If You Are Who You Are, Then Who Are You?
Each of us is born, we
live lives of various lengths, and then we die. Each of us has, or perhaps
develops, a separate nature and existence, a being, which is unique to us and
sets us apart from every other person who lives or has ever lived. Indeed we
share similar characteristics, but no two of us are the same person. As humans,
each of us is distinct, each of us is an individual
being.
What makes each of us
unique is the fact that we perpetually make choices between alternatives. Our
choices seem to be far more than mechanical selections based on some complex
biological decision making scheme. Rather, your choice seems to be based not
only on what you believe will happen if you make a certain choice, but also on
what you "want" to happen. You, as all of us do, possess the ability
to engage in what we will call “rational thought”, whereby each of us weighs
many variables in a process that includes concepts of good and evil, right and
wrong. “Rational thought”, as we define it, is reasoned thought that presents
us with choices between alternatives. You ultimately reach a point in your
rational thinking where that certain quality of being which is unique to you
takes over and you make your free choice among the alternatives.
Biologists have demonstrated
that the line between animal and human "thought" is not as clear as
was once commonly assumed. There are animals that appear to have
self-awareness, solve problems, communicate, exhibit emotions, etc. While there
may be a very high degree of intelligence in the animal world, animals seem to
lack the ability to make free choices by consciously "thinking" about
alternatives and consequences. It appears that only human beings possess the
necessary consciousness and symbolic languages that allow us to engage in
significant abstract thought.
For example, animals
may or may not harm other animals, yet they do not appear to be able to make
reasoned choices to harm or not to harm by considering whether it is right or
wrong to do so. An animal may make a “choice” to act kindly toward another
animal based in part on their "inherent personality" and “basic
instincts”. Yet it appears that an animal cannot make a rational, reasoned,
choice to go against "inherent personality" and "basic
instincts". Human beings can choose to do that which they would not
otherwise do, to go against what their instincts, personality, and emotions
tell them to do. Scientists often take this apparent distinction for granted.
Rather than accept without question that we are little more than highly evolved animals,
we should recognize our ability to engage in "rational thought” and give
more consideration to the apparent fact that we have truly unique mental
abilities.
Unlike any animal,
your choices are made after rational thought. Even though you have instinctive
feelings for self-preservation, procreation, self-satisfaction, etc., decisions
may be freely made for reasons and purposes totally opposite to those
instincts. You can think about what you are going to do, and can choose to do
what you believe is right and good even if it places you in grave danger.
Similarly, you can choose to do what you believe is wrong and evil even if you
would instinctively do otherwise. Your decision is
your decision, a product of your singular existence and being. Able to engage
in rational thought, and to choose freely among various courses of action based
on those thoughts, you are in a very real sense what you choose to be.
One of the oldest
controversies in human history deals with what the significance of rational
thought really is. Perhaps the most debated aspect of the question is whether or not rational
thought actually gives us the ability to make “freewill” choices. Many
scientists argue that every rational choice you make is in fact predetermined
by your biochemical makeup. They admit that when you have a choice between two
options you engage in both conscious and subconscious thought processes before
making what you consider to be your decision. However they argue that no matter
how convinced you are that your choice between A and B is your own, your brain
chemistry actually dictates your selection. They suggest that your mind's
decision-making processes cannot go beyond the level of chemical neurological
activity. Therefore, even though your choices may in one sense still be said to
be your own, they are in effect predetermined. Despite the agonizing doubts,
careful thought, and numerous changes of mind that accompany daily decisions,
most scientists believe the final decision would be totally predictable if they
could decode your brain.
This idea of
"determinism" not only shows up in science, but in some ancient
philosophies and religions as well. Taken to its logical extreme, many believe in
super-determinism, where all that is in the universe was in the past part of a
closely related system in which "matter and energy" were joined. Many
scientists and philosophers view everything from sub-atomic particles to human
beings as part of a universe whose destiny was forever set at creation by the
forces between its constituent parts, and whose future unfolds in a billiard
ball like progression of "predictable" actions. To this school of
thought, humans are prisoners of subatomic laws that determine the behavior of
atoms that determine the behavior of molecules that determine the behavior of
nerve cells that determine the behavior of human brains that determine the
behavior of human beings. Even though the chain is totally imperceptible to
humankind, and a feeling of control exists as an inherent part of human
existence, they insist that what seem to be "spontaneous" decisions
and reactions are actually destined to occur without any possibility of
variance.
While most scientists
are comfortable with the idea of an ordered and well-behaved universe, many
view the complexity and reality of life as requiring events to be based on
something less than absolute certainty. On the sub-atomic level this idea has
been recognized in the so-called uncertainty principle. Those who accept the
uncertainty principal might be called probability determinists. They argue for a determinism as certain as any, one that also sees
humankind governed by forces beyond its control. Yet the reality dictated by
their brand of determinism can only be described by stating how likely it is
that a particular event, chosen from a list of possible events, will occur. In
other words, they can eliminate what cannot happen, can give you a list of
events that might happen, and can even tell you how likely it is each
individual item will take place, but they cannot tell you which of the possible
events will in fact occur. The exact future of the universe may be uncertain,
yet it is still fundamentally predetermined.
Modern theories dealing
with chaotic behavior tell us that because of the almost infinite number of
possible combinations created by the interaction between objects we cannot
complete the necessary calculations to determine what will in fact occur next.
Furthermore, some mathematical problems may have no solutions, and seem to be
fundamentally “non-computable”. It is simply not known whether or not
non-deterministic physical mechanisms exist in our universe. Virtually all of
the currently “favored” cosmologic theories dealing with chaos, complexity, and
computability agree that given enough information and processing power (even if
the required amounts approach infinity) the probabilistic behavior of even the
most complex system in our universe is "in theory" mathematically calculable.
It seems fair to say that all of the currently favored cosmologic theories
conclude that our physical universe is, in some real sense, fully
deterministic.
In a universe that had
no living organisms, determinism would not be as hard to accept as it is in our
universe inhabited by living creatures. One can visualize a universe devoid of
life where every rock, every speck of dust, every atom, every sub-atomic
particle, follows a pattern which was forever fixed at creation, and that
expands into the future with absolute precision. In an inanimate universe, it
is not as difficult to accept that rocks, specks of dust, etc., or even groups
of these objects, have no "ability" to alter the course that the laws
of physics dictate they follow.
It is much more
difficult to accept that our universe, populated as it is by living organisms,
is a totally deterministic one. If super-determinism is correct, we reach the
intuitively unlikely result that the absolute time for every blink of our eyes
is predetermined, every breath that we take is taken
at precise moments and in exact amounts! There is nothing we can do to alter
any of our physical motions - even the slightest twitch of our body occurs at
the very moment it was destined to occur by the forces acting in the first
second of the universe. Every change of our minds is inevitable,
every thought we have ever had was predetermined and occurred without any
chance of alteration.
If we live in a fully
deterministic world, I was destined before birth to write precisely the words
contained in this paragraph on the day and at the time and on the computer I
wrote them on, and when the universe was formed you were destined to read
precisely the words contained in this paragraph on the day and at the time you
are reading them. At the beginning of the world, not only were you predestined
to be precisely where you are right now, but you were also destined to be
wearing the clothes you are wearing, have every hair on your head the exact
length that each one is, have every object in the room placed precisely where
it is, etc. Every thought you are having about what I am saying was
predetermined to occur without the slightest variation, even your instant
reaction to this very sentence was set at creation. This simply does not
"seem" to be what actually happens, we intuitively "feel"
that we can make meaningful choices among alternatives, perhaps so, perhaps
not.
Even though current
theories do not appear to allow for freewill, some scientists and philosophers
argue that no matter how well ordered your chemical thought processes may be, you reach a point in each sequence of mental activity
where the unique being which you are makes a decision. A
decision that goes beyond the confines of conscious and subconscious biochemical
processes. A choice made after "considering" the products of
your biological thought processes along with abstract concepts of good and bad,
right and wrong, etc. They believe the basic, profound aspect of human
existence, which makes you who you are, transforms your choices among
alternatives into "free will" decisions that transcend physical
constraints.
It is very difficult
for those of us who have grown up in a scientific world to visualize, let alone
accept, human thought extending beyond the chemical confines of the human mind.
Yet there has been no scientific evidence (perhaps because no experiment has
been devised that could test the hypothesis) that would refute the jump from
predetermined biochemical thought to human thought controlled by individual
beings. Because no one has explained the illusive quality that might make each
human being unique and give them control over their decisions does not mean
that it does not exist, nor does it mean it does exist.
Some scientists and
philosophers believe that determinism might be compatible with the existence of
a physical, as opposed to a non-physical, consciousness that can be held to be
morally responsible for its actions. Indeed some suggest
that quantum effects may allow for meaningful freewill. It would seem that those scientists and
philosophers do not adequately appreciate the fact that all the currently
favored physical theories are based on fully deterministic causal
relationships, be they probabilistic or otherwise, and
therefore lack any mechanism for human freedom or responsibility. They
incorrectly conclude that because complex physical systems exhibit almost
infinite complexity, those systems might support some kind of metaphysical
freedom. On close examination this is not justified, simply because in every
accepted theory all observable physical systems, from Planck scale to the scale
of the universe, are governed at every level by deterministic laws. The only
escape from probabilistic determinism would be if the probabilities of quantum
outcomes can be altered by rational thought, to date we have no objective
evidence that those odds are subject to change. The idea
that a physical consciousness, based on deterministic physical processes, might
make meaningful choices, seems extremely difficult, if
not impossible, to support.
Other scientists and
philosophers argue that modern science has proven determinism to be
"true". In fact, science has only begun to address the nature of
human thought. On a sub-atomic level more questions have been raised than
answers found. Research into the nature of physical consciousness has demonstrated
the incredible complexity, and fundamental mystery, of the human mind.
Paradoxes associated with thought experiments suggest we have not yet begun to
understand the basics of human consciousness and the possibility of freewill.
Even if the human mind can make meaningful statements about its most
fundamental nature (it is not at all clear it can), nothing to date either
proves or rules out the existence of human freewill. For the moment we ask you
to accept the possibility that freewill exists beyond biological and physical
constraints.
We note that no matter
how predetermined your existence may be, it can be argued that "you"
make freewill choices even if it is chemically determined what those choices
will be, simply because "you" are the product of your biochemistry.
While that argument, and variations of it, may be true
by definition, it seems if we are to be held accountable for our actions we
should have a freedom of choice that can be anticipated to be found only in
that which is beyond human chemistry. We ask that you keep an open mind about
the possible existence of individual control which makes your decisions truly
your own.