Book review: Free Will

A major question in philosophy and science asks, do humans have free will? Like politics, concepts in philosophy and science need to be defined for the question or an answer to have a meaning that is understood by more than just a single person or group of like-minded people. For many people, free will means that their actions are matters of free will because they do what they consciously want to do. That belief is intuitively appealing, but is mostly false (~98% false?) based on objective evidence. Most of our actions and behaviors are controlled by our unconscious minds making unconscious decisions we never become aware of. If the phrase ‘I have free will because I do what I want to do’ includes doing what I decide consciously or unconsciously, then that conception of free will at least acknowledges the role of the unconscious mind.

However, that description of free will does not accurately frame the free will concept based on current neuroscience and philosophical thinking. From that point of view, unconscious decisions and actions do not arise from free will because they are not consciously inspired. As described in his book Free Will, philosopher Mark Balaguer (The MIT Press, Cambridge, 2014) free will applies to a small set of ‘torn decisions.’ Torn decisions decisions are decisions that people make when they are in situations where they are about equally inclined to select one option among multiple roughly equally appealing (or least worse) choices. Torn decisions range from trivial, e.g., choose chocolate ice cream, not vanilla, to life-changing, e.g., marry person X, not person Y. Few decisions are torn. If one believes that free will means doing what they consciously want or desire, there is for the most part no such thing as free will.

Balaguer’s short (126 page) book goes through the key philosophical logic and neuroscience data and their underlying strengths and weaknesses in simple, clear language. There is very little technical jargon in Free Will and the few terms that are necessary are clearly described in simple language. Some people may criticize Balaguer for oversimplification, but from this reviewer’s biology point of view, the biology simplifications do not undermine the book’s logic or conclusions. It is reasonable to assume that the philosophical simplifications, which Balaguer clearly points out when relevant, also do not undermine logic or conclusions.

One thing that supports Balaguer’s credibility is his openness about his biases. For example, he is biased to want to believe that humans have free will. Also, although Balaguer is an atheist, he clearly points out where and how arguments in favor of an immaterial soul and free will are compatible with existing logic and data. Despite his contrary biases, he clearly explains the weaknesses of arguments in favor of free will belief and the strengths of arguments against it. This book is well worth the cost in money ($11.54 at Amazon) and time it takes to read. Average readers will probably finish this book in about 10 hours or less.

The broad context of this debate centers on whether there is true free will in making torn decisions or whether there are no situations in which free will exists. Determinism, the belief that there is no such thing as free will under any circumstances, holds that all human decisions and actions are pre-determined since the moment of the big bang. The evidence in favor of determinism is strong. Growing numbers of philosophers and scientists are coming to believe it. Despite the current situation, Balaguer argues that it is too soon to write off free will as non-existent. Although this reviewer is also biased to want to believe in free will, Balaguer’s arguments and logic are convincing on their merits, not on bias. Additional biological evidence against free will needs to be generated and verified.

Existing biological evidence is that neurological signals in the brain signal show that decisions to act or behave are unconscious and are made before we are consciously aware of the decision. Those signals can be detected as early as about 10 seconds before a decision becomes conscious. Balaguer explains that those signals are compatible with decisions being unconscious, which is how that biological data is usually interpreted. Despite that, Balaguer argues the data can also be interpreted as a biological phenomenon that correlates with an unconscious decision being made, but isn’t necessarily causal of the decision per se. Resolving that question will take time, but at least it does seem plausibly resolvable by science.

Balaguer believes it will take many decades before sufficient data can be generated to reasonably decide the issue, assuming it can ever be decided. Some people now believe that the question can never be resolved by human inquiry. However, that belief is increasingly weak as new data continues to be generated. From this reviewer’s point of view, Balaguer is unduly pessimistic about how long it will take to resolve the question. This may be personal bias speaking, but it looks like reasonable resolution of the free will question is no more than 25-50 years off.

At least some people alive today just might come to know if humans have free will or not. Of course, that time frame assumes the human species doesn’t destroy modern civilization or the species itself before then. Whether that assumption is optimistic or not is beyond the scope of this book review.

B&B orig: 11/21/17