In a brief article in New Scientist John Searle wonders whether there might be a scientific solution to the problem of free will.

One complication is that an approach based on causal determinism leads to the conclusion that free will is an illusion. But that's no good.

... it is part of our conscious experience of voluntary intentional action that we can only proceed on the assumption of free will. If you believe that rainbows are systematic illusions, you can lead your life consistently on that basis. But if you believe that free will is an illusion, you cannot live your life on that basis.

So there needs to at least appear to be gaps in the causal process that begins with my desires and ends with my action. If these gaps are illusory, however, I have no free will because my actions are caused and not up to me. On the other hand, if we suppose the gaps are real--say, something indeterminate happens at the neurobiological level--, then we have either a kind of randomness, which removes my responsibility for the action, or we have indeterminate but nonrandom activity, which seems to make no sense. So we are stuck with two unwelcome hypotheses.

Now, if we had to choose between the two hypotheses, we would surely bet on Hypothesis One, given what we know about the world. The only argument I can think of against it is that it is totally unlike biological evolution to give us an extremely costly phenotype (conscious rational decision-making) that plays no role in the survival of the organism. We have to suppose that the enormous blood flow to the conscious brain, and the enormous time spent educating the young to make rational decisions, makes no difference, since all decisions are fixed by deterministic neuronal processes.

If Hypothesis One runs dead counter to evolution, Hypothesis Two is consistent with our experiences, but seems crazy. Besides, it gives us three mysteries for one: to solve the mystery of free will, you have to solve the mystery of consciousness, and you do that by relying on the mystery of quantum mechanics. Hypothesis One is consistent with our scientific view of how the world works, but we cannot live with it.

Searle's remarks are largely the same as those found in his 2001 article "Free Will as a Problem in Neurobiology" (Philosophy 76 (2001)). I have yet to read his new book Freedom and Neurobiology (it's high on my list), but one hopes there is something new to clarify the position. I don't find Searle's way of posing the problem terribly illuminating or very different from many others who have tried to set out the issues before.

Searle ends the essay, as the earlier article, with a quip that he seems to think is pretty clever.

When I discussed these issues in a lecture in London, someone in the audience asked: "If Hypothesis One were demonstrated to be true, would you accept it?" Notice the form of the question: if it were demonstrated that there is no such thing as free, rational decision making, would you freely and rationally decide to accept that demonstration?

I don't find this nearly so clever. It seems to me I often do have to wait until something happens to find out what I would do. What would I do if I won a million dollars? I'm not sure. I have some rough hypotheses. And I'm pretty sure I would do something. But I need to wait until it happens to find out; I'm sure my conscious mind will be busy the whole time. (For that experiment I'm a ready and willing subject.) If presented with a demonstration that there was no free will, what would I do? If it truly was a sound demonstration, I hope I would be in a position to recognize it as such and acccept it? Perhaps I wouldn't either recognize it or accept it. If there really is no free will, then I wouldn't freely accept it or reject it (or freely do anything else for that matter). How I might behave, however, is at best a prediction and perhaps only a guess.

I hope to write again on this material after I've read the book.

Tackling the problem of free will - being-human - 13 January 2007 - New Scientist

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