Free Will is a necessary illusion

Whether 'free will' exists or it is just an illusion is a debate which is going on for centuries now. 

Despite the pieces of evidence that show it is just an illusion, people have trouble accepting it to be. They feel that accepting the non-existence of free will takes something away from them. That, it undermines us as human beings who are inherently special. They think it means that they cannot claim or take credit for successes nor hold someone responsible for their bad deeds.

This blog post will be divided into two parts.  In part 1, I am going to present few cases based on scientific experiments and philosophical literature to make a point that, free will is an illusion. In part 2, I am going to present the third school of thought to which I subscribe to. I will argue that, though it is an illusion, why it is a necessary illusion.

Part 1: 

First, we need to define what is free will. Wikipedia defines it as,  "Free will is the ability of agents to make choices unconstrained by social, physical, mental or metaphysical factors". In laymen's terms it means, we are free to consciously choose A when we could have chosen B. 

Libet's experiment and its different variations, clearly show that, before a subject becomes conscious of his/her decision to move versus staying still or decision to lift left versus right hand, a machine hooked up to them can predict the decision, the subject is going to make. It means, before you are conscious of the decision, your unconscious mind of which you are not aware of, has already decided what to choose. You become conscious of it, is just an afterthought. What you think as present is technically already a memory. Where is free will here?

Another experiment that questions free will is priming. Priming is an implicit memory effect in which exposure to a stimulus influences a response to a later stimulus. For example, if a person reads a list of words including the word table, and is later asked to complete a word starting with 'tab', the probability that he or she will answerable is greater than if they are not primed. There is a countless number of experiments conducted on this concept of priming. At the end of the experiment, when subjects were asked, why they did what they did, they will always come up with some strange explanation and can never accept/know that they were primed. 

Sam Harris, author of the book 'free will' explains with a very good example. It is kind of a philosophical thought experiment. Here's how it goes. Think of one city name in the world. (It can be a movie name, it does not matter). First, you cannot think of a city name that you don't know, even if someone holds a gun to your head. Then, a lot of cities which you know exist, simply do not come to mind. Then, few city names simply raises to your mind. Finally, you choose one city name say 'Paris' among those city names that come to your mind. You think you have chosen it with your free will. If I ask you, why 'Paris'? why not 'New York'? You will surely come up with an explanation which you did not clearly think about before saying 'Paris'. You will make up an explanation just because I am asking you. There is no free will in any of the above 4 stages of filtering the city name in your mind. Next time, when you are at a food court in a mall, think again, why you choose cheeseburger, when you could have chosen salads, tacos, chicken biryani, or pizza.

Thoughts simply raise one after the another, what else it can do. You don't know what is your next thought will be nor you can control it. Where is the free will here? You are just witnessing your beliefs, thoughts, and actions. You are not the true author of it. Reality is the result of series of prior causes and effects of which we are not aware of. Contents of consciousness are raised out of unconscious mental processes, of which we are not aware of. At its core, the brain is a physical matter which still needs to follow the laws of physics.

Genes and the environment are the significant causes which no one can escape. Think again, if you were born in a remote village in Africa, you would not be reading this internet article or if you have ADHD, you would not have reached this sentence in spite of coming up to this page. 

Part 2:

In this part, I will present three cases and argue that even though free will is an illusion why it is a necessary illusion.

Believing in free will is necessary for our own self-improvement and pretending it exists is in our best interest. After reading part 1, you may say, if free will is all an illusion, what is the point of doing anything. why can't we just sit back and see what happens? Best of luck, try to do it. After few minutes, you will realize that just sitting for a while without absolutely doing anything is harder than doing some meaningless things like, keep swiping the mobile screen or watching TV passively. Thoughts start to arise out of nowhere and you will follow your impulses. So, even if technically free will is an illusion, you have to try to do something worthwhile believing it is doable. In the book 'Talent is overrated', Geoff Colvin explains the concept of the 'Multiplier effect', based on research on motivation done by folks at Cornell University. It is similar to the concept of a positive feedback loop. If a teacher or parent praises children about the work they did even if it not so great, kids feel good about themselves. That pride and confidence, motivate them to do better next time which improves their skills. This improved skill motivates them to do even better and gets them more praise. So this cycle of motivation and skills improves us even though in the 1st instance of starting the cycle, it was really an illusion. Basically, it means, "Act as if until you make it". Success breeds success. Somehow, we need to start the cycle. Note that, still we cannot escape the cycle of causality and affect. It is still in play no matter what. But by trying, you are improving your odds. An apple seed can never grow oranges, but you can always try to improve the yield of apples. Note my use of the word 'TRY'. I intentionally used it because there is no guarantee of sustainable success here. Have you not noticed that a pep talk works for you one day and it is absolutely no use another day !! If we truly knew why we do, what we do, don't we have all done only those things which are in our best interest all the time? Didn't all those hundreds of self-improvement books worked all the time?

Believing in free will is necessary for the criminal justice system to work. Our whole morality and legal system stand on the assumption that 'free will' exists. Even the core religious concept of sin and hell loses its meaning without free will. Let's take the example of a serial killer. If a judge giving a life sentence to a serial killer had exactly the same past and genes as a serial killer or vice versa, the role would have totally reversed. Records show many examples of serial killers whose brain structure itself is different from that of normal people was the cause for their increased impulses for violence and reduced feeling of guilt. Yet, the serial killers had no control over his brain structure hence did not have free will. Still, we need to lock serial killers so that normal people can be safe. The system needs to assume free will exists, to set the example, and deter people from wrongdoings.

Believing free will as an illusion is necessary and it makes us more modest and compassionate. Next time when we win an award for some good work or get a promotion, let's keep our foot on the ground and head on the neck. If we are successful or failed, there is series of past events which we cannot truly own. We had an advantage or disadvantage which needs to be acknowledged. We need to acknowledge the genetics lottery we won or lost and be honest about it. We cannot claim all the glory or feel guilty. Next time, when you are cursing someone for what he/she did for you, think again. He/she did not have true free will. The understanding of causality helps us to forgive others and more importantly forgive ourselves. It makes it easier to drop the heavy bag of guilt bricks, we are carrying. Please note that the message to take away here is not to do whatever you feel like doing, but accept the realities and give a try to improve yourselves without the pressure of over expectations.

I would end the article with a quote from Daniel Dennett, a US philosopher.

"Future is inevitable, whether deterministic is true or not true, but you will still have all the freedom(in a free country) worth wanting, in-spite of a deterministic world".

Please leave your opinions in the comments section.