Does free will exist?

This is another topic of interest to me, closely related to the topic of freedom in general. Bound by the rules of society and by our personal limitations, are we at least free to make simple choices? Can we freely choose ice cream or creme brulee for dessert?

Apparently, this is one of the central problems in philosophy, but I did not think much about it until I started regularly listening to Sam Harris’s ” Waking Up” podcast while running. Sam strongly believes that free will does not exist, and he hosted a few other well-known people who either agreed or argued with him. Sam’s central argument is like Laplace’s demon. When a decision is made, a specific configuration of neurons in the brain determines what decision it will be, and it cannot be any other way. Random factors might be involved, but Sam says randomness does not constitute free will.

After listening to many of these conversations on the “Waking Up”, the first thought that crossed my mind was related to a question I heard on another podcast: “Did the second law of Newton exist before Newton?” The answer seems simple enough – the laws of the Universe existed before Newton, and the apple that fell on him was not the first apple to fall ever. However, the formulation of the second law and the way to apply it in the science of classical mechanics did not exist. A more interesting follow-up question is – once Newton formulated the law, what kind of thing is it? It belongs to the class of ideas or concepts or models or theories; choose your favorite term. Does it exist? Absolutely! Kids learn it in school. Moreover, it has a causal power – it can be used to calculate many useful things and predict the results of the experiments. However, it is by itself not material. It can only exist on a material carrier, but it is independent of the carrier. It can be recorded in a particular configuration of neurons in someone’s brain, in a book, in a podcast, or in a video lesson.

The thought was that free will is just like that: an idea or a concept. Does it exist? Absolutely! Sam talks about it on the podcast, although in denial, and I am writing a blog post about it. Does it have a causal power? Certainly! We put people in jail because we believe that they chose to commit crimes of their own free will. It is not just a concept but an important concept, and whatever neuron structures in our brain determine what we will do in the next moment, these structures might be different if they were not influenced by the concept of free will.

Another aspect is our internal sense of “self” or “I”. Whatever philosophical theories we subscribe to, we have a clear sense of a decision-maker inside of us. It is a subject of a very different discussion if the “self” really exists or is just another concept or idea. What matters is that most of us feel that the self is very real. More than that, most of us have an image of ourselves, who we are, or who we strive to be, and try to behave accordingly. If we did not have that sense of the “I” who chooses to be a good boy or girl or give in to some temptation, if we believed that everything is predetermined and we have no power to change it, would the same structures form in our brains?

But what about these enlightened people who truly realized the “no-self and no-other” teaching and perpetually exist in a state of “flow,” at one with everything that exists? Again, it is a subject of a separate discussion, and I cannot speak from experience, but it seems like, in this case, the question and the distinction are meaningless. If there is no self, then who is supposed to have free will?