On this page you will find correspondence from visitors to my site. I will post any interesting emails that I get from my readers, and my replies to them. If you have a question, or any interesting information, e-mail me.
Conversations
- Free Will
- Group Selection
Free Will Dear Dr. Clark,
I read with interest your paper, “Genes, Culture and Chaos,” which seems to make up some of the last chapter of your (and Michael Grunstein’s) book, Are We Hardwired? You suggest that free will is a matter of indeterminacy or unpredictability generated by chaotic processes in the brain. Ordinarily, free will is thought to confer responsibility for an act not by virtue of adding unpredictability, but by virtue of it’s being the cause of an act of an agent acting “in character,” so to speak. If we can’t predict what we’re going to do next, and if our free will consists of that, it’s hard for me to see why the indeterminacy of chaos “forces us to accept responsibility for how we act.”
Why should we hold people responsible for behavior that they themselves can’t predict? Instead, it makes sense to hold them responsible for behavior that they do intentionally, deliberately, and as a result of their beliefs and desires. Holding them responsible and accountable (awarding praise or blame) helps to reinforce and shape the behavior in ways we as a society deem acceptable.
In this formulation of responsibility, we don’t need to assume people have any sort of contra-causal free will, so we needn’t worry about the deterministic implications of genetics and behavioral science. Human behavior can be perfectly deterministic (with odd bits of chaos thrown in, if you like) and we are still justified in holding people accountable as a way of transmitting values. This idea, quite an old one in philosophy, is called compatibilism (responsibility is compatible with determinism). Notice, however, that our retributive attitudes, to the extent they are based in the notion of a freely willing agent that could have done otherwise in a given situation, will soften under compatibilism. We will also tend to look more outside the individual for causes which contribute to behavior.
Anyway, this is just a brief response on a rather vexed topic, obviously. There’s a good deal about this at my website, www.naturalism.org, especially at http://world.std.com/~twc/freewill.htm, including a paper published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies entitled Fear of Mechanism. There's also a review of the Ethics and Public Policy Center's conference on Neuroscience and the Human Spirit, in which issues of human nature, dualism, reductionism, free will, and responsibility all come up. Also, a piece published in the Humanist a while back, called Faith, Science, and the Soul.
Thanks for raising this issue, even if we happen to disagree on it. Much more will be said and written about it in the near future, I am certain.
regards,
Tom Clark
Dear Tom;
As a biologist, I’m always looking for basic biological mechanisms that can account for what we mean when we speak of various “human attributes.” Some of the questions that interest me, such as the evolution and biological meaning of death, are purely biological and relatively straight-forward. But what do we mean when we talk about things like evil, and free will? Do these have biological explanations as well?
In “Are We Hardwired” (and the derivative website essay), I looked at the question of free will largely in the context of biological and experiential determinism. It is easy to say, as many do, that determinism of any kind with respect to human behavior is nonsense. Human beings are free agents, and are controlled by neither genes or the environment.
But that is a feeling, and not obviously a fact. A die-hard determinist could well argue that our present inability to explain every human behavior mechanistically is simply a computational problem. When we know every gene in the human genome, and how the various alleles of these genes interact with each other to regulate our neurological circuits; when we can map every experience in a human’s life history, and know its impact on neural pathways; then we will be able to predict with exquisite certainty how an individual will react in any given situation – how that individual will behave. This raises a fundamental question: will we ever be able to know in complete detail exactly how a nervous system functions? Or is the function of the nervous system like the pathway of the pebble down a hillside – uncalculable no matter how much computing power is briught to bear.
To believe in free will is to assert that even after everything is known about genes, and about the impact of experience on genes and the neurological circuits they control, there will still be something left that determines how we behave. That is what I am trying to focus on; what is the nature of that free will which is independent of genes and experience? If it we cannot be certain that it fundamentally is independent, what is the rationale for calling it free will?
A human being develops in a very predictable fashion from a sperm and an egg. When and how during that process would free will come into being? What are its biological underpinnings? Ultimately, we act as self-contained biological organisms, and the explanation of everything we do must lie inside us. What precisely does it mean, for example, to say that “…free will [is] the cause of an act of an agent acting ‘in character’”? What is the biological basis of such a thing?
I am not entirely convinced that chaos is the ultimate explanation of this conundrum, but it does at least offer a possible escape from determinism, which seems to me to cut off completely debate about free will. If there is something left over after every scrap of determinism has been uncovered, defined, quantitated – what will that something be? On the other hand, I agree with your criticism of my statement that chaos “forces us to accept responsibility for how we act.” That is obviously nonsense; I hear there is a second printing of the book coming up, and I’ll probably strike that sentence.
If I understand your formulation correctly, you are saying that free will does not exist at the level of the individual (“…we don’t need to assume people have any sort of contrcausal free will…”) Could you clarify that for me? I’m not sure what that does to the entire body of law!! Also, you say, on the one hand, “Human behavior can be perfectly deterministic…”, yet we embrace “…the notion of a freely willing agent that could have done otherwise in a given situation…” I do note that you see this as kicking the pins out from under retribution.
A vexing issue indeed! I may eventually have to toss free will into the same box as evil, as one of a group of constructs that has no basis in the biology of individuals. Death is so much easier!
I’m not sure that we disagree so much as approach the concept of free will from very different perspectives. At any rate, many thanks for making me sit down and think about this subject again, which always helps me sharpen up my thinking. I’m not sure that’s obvious from my ramblings above, but I’ll keep trying!!!
Regards,
Bill Clark
Bill, a few comments below:
As a biologist, I am always looking for basic biological mechanisms that can account for what we mean when we speak of various “human attributes.” Some of the questions that interest me, such as the evolution and biological meaning of death, are purely biological and relatively straight-forward. But what do we mean when we talk about things like evil, and free will? Do these have biological explanations as well?
In “Are We Hardwired” (and the derivative website essay), I looked at the question of free will largely in the context of biological and experiential determinism. It is easy to say, as many do, that determinism of any kind with respect to human behavior is nonsense. Human beings are free agents, and are controlled by neither genes or the environment.
But that is a feeling, and not obviously a fact. Right! A die-hard determinist could well argue that our present inability to explain every human behavior mechanistically is simply a computational problem. When we know every gene in the human genome, and how the various alleles of these genes interact with each other to regulate our neurological circuits; when we can map every experience in a human’s life history, and know its impact on neural pathways; then we will be able to predict with exquisite certainty how an individual will react in any given situation – how that individual will behave. This raises a fundamental question: will we ever be able to know in complete detail exactly how a nervous system functions? Not in the near future, but we still know it’s deterministic, and even if it isn’t, randomness doesn’t help to give us free will. Or is the function of the nervous system like the pathway of the pebble down a hillside – incalculable no matter how much computing power is brought to bear.
To believe in free will is to assert that even after everything is known about genes, and about the impact of experience on genes and the neurological circuits they control, there will still be something left that determines how we behave. Right, this is the libertarian definition of free will. That is what I am trying to focus on; what is the nature of that free will which is independent of genes and experience? If it we cannot be certain that it fundamentally is independent, what is the rationale for calling it free will? The so-called compatibilist definition of free will (free will compatible with determinism) is that we act of our own free will when we act according to our desires and motives without outside coercion or constraint. The rationale for calling this “free will” is that the will is free from coercion, not that it is uncaused.
A human being develops in a very predictable fashion from a sperm and an egg. When and how during that process would free will come into being? What are its biological underpinnings? Ultimately, we act as self-contained biological organisms, and the explanation of everything we do must lie inside us. What precisely does it mean, for example, to say that “…free will [is] the cause of an act of an agent acting ‘in character’”? I meant by this the compatibilist sort of free will mentioned above. What is the biological basis of such a thing? Only that action is a function of a person’s motives (obviously biologically based) without outside constraint or coercion.
I am not entirely convinced that chaos is the ultimate explanation of this conundrum, but it does at least offer a possible escape from determinism, which seems to me to cut off completely debate about free will. Actually, chaos is deterministic, although unpredictable in practice. If there is something left over after every scrap of determinism has been uncovered, defined, quantitated – what will that something be? Random noise, which doesn’t help with the sort of free will people suppose they must have (but of course they’re mistaken about this). On the other hand, I agree with your criticism of my statement that chaos “forces us to accept responsibility for how we act.” That is obviously nonsense; I hear there is a second printing of the book coming up, and I’ll probably strike that sentence.
If I understand your formulation correctly, you are saying that free will does not exist at the level of the individual (“…we don’t need to assume people have any sort of contracausal free will…”) Could you clarify that for me? I’m not sure what that does to the entire body of law!! This indeed forces us to rethink retributive punishment, but it doesn’t lessen the necessity for incapacitating and reforming offenders, and for deterrence within humane limits. So it doesn’t do away with responsibility and accountability, as many might think. The law doesn’t collapse, but becomes more compassionate. See “The Freedom of Susan Smith” at http://world.std.com/~twc/freewill2.htm, originally published in the Humanist. Also, you say, on the one hand, “Human behavior can be perfectly deterministic…”, yet we embrace “…the notion of a freely willing agent that could have done otherwise in a given situation …” The notion of such an agent is the libertarian definition of free will, which we embrace due to a long tradition of supposing humans are supernatural exceptions to causality. I do note that you see this as kicking the pins out from under retribution. Yes, since without the freely willing agent, retributive justifications for punishment lose their force.
A vexing issue indeed! I may eventually have to toss free will into the same box as evil, as one of a group of constructs that has no basis in the biology of individuals. Death is so much easier!
I’m not sure that we disagree so much as approach the concept of free will from very different perspectives. At any rate, many thanks for making me sit down and think about this subject again, which always helps me sharpen up my thinking. I’m not sure that’s obvious from my ramblings above, but I’ll keep trying!!! Me too, it’s a fascinating topic, with many ramifications…Thanks for your thoughts and I look forward to your next book.
Best,
Tom Clark
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
> Dear Tom;
> Many thanks for your comments in response to my last. That
exchange triggered me to go back and look again at some of the books I had
asked Oxford to send me in connection with writing that little section on free
> will for "Hardwired." I've been reading "The Significance of Free Will,"
by Robert Kane. Things are beginning to be a little clearer now, thanks in
> part certainly to your input.
> So where do you come down on this question of compatible vs.
> incompatible (determinist vs. libertarian) views of free will? I would
> guess from your comments you are skeptical about free will altogether,
> which would make you - - - a compatibilist?? I take it compatibilism was
> in vogue for a while, in reaction to the "classical" view of free will,
> but in Kane's mind, at least, doesn't hold up. (I haven't gotten to his
> reasons yet.) I had always assumed the libertarian view, and was intrigued
> to read about the compatibilist view, which is fairly presented by Kane
> even though apparently he doesn't believe in it. I was greatly relieved
> when I read about compatibility because from a biological point of view it
> makes the whole thing go away! I must say, it's hard to imagine a
> biological/neurological basis for the libertarian view of free will. Has
> anyone written anything on that?
Although technically I'm what you'd call a compatibilist, I'd rather do
away with the term "free will" altogether, since most people mean it in the
libertarian sense, which obviously (I think) doesn't exist. When you
explain that compatibilist free will means their actions are still entirely
determined, they say, "But that's no good! That's not what I mean by free
will!" Of course we'll still want to say, for some purposes, that someone
did something "of their own free will," but this is precisely the
compatibilist sense: no one was *forcing* them to sign the lease, or give
all their money to charity, or whatever. Whether they ultimately originated
their desires to sign lease or give to charity in the libertarian sense
isn't at issue. Beyond that, we can still have viable concepts of morality,
responsibility and accountability without invoking libertarian free will *at
all*. I've written at length about this in the papers at
http://world.std.com/~twc/freewill.htm, e.g., Materialism and Morality: the
Problem with Pinker, http://world.std.com/~twc/freewill3.htm, also see
http://world.std.com/~twc/neurosci.htm.
Gene Heyman at the Harvard Division on Addictions has written about what he
calls the "biology of choice" (behavioral choice theory) in the context of
addictions research. See for instance his 1996 paper, "Resolving the
contradictions of addiction," in Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (4):
561-610, at http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.heyman.html,
and his chapter "Is addiction a chronic relapsing disease? Relapse rates,
duration estimates, and a theory of addiction," forthcoming in Defining
Addiction and Making Policy, Philip Heymann and William Brownsberger, eds.,
Harvard University Press. In my correspondence with him, Heyman seems
sympathetic to the idea that from a biological standpoint it makes no sense
to talk about free will, although he may think I'm somewhat politically
incorrect to raise these issues.
Kane, I think, is just dead wrong, as is anyone who tries to defend a
metaphysically automomous self. For a good overview of the free will issue
by a philosopher, see Galen Strawson's piece, Luck Swallows Everything,
http://world.std.com/~twc/strawson.htm, which appeared in the Times Literary
Supplement and also the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In thinking
about this (e.g., about Kane's arguments) I think it's important to see that
libertarian free will isn't necessary for *anything* we value. The motive
for those who defend libertarian free will is usually some feeling that
unless we have it, everything goes to hell in a handbasket. But this is
false. For instance, we don't become victims of fatalism,
http://world.std.com/~twc/fatalism.htm.
> I go back and forth on the chaos thing; I need to think about it,
> sharpen up my views on it. It could explain why we end up carrying out
(or at least initiating) actions that are not necessarily predicted by either
> genes or experience. Perhaps then free will is composed of first, the
> ability to recognize the social significance of those actions as they are
> emerging, and second, decisions as to whether or not to allow the action
> to proceed. But then, I supose a determinist would say those latter two
> steps are determined by our genes or our previous experience.
I'm pretty sure, again, that chaos is a *completely deterministic* unfolding
of events that are very sensitive to initial and surrounding conditions, and
therefore very difficult to predict. Yes, we will likely remain
unpredictable creatures (except for Laplace's demon), but this doesn't give
us free will, since the agent is still caused in every respect. The basic
point is that neither randomness nor determinism can provide the basis for
libertarian free will. Such free will needs an agent that is *causally
privileged*: it gets to cause without being fully caused in turn. On a
naturalistic, scientific view, there is no evidence that such agents exist.
> I think this is all important from a biological point of view,
> because much of the resistance to even thinking about the role of genes in
> behavior stems from a refusal to believe in any sort of absolute
> determinism. That resistance isn't at all restricted to people we would
> classically think of as libertarians.
Right. Many people think, vaguely, that determinism is genetic only, and
conveniently forget that the environment is just as determining (which was
what all the fuss over BF Skinner was about). See
http://world.std.com/~twc/determin.htm for more on this.
> Maybe after I've heard from you one more time, and done some more
> reading, I'll try writing an essay on just what (if any) insight I think a
> biologist can offer for this whole question. (Fools rush in......etc)
I have read At War Within, and am now almost finished with Are We Hardwired? I have enjoyed and learned much from both of these books, due to your extensive knowledge and lucid writing style.
I have a few questions/comments about what you wrote on pages 222-223 of Are We Hardwired? (the second and third pages of chapter 12 "The Genetics of Human Mental Functions").
1) On page 222 you write "From a biological point of view, we imagine that the purpose of all this variation is to provide a pool of resources that we as a species can draw upon should environmental conditions suddenly change." In this statement, and the surrounding text, I infer that you mean natural selection plans for the future. Based on extensive reading on evolutionary theory, I am confident that this is not the case. Natural selection can only select for the survival and reproductive fitness of an individual organism living in the present. I can't even conceive of a mechanism whereby evolution could have "an eye on the future" or plan for future contingencies.
2) On page 223 you write "It may also be the case that at any given instant in time, having a range of mental traits within the species . . . helps the species as a whole to better meet environmental challenges and maintain a vigorous breeding pool." Influenced by Richard Dawkins, I consider it unlikely that any such thing as species selection exists (which I am inferring from your statement), though benefits to the species may accrue as an artifact of natural selection of the individual.
I would be thrilled to hear your comments on these points.
--
Paul Gabel
paulgabel@earthlink.net
You touch on one of the most difficult issues in evolutionary theory, that of group selection. Like you, I am a pretty hard-nosed Dawkinsian, and there certainly is no place in that view for group selection either.
The problem is, there are a number of situations where group selection seems very likely to have occured, which leads me to think our present views of natural selection may be deficient in some fashion. Interestingly, all of these special situations have to do with genetic variability. Some examples:
Werner Arber has described genes in bacteria whose only function appears to be to enhance scrambling of genetic information from one generation to the next. One has to ask, how could such a gene have been selected for by standard mechanisms of natural selection? What possible advantage could be conferred on the individual in which that gene arose, or on that individual's immediate progeny?
An example in vertebrate immunology: histocompatibility genes. Unlike immunoglobulin genes, which are highly polymorphic within the individual, the variability among histocompatibility genes occurs only within the species. This variablity has been rather rigidly maintained over tens of millions of years of evolution, across virtually every vertebrate species. This extreme intraspecific polymorphism offers no advantage to the individual, since it is not expressed in the individual, yet it is somehow maintained. So how were the genes responsible for maintaining variability among histocompatibility genes within the species selected??
And of course that leads to the question of genetic variability in species generally. How and why is it maintained? I would argue that in order for larger, more complex, more slowly reproducing organisms to compete genetically with potentially pathogenic microorganisms that can reproduce (and alter themselves genetically) every 30 minutes under ideal conditions, they must have mechanisms that ensure extremely vigorous genetic scrambling, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically. I would argue that individual species that fail to maintain such mechanisms simply perish over time. I would imagine that such mechanisms must have crept into eukaryotes not long after the development of multicellularity (although Arber's data suggest even prokaryotes had it), because that's when we see a very rapid increase in size in a wide range of plant and animal species. Along with size came a slowing of reproduction time.
These mechanisms may have crept in initially as neutral mutations, being selected neither for nor against. But species that failed to maintain these alterations simply failed to survive. How these mechanisms ultimately became fixed, I do not know. But clearly they did; no species today has done away with genetic variability. For sexually reproducing organisms, genes that seem to assure the survival of the species may really only be assuring the availability of opposite-sex individuals necessary for mating. And of course, ŕ la Dawkins, we have to bring all this down to the level of individual replicons within the genome, but insmuch as these replicons have a vested interest in the survival of individuals as well as their genomes, I don't see a conflict.
This is of course all guess work! Let me know what you think.
Bill Clark
Dear Bill:
I greatly appreciate your quick and thorough response to my questions. It is much more than I expected. I studied your book Are We Hardwired? very carefully (I finished it today), as well as your email to me. I used to reject group selection theory completely, but I have thought a lot about what you wrote, and am tentatively persuaded of your point (at least I canąt think of a way to refute it). The trick is to understand, as you state, "how these mechanisms ultimately became fixed." If intraspecies genetic variability is crucial for the survival of large, slow-breeding organisms to fend off fast-breeding parasites, as Matt Ridley described in The Red Queen (1993), then it's hard to believe that neutral mutations are just randomly maintained, and that species come and go over evolutionary time according to this random process. On the other hand, natural selection has no purpose. In sum, I don't know either.
By the way, I found a relevant passage in Richard Dawkins' The Extended Phenotype (1982), pages 84-85:
"A replicator may be said to benefit from anything that increases the number of its descendant (germ-line) copies. To the extent that active germ-line replicators benefit from the survival of the bodies in which they sit, we may expect to see adaptations that can be interpreted as for bodily survival. A large number of adaptations are of this type. To the extent that active germ-line replicators benefit from the survival of bodies other than those in which they sit, we may expect to see altruism, parental care, etc. To the extent that active germ-line replicators benefit from the survival of the group of the individuals in which they sit, over and above the two effects just mentioned, we may expect to see adaptations for the survival of the group. But all these adaptations will exist, fundamentally, through differential replicator survival. The basic beneficiary of any adaptation is the active germ-line replicator."
I have another comment based on what you wrote in Are We Hardwired?, pages 269-70, on free will and chaos theory. I see your point about chaos theory and human creativity ("we sometimes make strange mental leaps . . ."), but if free will is a requisite for human responsibility, how can society hold a person responsible for an action caused by chaos any more than it can hold a person responsible for an action that was either genetically of divinely determined?
Also on the subject of free will, have you read Michael Gazzaniga's The Mind's Past (1998)? He's the Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience program at Dartmouth. Chapter 3, The Brain Knows Before You Do, explores research showing that some behaviors are initiated in the brain before entering consciousness. To the extent this is true, once again, how does society assign responsibility for actions initiated prior to awareness?
Also, I'm curious if you have read Ullica Segerstrale's Defenders of the Truth: The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond (2000)? Chapter 20 deals with free will and determinism.
I realize that you must be very busy, but if ever you have time I would enjoy hearing from you again.
Sincerely,
Paul Gabel
Dear Paul;
Thanks for your further thoughts on group selection. I'm not sure that fixation of genetic scrambling mechanisms is such a problem; remember, each species branches off from some other, foregoing species. Presumably, if that precursor species was stable, it had already fixed genetic variation into its genome. Each species that arises doesn't have to reinvent genetic variation and fixation on its own. Your quote from Dawkins is apt, but again, once the adaptations he is referring to are built into a species, then all derivative species will inherit the associated trait(s); they may lose the genetic basis for those traits through none-use (assuming they are not necessary for survival), but they don't need to gain it and fix it all over again.
Regarding my comments on free will - I refer you to my website (wrclarkbooks.com) and the subsite called "Conversations," where I had an interesting exchange of correspondence with someone on that very topic. As you'll see there, I have backed off from some of the things you are pointing out that I had published in Hardwired.
I hadn't run across Gazzinaga's book, but I'll check it out. Thanks for the tip.
Thanks for your comments and your interest.
Bill Clark
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