We are things, and things are processes. Processes are constrained by laws, which are themselves things. Given this deterministic model, free will by any of its classical definitions seems impossible. Contrary to how all those tired old arguments would have you decide, however, the question is not whether we have free will, but where our will lies on the spectrum of freedom.
Imagine a simple spherical membrane, itself persisting so that difference has another means by which to persist. I poke it with a needle and it pops. I produce or find another such membrane and repeat the procedure, and it pops every time in precisely the same way. Since I can predict what the sphere will do every time (it “decides” to pop when I poke it with a needle), I’m inclined to say spheres of this type have very, very, very, very, very little free will.
Taking into consideration–as always–that difference persists, there will be variation among these spheres. Mutants, to borrow from genetics. (Whether constructed by “nature” or “man” or “god”, it doesn’t matter.) Performing my experiment again, the mutant sphere reacts by hardening at the point of impact so that the needle can’t penetrate. Alternately, it becomes more elastic, deforming as the needle invades its space, but not puncturing. There are many mechanisms that a variant might have to render the needle ineffective.
Now, it’s hard to say these variants have any more will than those that pop–they individually react the same way every time, too. Also, it will be easier to continue if we consider every step as happening to the same thing, rather than generations of copies of a single thing.
So, starting over, imagine the needle initially doesn’t penetrate the sphere, as its membrane can deform and harden in the right places to resist a given force. Now imagine that the membrane stays a little deformed and hardened afterwards, effectively a memory of my assassination attempt. The next time I try to pierce it in the same spot, it can repel the attack with less effort, but hardening and deforming more each time, strengthening its memory. Every response to its environment that irreversibly alters its structure is a memory something in its environment.
The advantage of this memory is that it allows the sphere to anticipate and survive an attack that is more forceful than the original attack. If it returned to its original state every time, a sharper or faster needle might do the job. However, if it’s already hardened and/or elastic as the result of a prior attack, the same sharper needle might also be repelled.
(In process control, the response that keeps the system from breaking is called feedback control, and the anticipation is called feedforward control. Feedforward control is only possible with a memory of the effectiveness of previous feedback control.)
Does this sphere have a freer will than a sphere that pops every time? Does it have a freer will than a sphere that repels the attack but always reverts back to its original form? My answer is that though it’s easy to see that everything discussed so far is completely deterministic and theoretically predictable (to us humans, not the sphere), that yes, it does have a freer will than its counterparts, because it has a memory of its experience.
There’s more to it than memory, but I realized I can’t finish free will in one post. Anticipation failure on my part. (I also just realized that free will isn’t mentioned in the entirety of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio series, and I’m fairly certain my memory of the entire thing is robust. Memory failure, or did Adams actually miss something?)
Tags: free will, memory, philosophy, process, spectrum