In philosophy and psychology a new interpretation of current neurological knowledge has found fertile grounds: The end of free will. The logic is a bit like this: "If all our choices are governed completely by our brain neurons, we are slaves of this structure, without independent freedom of thought". By figuring out the exact rules behind our brains, it becomes possible to (pre-)determine every coming choice and reaction. Part of the argument is being strengthened by observations that many choices are being made before the person is actually aware of the choice. And everybody who has experienced either pregnancy, sex and/or the adverse effects of certain medicine, knows how many of our choices can be influenced by the chemical state of our body.
Interestingly common experience does tell a different story too: One of the defining aspects of (human) intelligence is the freedom of choice, independent of context. Many defining choices in our lives are only taken after careful deliberation. And we tend to hold ourselves and others responsible for these choices.
Where do these seemingly incompatible experiences come from? How do they work?
A couple of observations:
- it is important to consider that these experiences come from a different abstraction level. The working of our brain is mostly understood at a neuron level, with some consideration of global effects, but mostly focussed on the mechanics of bundles of neurons. On the other end, our understanding of behaviour, intelligence and free will lies on a global (entire person) scale. It's like looking from two sides at the same (complex) coin.
- the emergence of complex behaviour from relative simple underlying mechanisms is a relative new, unexplored field. Especially if the number of underlying elements is large, it is difficult (to impossible according to complexity theory) to create a deterministic model, which might allow you to describe the expected behaviour on a large scale based only on the underlying elements.
-in the example of the human brain there are billions of underlying elements, with many interactions on various combinatory levels. There is also a large level of feedback between these elements at these levels. The resulting complexity leads to all sorts of non-deterministic mechanisms at the global scale.
This brings me back to my earlier argument for life as emergent behaviour. Your brain might contain many deterministic elements, but on the emergent scale it has reached a life of its own. The feedback loops at these higher levels of abstraction allow for freedom of choice, not entirely independent of the underlying mechanisms, but with a co-shared level of control.