JBG
Liberal democrat
Free will is a frequent topic of philosophical and religious discussion. Interestingly, many people who consider themselves "educated" or in the intelligentsia deny or minimize the existence of free will. Striking examples are Demian by Hermann Hesse, written in 1919 or thereabouts, and the more recent Gray Matters: A Biography of Brain Surgery by Theodore H. Schwartz, written in 2024. Both books, and similar discussions by "enlightened" spiritual leaders twist themselves with pretzel logic to avoid the obvious conclusion that many, if not all, human actions are decided by people themselves. This is an excerpt from Demain:
A liberal society cannot operate without the assumption of their being free will. People must be held accountable for, or given credit for their actions. The people who deny or minimize free will are often people who believe that "the devil made me do it" or, in more enlightened terms, everything is determined by genetics or at the very least upbringing. At the extreme, some don't believe that murderers belong in jail since, they believe, then had no ability to conform their actions to society.
I welcome other views.
These are two excerpts from the very current book about neurosurgery, Gray Matters:Demian by Herman Hesse said:"What is all this about the will?" I asked. "On the one hand, you say our will isn't free. Then again you say we only need to concentrate our will firmly on some end in order to achieve it. It doesn't make sense. If I'm not master of my own will, then I'm in no position to direct it as I please."
He patted me on the back as he always did when he was pleased with me. "Good that you ask," he said, laughing. "You should always ask, always have doubts....But we, too, are confined to a relatively narrow compass which we cannot break out of. If I imagined that I wanted under all circumstances to get to the North Pole, to achieve it I would have to desire it strongly enough so that my whole was being ruled by it. Once that is the case, once you have tried something that you have been ordered to do from within yourself, then you'll be able to accomplish it, then you can harness your will to it like an obedient nag....
But at that time in the fall when I was resolved to move away from my seat in the front row, it wasn't difficult at all. Suddenly there was someone whose name preceded mine in the alphabet and who had been away sick until then and since someone had to make room for him it was me of course because my will was ready to seize the opportunity at once." "Yes," I said. "I too felt odd at that time. From the moment that we began to take an interest in each other you moved closer and closer to me. But how did that happen? You did not sit next to me right away, first you sat for a while in the bench in front of me. How did you manage to switch once more?
"It was like this: I didn't know myself exactly where I wanted to sit but I wanted to shift from my seat in the front row. I only knew that I wanted to sit farther to the back. It was my will to come to sit next to you but I hadn't become conscious of it as yet. At the same time your will accorded with mine and helped me. Only when I found myself sitting in front of you did I realize that my wish was only half fulfilled and that my sole aim was to sit next to you.”
Both Dr. Schwartz and Mr. Hesse are unwilling to follow Occam's Razor; that the most obvious solution is often correct. Even if, as Dr. Schwartz believes, the interaction of "a network of modules consisting of the anterior cingulate, the SMA, and part of the parietal lobe" are what directly cause a person to take action, I consider it most likely that the human decision-making drove the brain's activities rather than the other way around.Gray Matters: A Biography of Brain Surgery by Theodore H. Schwartz said:That we then retroactively fabricate stories to justify our behaviors is also unnerving, since it means that we may be constantly fooling ourselves into believing that our behaviors are self-motivated and that we have free will. Yet this model of brain organization appears to be one of its most fundamental organizing principles. Having been raised in a psychoanalytic household, aware of the invisible powers of what Freud described as the unconscious mind, I am perhaps less shocked than most by all of this.....
These findings, together with Fried's (sic, probably was "Freud's"), demonstrate the existence of a network of modules consisting of the anterior cingulate, the SMA, and part of the parietal lobe that somehow act in unison to create not only the decision to act but also the sense that the action was intended in the first place. Just as brain stimulation in one location can create an overwhelming certainty that God exists, in another location it can create a false sense of free will.
A liberal society cannot operate without the assumption of their being free will. People must be held accountable for, or given credit for their actions. The people who deny or minimize free will are often people who believe that "the devil made me do it" or, in more enlightened terms, everything is determined by genetics or at the very least upbringing. At the extreme, some don't believe that murderers belong in jail since, they believe, then had no ability to conform their actions to society.
I welcome other views.