeasurably to the confusion. Instead we have to use a definition of free will that avoids terms like consciousness.

We can say, for example, that an entity has free will when it can do something which has not been programmed into it by genetic or environmental factors or any other factors for that matter.

By substituting words like behavioral pattern for will we can have a surer statement for arguments about free will and avoid a lot of confusion.

So the statement, ‘we have free will’ can be expressed in a clearer way by saying we can do something which is outside our programmed behavioral patterns, outside what our genes and environment have programmed into us.

The argument’ ‘we have no free will’ basically states the assumption that we are controlled by various factors and it is these factors which predetermine our response to every situation so that whatever decision or action we take has already been predetermined and we are actually passively following an ingrained rule.

There are various ways in which these controlling factors are defined. Some dualistic arguments would say that it is god who has predetermined our actions. This though is not at all a rational argument and does not really merit any discussion.

Modern beliefs say that these predispositions which guide us in a particular direction are a combination of our genes and our environment.  So it would be safe to say that our behavioral patterns are determined by approx.50% by our genes and 50% by our environment (more or less).

We can consider here that the tendencies inherent in us and which is believed to control us thus preventing free will are like road maps inside our brains. These maps are a combination of genetics and environment.

The test proposed to separate free will is of course, the Cartesian devil, a giant omniscient entity, which knows all the ‘maps’ inside us. The question is whether by knowing all these maps, the giant can predict exactly what we will do in a particular situation. If we say that he can predict our actions, then it means we have no free will. If we say that he would not be able to predict, at least not all the time, then we admit free will.

This is very much analogous to a computer. The genes stand for the hardware of the computer, the chip, memory cards etc. The environment stands for the software fed into the computer, the operating system and whatever other programs we feed into it. How the computer will behave depends entirely on the hardware and software inside it, it cannot do something which is not programmed into it.

It is my contention in my book, ‘The Circle of Fire’, that the fact that we can learn shows that we do indeed have this capacity, that we can do something outside our previous programs.

What I am stating is that the way we learn, our learning process, shows that we have the capacity to do something which is new and outside our behavioral patterns, which is something new, and this is what indicates or proves that we have free will.

It is not that because we can learn in our lives and change our behavioral patterns, we have free will. Changes in behavioral patterns brought about by external factors mimic learning and free will, but does not always represent it. The version of the T9 Dictionary on my Nokia cell phone has a new useful feature. A word like ‘home’ has the same characters on the cell keyboard as ‘good’. Every time I want to write ‘home’, the dictionary spells out ‘good’ at the first instance and ‘home’ only second if I press the key that shows alternate spellings. However, if I repeatedly change ‘good’ to ‘home’ for about 6 times, it starts to show ‘home’ at the first instance itself. It has learnt that I prefer ‘home’ when I use those keys and has changed its behavior accordingly and shows ‘home’.

This is of course not at all learning, nor is it free will. The program probably has a line of code that says something like ‘if the guy keeps changing ‘good’ to ‘home’, let him try for 6 times and then start showing ‘home’. This is still very much an ingrained behavioral pattern and there is no free will or even ‘learning’ in the true sense.

Similarly, we can argue that a person can have his behavioral pattern changed midway in his life, but it need not mean that he has free will. The program for that behavior might itself contain some code that allows him or her to change the behavior. A person who slows down when he sees an orange light might have a program that also says, ‘if you slow down at an orange light and everyone else in your city speeds up, then you slow down for 6 times and after that you also make a run for it’. So by the seventh time, he will also speed up at the orange light and try to get through. He might appear superficially to have decided to speed up, but he is actually still following his ingrained programs and there is no free will.

So a change in our behavior midway by itself need not mean free will. We can still be very much under the control of our inner ‘programs’. It is the way in which this change occurs that can show whether we have free will or not.

Here we can take up the question of Hume’s fork mentioned by Dennis Littrell in his review of my book, “The Circle of Fire” on Amazon. Hume’s fork is commonly used to describe the dichotomy between the ‘relation of ideas’ and ‘facts of the world’. But it is also sometimes used in the context of free will, that either our actions are determined, in which case we do not have free will, or they are controlled by random events, in which case also we do not have free will.

What this means when we substitute ‘behavioral patterns’ for ‘will’ is that either our programs are fixed, so that we have the same behavioral patterns throughout, or that our programs can be changed midway, in which case also we are still following our programmed behavioral patterns and so we still do not have free will.

The first supposition is somewhat like what Freud taught, that our behavioral patterns become fixed at 6 years. According to this, our genes and environment combine to create a fixed behavioral pattern for us by 6 years and we continue to follow this for the rest of our lives and cannot change this. This is not very convincing, people can and do change their behavior. Thus a man who is combative and violent in his early years could become more sedate at a later age.

The second supposition is that our programs, and therefore our behavioral patterns, are changed from time to time throughout our lives by random events. However, even if they are changed, this does not mean that we have free will, because in essence we are still controlled by our programs.

We can compare this to a rock rolling down a hill. It may collide with another rock becoming smoother in the process and rolling faster, it may then collide with another rock and become wobbly, and so on. Similarly in our lives we may have a happy childhood and be calm and pleasant in our adolescence; we may have some psychological trauma in our teens and become violent and aggressive; and again we may have a happy marriage and become relaxed again, and so on. We have undoubtedly changed in our behavioral patterns, and therefore the programs inside us also have definitely changed, so we can safely say that we not pre-determined either at birth or at 6 years. Our inbuilt programs do have the capacity to change.

But this by itself does not mean that we have free will. Although our programs or our behavioral patterns have changed, we are still very much under their control. All our actions and decisions continue to be controlled by them.

This is what is meant by Hume’s fork, that whether we say that our ‘programs’ or ‘behavioral patterns’ are determined and unchangeable, or whether we say that they can be changed midway by random events, we are still under their control and therefore do not have free will.

However, this argument is not complete because the ‘learning process’ in this example is not the kind of learning that humans can do, it is merely adaptive behavior.

Humans can and do show a quite different approach when they are learning. Human learning acquires a different skill for the person, and to do this, he or she has to show behavior which is completely different from his previous patterns and do something completely new. In this way he acquires a new behavior which is not programmed into him.

This process of acquiring new behavior patterns is by far the most highly developed in humans. Other animals also have this capacity, but they have it to different degrees, and can be considered more or less intelligent according to how far they have this ability.

But in humans, the capacity to develop a completely new behavior is the highest, and this is because the capacity to learn is also the highest.

And finally, the capacity to develop a new behavior outside of what has been programmed into us is by definition what we call ‘free will’. So this ability of humans to have true learning shows that we have ‘free will’.

Humans learn, not by simple adaptation, but by a trial and error process. This is the most distinguishing feature of human learning. In order to learn something, the person will first try out a behavior which is likely to be completely new for him, in order to achieve the goal of whatever he is trying to learn. Then he will examine whether it fits his goal, and then try out another new behavior which matches his goal more accurately, and so on till he has a new skill.

This process of learning requires that the man is able to use a completely new behavior pattern. It is only then that we can achieve true human learning. Without this capacity, to try out a new behavior, we would never be able to learn in a human way. Hence it is that we have this capacity of showing a new behavior.

To examine the learning process, let us take the typical example of a man learning to play the guitar.

If we examine in detail, during the process, the man is trying out a completely different behavior, something that he has not done before. He has to put his finger on a slot (frat) with one hand and with the other hand, pluck on the string. He has to make this trial first. We could argue here that the man is simply imitating something that he has seen, which his teacher is showing him, or following directions a book or from memory, etc. and it is an imitative behavior only.

To get around this, let us examine the hypothetical case of a ‘savage’ of an interior jungle tribe who has never seen or heard a guitar or any other stringed instrument in his life, and who suddenly comes upon a guitar.

In such a situation, we can maintain a hypothesis that a man who comes upon a guitar like this may eventually learn to play the guitar, even if in a rudimentary way. We can conceive that even someone who has never seen a stringed instrument learn to produce musical notes because we know that all humans have this capacity to learn, the capacity to make trials and thus learn through trial and error a new skill. Our knowledge of human nature and our own abilities  leads us to this realization that a man can experiment by himself and learn to play the instrument.

By taking the example of a ‘savage’ man with a guitar, we can eliminate some of the confusion about arguments about free will. We can eliminate environmental factors in judging this and concentrate only on genetic factors, since there are no environmental factors, at least in a direct sense, helping him to learn the guitar. We can also eliminate questions about moral judgments since there is nothing moral or amoral about learning a guitar.

Most importantly, we can concentrate only on a particular aspect of will, the aspect of will that comes into play when we consider learning. This is an aspect that is a special part of will. If we can demonstrate that at least one part of the will is free, the part involved in learning, then we can demonstrate that we have free will. By examining only the aspect of will which is involved in learning, we also avoid clouding our arguments with all other factors like ‘desire’, ‘intellect’, etc. Words like ‘desire’ and ‘intellect’ often cloud all discussions about free will. How is desire connected to will, how is intellect connected to will – these are questions that are very difficult to answer because we do not have any clear definitions about intellect, desire, etc. (besides, of course, not having a clear definition of will either).

So by concentrating only on that particular aspect of will that is involved in learning, we can try to analyze whether a man has freedom of choice or not and do this analysis by avoiding the word will entirely. Through this we can analyze back to using the word ‘will’ again.

Free will requires a ‘willer’. This again is a difficult question, but we should not attempt to pre-answer this question. We can understand that the ‘willer’ must be somehow in the brain (unless we want to bring in concepts like the soul). But as to where exactly in the brain is a question that can be decided later. We can call that part of the brain which is involved in ‘willing’ as ‘buddhi’. Buddhi was the term used in Samkhya to denote something like a deciding capacity. It is of course not to mean that there must be one particular part of the brain which does this; it is most likely a combined action of several parts of the brain. But we can just use the term for convenience.

So here we will discuss only a particular aspect of the buddhi, the aspect which is involved in learning.

The question then is whether our buddhi is free or controlled entirely by our roadmaps.

How does a man learn?

A man learns by trial and error. If we consider the case of the man learning to play the guitar, we can see that he first strums the guitar, perhaps accidentally. He then analyzes the effect, the sound this makes, then compares it with a blueprint in his head, his love for music, and sees that it matches. He then tries another trial, makes a movement similar to the first one but slightly different, compares the effect again, and then tries another movement, etc. till the effect is close enough to his roadmap to satisfy him.

In the case of a ‘savage’ man learning a guitar in this way, we can consider a number of maps that he is following.

The first map which we can call A would be a tendency to explore. Different people have different propensities to explore, and we can assume that our man has a high tendency to explore.

The second map which we can call B, would be his innate love of music. It seems quite natural to say that we all have an innate love of music, which extends down even to the birds, whales, etc. and it is very likely that different people have different tendencies towards music. Here also we can assume that our man has inherited a high regard for music.

We can even assume a third map C which defines the type of music he would love. For example, it seems likely that a man who has inherited an A type personality would love a faster music, and we can assume that his map would guide the man towards a certain type of music.

Assuming these two factors, the buddhi as the aspect of will which brings about learning, and the roadmaps which guide people, we can try to describe how they would work within definitions of ‘no free will’ and ‘free will’.

No free will

In this case, the road maps are the defining factor and the buddhi (the part of the brain which ‘wills’) is totally under the control of the road maps. It is the road maps which define how the person will act in every situation. In our example, the road maps are entirely genetic, since environmental factors are to a large extent ruled out, but in most other situations the roadmaps would be a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

As the man comes into contact with the guitar, the first roadmap that would come into action would be map A which has given him a tendency to explore. This would cause his buddhi to try out different movements on the guitar. Some of these movements could be imitations of behaviors that he knows already, and some would be random movements. As he does them, his finger could strum against a string producing a note. As he analyzed this, the second map B which is his innate love for music would come into play. This love of music would lead his buddhi to try to produce more music. His buddhi would then try out other behaviors, like strumming other strings, and go on trying out trials and errors. As his music progresses, C would come into play and force his buddhi to produce music which is ingrained in this road map.

Thus we can say that the combination of these three maps are such that when this man comes into contact with a guitar, he is inevitably led to produce music of a certain type. He has not made any decision or choice of his own, it is these roadmaps which guide him into his various actions till it produces a behavior which is ingrained in their combination.

That the man has freedom of action in his actual movements may be granted. But this by itself does not prove that he has free will. When he comes on the guitar, it cannot be argued that he already has pre programmed the fine movements he will do on it. Similarly, we cannot say that he performs all the actions he does on it randomly, since we do not expect him to start hitting it or kicking it, but instead more likely he will explore in a sensitive way with his fingers. Coming on a ball however, we can expect the man to soon discover the joy of kicking it.

We cannot also say that the man is forced by his innate tendencies so that he is programmed to strum the guitar whenever he sees one, since it is not at all possible that our genes will carry information like this. He has the ability to make various patterns of behavior on the guitar as trials, and then pick the behavior that suits him and conduct further trials and so on, so that ultimately he learns to play it. These initial exploratory movements, whether he picks the strings with his fingers or scratches the woodwork, etc. are surely something that he decides to do by himself, it is not really feasible to see how such movements also could be programmed in his genes.

But this does not mean free will. If we accept a deterministic position that the man is guided strictly by his road maps, then even with freedom of action, he is still led inevitably to do according to the direction set in the map, and so there is no freedom of will. Accepting a rigid deterministic position can still leave a man with freedom of action but is incompatible with a true freedom of will.

The test, whether an omniscient giant can predict the outcome, will still fail in this case. Although his individual actions are more or less free, the final outcome, that he will end up playing music and a certain kind of music, can still be predicted.

We can say the test is successful and he has freedom of will only when the final outcome cannot be predicted simply from knowing his maps, etc.

Free will

In this case, when we assume that the man has free will, it is the Buddhi and not the road maps which are prominent.

In this case, the road maps do not have a controlling effect on the buddhi, rather it is the buddhi which uses hem as guides only.

In this case, when the man comes into contact with the guitar, his buddhi chooses roadmap A which leads him to explore it, but it is the buddhi which chooses, and there are likely to be other roadmaps, like a roadmap which says ‘destruct’ for example. We may say that the map A which says ‘explore’ is more powerful, but here we can say that the buddhi has, according to its entire situation, the ability to choose a roadmap which is less powerful. Depending on the situation, the buddhi can choose other road maps also, like the map for destruction. He then makes an exploratory movement which may cause a note, but this does not mean that map B immediately comes into effect. It is the buddhi which compares it to various roadmaps, including the map for the innate love of music. But there may be other competing maps like a map which says ‘use it for a weapon’. The road map for music may be more powerful, but the buddhi is still capable of using it for a weapon, even though by assumption it is less powerful than the urge for music. Similarly for the third map C, we can say that though the map for a certain type of music is more powerful, he can still choose other lesser powerful types of music.

When the buddhi is given primacy, we can see that the result becomes unpredictable, the man has a wide range of ways in which to use the guitar, and even when he does produce music from it, a wide range of music to play.

So the combination of road maps and Buddhi can be understood in these two competing pathways.

In both these paradigms of thought, the other side has to be accepted to some degree. Those who accept that the road maps are the main source of action have to accept that the man has at least freedom of action in the small acts. Those who accept free will have to accept that there is at least a road map at the back.

So in many ways, the differences between the two positions is mainly one of degree. It is a question of how much primacy we give either to the buddhi or the road maps.

If we stretch the analogy of road maps further, we can say that in case of ‘no free will’, the maps are like the maps in a rocket to the moon, we know that once the rocket blasts off, the maps in it will take it to the exact spot on the moon and it will reach a particular spot. The rocket may deviate here and there, but the maps will guide the engines to stick to the course again.

In case of ‘free will’, the maps are just like actual road maps to a person, the person compares them to the path he is taking and tries to stick to it, but he has liberty to divert from it both deliberately and accidentally, to take short cuts, etc. and thus although we can say it is very likely that he will arrive at the spot that the maps point to, the chances are quite high that he may not do so too. The more ‘free’ a man is, the more innovative he is, the more he is likely to arrive at a different spot from the map.

Which of these then is the true picture?

It is important to note that both are equally valid. Both can neither be proved nor disproved. ‘No free will’ enthusiasts are proud to point out that their proposition cannot be disproved, but it is also true that they cannot disprove the ‘free will’ proposition either. Both are matters of belief or opinion. There is no logical proof of either, and there is no logical disproof of either also. Neither is more valid than the other.

Or is it so?

It is no one’s case that a man comes with a perfectly clean slate.

We all recognize that there are innate tendencies in a man which guide him towards certain patterns of behavior.

The question is how strongly this guidance works. Does it work so strong that under a certain set of circumstances a man can do only a certain pattern of behavior and nothing else, so that he has to follow this pattern and could not have done otherwise?

Is it possible that a road map like an innate love of music can influence a person’s actions to the extent that it controls what music he is eventually going to play? For this to work in our example, we have to say that we can predict that our Cartesian giant who knows the roadmaps inside this person can predict as soon as he sees him come upon a guitar that he will soon be playing some particular notes on it.

In this context we can try to imagine the kind of guidance that a road map is likely to have, which in this case is entirely genetic.

It cannot be that a man can have a roadmap separately for string music. We cannot possibly argue that if the man had come on a percussion instrument for example, he would have a different map guiding him or if he came upon a wind instrument he would have had a different map. It simply could not be that he would inherit all these things in his genes. So the initial road map must be one which is the same for string, percussion, wind, etc. that is, an innate love of music in general. So it is the same road map which, in case he came on a percussion instrument would cause him to beat out some common rhythms, in case he came on a wind instrument draw out some airs and in case he came on a stringed guitar would cause him to strum out notes.

Once we accept that the road map for music is so general, then it follows as a natural corollary that a man has complete freedom to play out whatever set of music he comes across and likes during experimentation. The map may be drawing him out to play music, but that is all it does, it does not control the exact notes that he is going to play. It may even be that the map C guides him towards playing soft and gentle or slow music, but in this case also the exact notes are not prewritten and he could end up playing anything like Chopin or Mozart or Indian classic music raga.

Also importantly, he also has the ability not to do further trial and error. We can consider this best when we talk of the musical style that he will follow. He will eventually settle down to a string of notes that best pleases him. In this as we said before, he may be guided in very general terms as to the type of music that he will love, but the eventual style that he  adopts is something very individual, something that he ‘picks’ up himself. He at every moment, each time he plays a note, has the ability to go on playing that note or to try out a different note.  To bring out a particular strain of music, he has to have at every stage the ability to either discard a note and try out new note or to continue with the same note and not try a new note. Without this ability, he would not be able to bring out any music as he would be continuously trying out new notes. Hence if we grant that there is a general tendency towards music or to a particular style of music, we have to grant this ability not to make further trials and errors. At each stage of his learning therefore, he has this ability to do further trials and errors or not to do further trials and errors. This shows that the Buddhi is supreme and not the maps, because this effectively means that the control is in the hands of the buddhi, so to speak, as it is this which is analyzing the notes and comparing them with the maps inside, and thus making or not making out a particular style.

His ability to analyze a particular action and its effects, decide whether the effect is beneficial to him, and then decide whether to continue the same action or try out another new action, is the most important aspect of the whole process of trial and error. We have to grant that man has this ability if we grant that he has the ability to learn by trial and error. This ability is an integral part of the whole. Also, since as we have said, the exact music that he develops is not programmed and it is an individual style, the notes that he accepts or rejects are also very much his own decision and it is by his own choice that he makes these decisions.

Once we grant this ability, we have to grant that he has free will. He may have a general charter in his genes and environment, his road map for music, but it is very general and it his own decision that lets him follow his map. The map has to be generalized and loose in order to let him develop his own music. He it is that interpreter of the map. He has to follow the map with his own decision making abilities each and every time.

The map, in case of our example then, would be a general love for music, a tendency to fiddle, and a love for fast things. This would give the man overall a general tendency to experiment with the guitar, produce music from it and then produce a fast music from it. This much we can accept. But even with this road map, the man only has a small tendency to end up actually making music. There are a hundred different courses he could take. He might not play the guitar at all and instead use it as a club, by using his trial and error processes towards a map guiding him to destruction, for example. The fact that the map is so general in its guidance inevitably means that he has the ability to choose from a number of conflicting maps, and it is entirely his own decision as to which map to follow.

In this case, this would definitely be accepting the second paradigm of thought, that the map functions only like a road map guiding a traveler. If a man has enough freedom of will that he can end up playing either Chopin or Mozart or a raga, and anything else in between, then this would mean a free will for all practical purposes. There is hence no way in which the first paradigm of thought can be supported.

By concentrating only on this particular aspect of will, that involved in learning, we can have a clearer argument about ‘free will’. Of course, it is not really necessary to go into guitar learning to see that we can try out new behaviors. All learning in humans show this ability, including a baby learning to speak, a man learning to drive and obey or disobey traffic rules, in fact we exhibit this capacity in practically every instant of our lives. We need only examine any aspect of our lives to see this. But this particular example, of a man in the jungle coming across a guitar, enables us to avoid many of the pitfalls which unnecessarily in my opinion cloud up all arguments on free will.

Such speculation is only that, speculation and theorizing and argumentation. In our practical lives, we are firmly convinced that we and everybody around us have free will and whatever action they take, they take it through a decision they make and therefore bear full responsibility for it. If anyone is seriously convinced that there is no free will, he or she would at once have started a campaign not to imprison terrorists and murderers and the like, and also would have had profound changes in their lives as they would then have the license to do whatever takes their fancy, as of course they are not doing it out of free will. But nobody does this, nobody needs convincing that they or others have free will. Despite this, the question is an enduring one and it is always quite fascinating to deal with this problem and its various sides.

(If you wish to read more on this topic,  you can look up my book, The Circle of Fire- the Metaphysics of Yoga.)(You can look it up at the Random House site if it is not available on Amazon.)