How free is free will might sound like a very theoretical, philosophical question without much use in real life, but I think it is quite important because much of our behavior is a result of our opinion on this.
To prove my point, you need look only at the extremes: on one end, you have the idea that virtually everything is determined in advance (see for example this cartoon on determinism), and on the other, there is the idea that you control everything (solipsism). The first can lead to a defeatist, fatalist and apathetic attitude where nothing you do matters; the other extreme is even worse. Of course most people are somewhere in between those extremes, but there are still significant differences. Part of the problem is the fact that we do not all agree on what free will is.
For the purposes of this entry, I will define free will as the ability of an organism to intentionally and consciously influence their surroundings. (I acknowledge the existence of "unconscious intentions" - the things that make organisms do without being aware that they are doing them - but you cannot really control what you are not aware of, so that does not count as free will, or at very least is in a grey area).
In my makeshift defintion, you will have noted I used the word "organisms" and not "people". That is because I think free will is not limited to the “pinnacle of creation” (Mankind). I think the amount of free will decreases gradually as you descend through the evolutionary tree: humans have most, apes a little bit less, etc. And I think this because it depends to a great deal on how far, on average, the members of a species are able to see into the future, and how accurate this vision is, i.e. how intelligent they are. And intelligence is directly linked to the way information is stored and processed.
But wait, I hear you saying, there are many different ways to store and process information. Rocks, for example are able to “store” information (e.g. in the form of distinctive scratches) indicating they have been subjected to glacial conditions. But their reactions are passive, and no information is processed. Plants are able to perceive and react to certain stimuli (sunlight, the type and amount of nutrients in the soil), but do not have a nervous system, and have to store the information elsewhere. Worms have a (relatively rudimentary) nervous system, which serves to help them to actively search for and find mates, protection against predators, food, etc. Higher animals have two different (but linked) systems to store and process information: the limbic and the nervous systems.
The limbic system, though essential for survival, is less “intelligent" than the nervous system, because feelings are local and limited in time (feelings cannot “look” much further than the individual's own life span), and because they are associative, and not very accurate (the limbic system is responsible, for example, for an irrational fear of all trees after having had an accident involving a tree – an idea which may be virtually impossible to correct, in spite of a constant stream of proof that not all trees are bad news). The nervous system is “smarter” than the limbic system in that it covers a broader range of information, is capable of storing, processing and retrieving much more detail, makes it (somewhat) easier to correct mistakes, and can look much further than the life-span of the individual, or the local conditions of the individual.
I have driften completely off track here, but it all this digression did yield an interesting maxim:
Free will is to the nervous system what power is to the limbic system.
More on this in another entry.
To prove my point, you need look only at the extremes: on one end, you have the idea that virtually everything is determined in advance (see for example this cartoon on determinism), and on the other, there is the idea that you control everything (solipsism). The first can lead to a defeatist, fatalist and apathetic attitude where nothing you do matters; the other extreme is even worse. Of course most people are somewhere in between those extremes, but there are still significant differences. Part of the problem is the fact that we do not all agree on what free will is.
For the purposes of this entry, I will define free will as the ability of an organism to intentionally and consciously influence their surroundings. (I acknowledge the existence of "unconscious intentions" - the things that make organisms do without being aware that they are doing them - but you cannot really control what you are not aware of, so that does not count as free will, or at very least is in a grey area).
In my makeshift defintion, you will have noted I used the word "organisms" and not "people". That is because I think free will is not limited to the “pinnacle of creation” (Mankind). I think the amount of free will decreases gradually as you descend through the evolutionary tree: humans have most, apes a little bit less, etc. And I think this because it depends to a great deal on how far, on average, the members of a species are able to see into the future, and how accurate this vision is, i.e. how intelligent they are. And intelligence is directly linked to the way information is stored and processed.
But wait, I hear you saying, there are many different ways to store and process information. Rocks, for example are able to “store” information (e.g. in the form of distinctive scratches) indicating they have been subjected to glacial conditions. But their reactions are passive, and no information is processed. Plants are able to perceive and react to certain stimuli (sunlight, the type and amount of nutrients in the soil), but do not have a nervous system, and have to store the information elsewhere. Worms have a (relatively rudimentary) nervous system, which serves to help them to actively search for and find mates, protection against predators, food, etc. Higher animals have two different (but linked) systems to store and process information: the limbic and the nervous systems.
The limbic system, though essential for survival, is less “intelligent" than the nervous system, because feelings are local and limited in time (feelings cannot “look” much further than the individual's own life span), and because they are associative, and not very accurate (the limbic system is responsible, for example, for an irrational fear of all trees after having had an accident involving a tree – an idea which may be virtually impossible to correct, in spite of a constant stream of proof that not all trees are bad news). The nervous system is “smarter” than the limbic system in that it covers a broader range of information, is capable of storing, processing and retrieving much more detail, makes it (somewhat) easier to correct mistakes, and can look much further than the life-span of the individual, or the local conditions of the individual.
I have driften completely off track here, but it all this digression did yield an interesting maxim:
Free will is to the nervous system what power is to the limbic system.
More on this in another entry.
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