Q&A: Free Choice
Free Choice
Question
I saw your discussions in The Science of Freedom about the relationship between free choice and the principle of causality, but apparently the problem becomes even more acute in relativity theory, where it is customary to present time as a frozen dimension in which moments exist side by side without distinction. If so, it is not at all clear by what mechanism future events could fail to be predetermined. As Professor Avshalom Elitzur put it, according to general relativity:
“Each one of us is not a single ‘I,’ but many ‘I’s. At every moment of our lives there exists a different ‘I,’ still and frozen, like a single frame in a film, experiencing what is happening at that moment. The second law of thermodynamics causes the memories stored in the minds of these momentary ‘I’s to be arranged in such a way that each one carries memories of the ‘I’s located in the past, but not of those in the future. Therefore, we have the illusion that we are one single ‘I,’ because each momentary ‘I’ carries the memories of its predecessors. This conclusion about the multiplicity of ‘I’s, I must emphasize, follows necessarily from relativity theory. If all moments in time have the same degree of reality, then this must also be true of all the observer’s ‘I’s: at every moment in time there exists a different ‘I.’ The human observer is a four-dimensional world-line like any other object in Minkowski space, extending through time from the day of birth until death. Everything that will be in the future already exists, alongside what is happening now and alongside what has already happened in the past. All states exist together along the dimension of time, just as all places exist together along the dimensions of space, like frames in a film. The end, therefore, of the idea of free choice.” End quote. Have you addressed this anywhere, and if not, how can these ideas be reconciled (assuming you accept relativity theory)?
Answer
First, this picture is nothing more than a way of describing things, not a claim about reality. In relativity theory it is convenient to view mechanics in terms of world-lines rather than in terms of events. That says nothing about reality itself. Second, it is hard to rely on relativity theory when it itself is still not fully clear and not necessarily correct as it stands (we are still waiting for its unification with quantum theory). Notice that according to your description, quantum theory would also be impossible, since within its framework there are events that are not fixed in advance. Third, relativity theory describes deterministic events involving physical objects. Human beings, and especially their will / choice, are a different opera altogether.
Avshalom Elitzur has a longstanding tendency to apply relativity and quantum theory beyond their domains of applicability and to draw philosophical conclusions from them. We have already had arguments about this.
Discussion on Answer
I answered.
Even so, I still didn’t understand whether relativity theory’s conception of time can fit with free choice—because according to interactive dualism, physical events come into being along the timeline that were not necessarily supposed to happen.