Q&A: Free Will and Neuroscience
Free Will and Neuroscience
Question
In honor of the Rabbi,
In one of Haim Sompolinsky’s lectures, he claims that an experiment was done on cancer patients, and by electrically stimulating certain areas they managed to cause them to want to move their hand, and in some cases they moved their hand without any feeling of wanting to. Of course, the experiment itself needs to be examined, and there could be many problems with it, but if that is indeed so, then it would seem to follow that the very desire to act stems from brain processes. Doesn’t that contradict free will? After all, the essence of free will is that a person creates his desires, and every action begins with the soul’s desire—and here we have proof that even desire itself stems from brain processes?
Answer
I haven’t heard of this experiment, but I don’t see what he wants to infer from it. First, it is obvious that one can arouse this or that desire/impulse in a person. The question under debate is whether a person is compelled to carry them out, or whether he can veto them and not actually act that way. Does anyone who believes in free will deny that we have impulses and influences?
Secondly, moving one’s hand is not an act of choice and free will. In my book The Science of Freedom, especially regarding Libet’s experiments, I distinguished between picking and choosing. See also here and in Column 128.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t see the connection. You’re mixing up atheism with materialism, but the connection is only one-way, if at all. And even if a determinist is compelled into his position, that is not a refutation of it (because if he is mistaken, then he also isn’t compelled). I discussed this apparent loop in The Science of Freedom.
Thank you for the response. Does the Rabbi think that the argument for free choice can be turned into a proof for God? After all, were it not for a God who gave us a soul and intellect, then basically every conclusion we arrive at would be nothing more than a few neurons that caused me to reach that conclusion, and in fact every conclusion would be forced on me because of determinism. So if an atheist concludes that there is no God, then according to his own view he is forced to believe that, because there is no other choice. So atheism, which claims to be rational, is really shooting itself in the foot at its very foundation. Can one therefore say that God is the only basis on which a consistent and logical worldview can be made to work?