Science Suggests Free Will Doesn't Exist

the laws of physics are quite clear Free Will does not exist and I agree with them don't get me wrong I'm not happy about this fact I really want to believe that Free Will has a space to exist but I cannot find any location for it to live in in any of the evidence or understanding that we have about our universe and that is a strange idea to come across because it definitely feels like you're in control that you know how and why you decide something unfortunately science tells us that that couldn't be further from the truth today I just want to do an exploration of this space because it is absolutely fascinating a question you think can only be answered by Poets philosophers artists can actually only be talked to by the laws of the universe themselves I want to walk us from the most fundamental laws that we know of through the emergent properties that manifest from these basic components to what we've seen in some of our most recent experiments performed on the human brain and I think you will come to the same conclusion as me that Free Will doesn't exist and that's okay let's start at the very most fundamental laws of the universe you might think here I'm about to introduce particle physics or quantum mechanics but actually I think there is a deeper fabric to examine first on which the laws of the universe play out this is the nature of causation things don't happen unless something makes them happen that sounds like a very handwavy idea but it isn't in fact we can measure the speed of cause and effect it moves at 299,792,458 me m/ second this is also the speed of light and also the speed of gravity it isn't light or gravity that set this speed limit on the universe its causation hence two totally unrelated phenomena move at this same Universal speed limit if we extend this idea these causes cause effects which must in turn then be the causes of other effects on and on further down the line so there is a causal link of connectivity stretching all the way through time from The Big Bang to you here now watching this video if we could measure all of the pieces in that assembly if we knew all of the forces and all of the positions and all the velocities of all those particles at one time we could predict the future and retrodict the past with absolute certainty that's ridiculous only horoscopes can predict the future this idea is called determinism that cause perfectly maps to effect all of classical physics has this as an underlying assumption it is encoded in into Newton's first law an object will remain at rest or in motion unless acted upon by an outside force causation that sounds perfectly reasonable but to be complete about the base layer of the universe just in case let's examine the opposite the cause has no link to effect that even with full knowledge of all the circumstances it would not be possible to predict the outcome with certainty that there is inherent unpredictability or Randomness to at least some aspects of the universe now this idea was famously unpopular with Einstein he said God does not play dice but to be complete just to leave no Gap just let's assume that this is possible in the cosmos it is on these elements that a strange corner of the universe is built quantum mechanics quantum theory suggests that at the atomic and subatomic levels particles do not have definite States the uncertainty is inherent into this particle's properties they exist instead in superpositions which means sums of possible States until they are observed which means measured take for instance they collide with some other particle out there and then and only at that point they fall into one of those many possible States we call that collapsing the wave function we know that radioactive elements can Decay giving off a particle or a photon but no measurement we can make on that radioactive element can tell us exactly when they will Decay we just know that they will follow this curve of probabilities we can describe this as the wave function of the radioactive atom it is a sum of all the possible times it could Decay with a strength waiting for the likelihood of that decay happening during a particular time window if there is a cause of this Decay it is totally hidden from our ability to detect it so it is either random or at least for all intents and purposes appears and can be treated as being random these are the fundamental layers of the universe determinism and classical physics built on top of it or indeterminism and the unpredictable world of quantum mechanics at these levels of the universe either cause creates effects or things happen randomly or maybe a bit of both but regardless it's one course to the next to the next all the way down the line then maybe occasionally something random happens but then its effect follows that normal cause and effect pattern already from here I don't see where Free Will fits if we know the input conditions and the outputs are direct functions of those input conditions there is no space for Freedom or Choice everything is absolute but just for the sake of argument can we try to Crowbar free will into the randomness of the universe as many people have tried I'm personally not so sure take the example of an atom decaying it's random but it's choices are definitely constrained so number one how free is it really number two where would the Machinery of this Randomness sit if these are fundamental building blocks of the universe where do we encode further information if there is something controlling these behaviors say it seems to reliably follow a pattern so although an individual result maybe occurs any anywhere taken as an aggregate the distribution will 100% of the time look like this implying if there is hidden Machinery it reliably produces the same answers time and time again so where does free will sit at the bottom at this lowest level Free Will I think doesn't find much purchase but on these laws of the universe a huge amount of complexity including life itself is built and life we know isn't hard-coded into these rules of things like electromagnetic attraction and yet here we are so is Free Will possible as a higher order emergent phenomena I want to talk about that but before we get there it's already been determined that I have to thank today's sponsor Squarespace Squarespace is the best website builder I have ever used I've built about 40 Squarespace websites in the past few years setup is a breeze it takes just minutes to get started using the pre-existing templates provided by Squarespace and then using your sense of free will to bespoke them to your need whether it's a personal brand Team or company site the ease and intuitiveness of maintaining managing and refining that website is why I've stayed with Squarespace for so many years the variety of built-in elements available to you or your ability to build your own allows you to evolve the site easily to suit your needs this is a product that I think 100% delivers on what you actually need from it which is a rare thing nowadays so if you are interested head to www.squarespace.com doben miles to save 10% on your first purchase of a website or domain name using the code Dr Ben miles Squarespace thank you for existing okay now back to the video maybe Free Will isn't written at the base code of the universe maybe it's emergent like smell or color or taste a collection of gold atoms individually aren't gold color the color only emerges as you bring these atoms together to form a metal and the electrons start to move collectively most metals reflect all colors equally that's why they look silverish gold is unus ual because it absorbs some red making it look gold complicated last week we looked at assembly Theory check out the video here or down in the description whose authors Lee Cronin and Sarah Walker suggest that in a universe that should otherwise look just like simple molecules rather than the Machinery of life that we see that this emerges because chemistry naturally creates structures that are good at preserving and building in complexity they argue complexity is an emergent property of the universe built out of electronic bonds when those structures randomly develop to form structures that can repeat certain behaviors like making copies of themselves so can something similar be derived for free will let's look at some of the options and arguments and counterarguments the first one and I think this is the quickest to run through I call the fine cutting argument and that is simply that Free Will cannot exist at the level of the organism because ultimately the organism is made up of atoms that behave deterministically maybe sometimes indeterminist ially but regardless if the atoms behave this way the molecules that they make must also and the more complex molecules these molecules then produce and so on and so on all the way up until the level of the organism there is no gap for free will to inject itself because each step is assuming that the rules of the universe are being followed but why can life emerge but free will can't the definition of life is the ability to reliably form increasing complexity that reliability requires determinat if it wasn't reliable or reproducible if atoms or molecules could choose their behavior we wouldn't have the system stability to do all the functions that life needs life requires incredibly high levels of repeatable determinism which takes us to a weird idea because life can exist in our universe it means that Free Will can't Free Will needs there to be a gap in the cold reliable determinism and life forbids this I think that's reasonable it's hard to argue against and I think any argument Beyond this ultimately gets trumped by this one but hey we are desperate here so let's indulge in some of the other approaches that I've heard about I hear people saying that maybe this is something that just happens in the electronic circuitry of the brain it's not all matter it's not atoms and molecules it's not our arms and legs they don't have free will it is just our brains maybe the web of electronic signals gives rise to some emergent phenomena that we don't see anywhere else in the universe on top of that sea of firing neurons that's kind of kind of an interesting idea there are some Concepts here that are worth talking about that actually mirror our discussion of quantum mechanics when a particle is in a superposition and it collapses in a particular configuration we said this is called a wave function collapse some physicists that like the idea of many parallel universes or just generally causing trouble like to imagine that at that point of collapse a universe where the particle would say spin up split from a universe where the particle was found to be spined down just maybe that extends to the idea that when I choose to go to the gym or not go to the gym suddenly a universe is spawned into existence where I'd picked the opposite that obviously is a trick question because I didn't choose to go to the gym in either but also that would mean universes were popping into existence constantly if you have to spawn into existence an entire reality just to preserve your workout self-conceit that seems like a lot to ask of a universe and frankly I don't buy it for the particle or for the choice and even if if it was happening how does that relate to our concept of free will we're still locked into one of these Pathways with no ability to jump between universes at will let's move up from this weird world of quantum to the world of neurons in the brain we get sight here of another quantum likee Behavior superposition again though this time classical or at least probably classical the structure of the brain is basically an analog computer or be a very complicated one the neurons within the brain are connected to other neighboring neurons that the stimulus enters the system and after running for some time the system completes its calculation have you ever felt like two options are on the table in front of you simulating one in your head might evoke uncertainty but maybe excitement maybe the other one safety but potential boredom we have a superposition of different options moving forward maybe with different amplitudes of their likeliness depending on personality which is really just how the circuitry of the individual has been wired through past experience both external and internal reflection the only way to collapse the wave function is to run the simulation and take the measurement strange question but have you ever felt happy sad that is perfectly reasonable researchers have shown that positive and negative emotions can coexist in the brain independently of each other the right hemisphere processes negative emotions preferentially whereas positive emotions are dealt with by the left side of the brain extending this process and simplifying it a lot if we then were to try and assume that Free Will existed where would we put this process where would we put this Precision engine relative to that mechanism happening in the brain maybe we do have a small area of the brain that is necessary to run this sort of calculation but in this area it would need that same sort of circuitry to control itself if it runs anywhere in the circuitry of the brain it must be deterministic if it is to be machine like at all else it needs to sit outside of the brain having some level of magical influence that allows it to look down at the brain and turn the dials just how it sees fit and again I I think that is a lot to ask of a universe just to pretend that you may one day get back on that diet that might make you feel like this is an uncomfortable idea that you are a biological machine acting out the inevitable series of actions but you don't know what these actions are and can't know without running the simulation so the point is finding out a few people I've talked to have come back to me and said well it certainly feels like I'm making decisions and enacting My Free Will and my question back to you is what is if there was a way that we could tell in a study published in 2018 in Nature Neuroscience researchers using brain scanners were able to predict people's decisions 7 seconds before the test subjects were even aware of making the decision the experiment asked users whether to hit a button with your left hand or your right hand and recorded the signals that the brain made as it processed this decision not a complicated choice but surely one that we have full control over unfortunately by observing microp patterns of brain activity the researchers were able to predict the subject's scores before they indicated knowing the choices themselves it turns out that your decisions are very strongly prepared by the circuitry of your brain by the time you are conscious of making a decision that decision has already been made for quite some time but because this study was very simple in a followup study the research team moved to a more complex and considered set of choices participants were presented with a a series of numbers on a screen and asked to either add or subtract two of those numbers using fmri brain Imaging researchers were able to predict the subject's choices based on brain activity up to 4 seconds before the research participants were consciously aware of their choices so if we are trying to suggest that Free Will lives maybe in our Consciousness or our self-awareness and it has ultimate veto rights over the choices that we are making one way or the other it would appear that actually this is totally the wrong way around Consciousness your internal self- monologue or however you want to Define it actually just seems to be an engine of self explanation of self- reasoning not thought or Choice as insane of a paradigm shift as that is your Consciousness which most people Define as them themselves has little to no control over anything you do and there's [Music] proof a field of experimentation called split brain research pioneered by Michael gazing took patients where the two halves of their brain the left brain and the right brain can no longer communicate either because of some past trauma or because they have been medically separated which used to be done to reduce seizures in patients and it showed us shockingly how unin control of our brain we actually are because the left eye connects to the right brain and the right eye to the left brain in subjects where the Corpus kosum the connective tissue between the right and the left brain has been severed when subjects are shown a stimulus to just one eye the other side of the brain is unaware of this stimulus if an object is shown to the right eye the left brain sees it and the left brain also contains the language part of the brain and can say what the right eye is seen But if the left eye is shown something so the right brain sees it the patient can't describe the object at all and interestingly they don't say I can't see it they say I wasn't shown anything but then when asked they can point to Which object they were shown in a lineup of possible objects but they can only do this with the left hand because that's the one the right brain controls now that's interesting in and of itself but it goes one step further when the right brain is given a command like stand up or smile and it obeys it if you then ask the patient why they obeyed it they don't say I'm not sure I just felt like it they say oh I uh needed to walk around and St stretch my legs or oh I remembered something funny that happened to me the section on the left side of the brain responsible for this creative reasoning is called The Interpreter and although Consciousness I suppose is the sum of all neural activity that you are aware of in your brain and yes these patients have had half of that very important information cut off from them if the part of your brain that is still able to vocalize the why of your decisions is obviously so completely unaware of what is actually happening that it needs to make something up then really how aware or in control of our decisions can we really be and this kind of has an interesting implication free will just cannot exist but equally it never has our futures may have already been written or randomized take your pick but I don't think that means that they aren't without purpose decisions still very much exist even if they are played out by the internal hardwired circuitry of the brain Consciousness or our ability to evaluate the journey as we experience it though subject to bias may be subconsciously already pre-prepared and its opinions is still experience Joy is still joy and sorrow is still sorrow we are part of a great connected Universe where the play button was hit billions of years ago and the story is continuing to unfold with us both as the actors and the audience what you do with that information is your choice hey guys well I'm making to the end of the video whether it was through your own free will or whether it was predetermined regardless good job if you liked this one leave us a thumb thumbs up if you're new here subscribe to see more of this sort of content thanks again very much for watching I'll see you guys next time goodbye

Channel: Dr Ben Miles

Views: 23,793

Keywords: science, future, breakthrough

Id: ju9Oc4VoCNQ

Length: 18min 35sec (1115 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 13 2023