Do the laws of physics mean we have no free will?

[Aoqua]

If the atoms in our brains obey the laws of physics, how can we have any free will? Surely we're just like computers, following our programs, so to speak.

I know that brains don't work like computers, but you see what I mean: how can our conscious decisions change what happens in our brains?

[Maya]

There are several brain-related conditions in which an individual's actions are not felt to be entirely under his or her control. Although the existence of such conditions does not directly refute the existence of free will, the study of such conditions, like the neuroscientific studies above, is valuable in developing models of how the brain may construct our experience of free will.
For example, people with Tourette syndrome and related tic disorders make involuntary movements and utterances, called tics, despite the fact that they would prefer not to do so when it is socially inappropriate. Tics are described as semi-voluntary or "unvoluntary", because they are not strictly involuntary: they may be experienced as a voluntary response to an unwanted, premonitory urge. Tics are experienced as irresistible and must eventually be expressed. People with Tourette syndrome are sometimes able to suppress their tics to some extent for limited periods, but doing so often results in an explosion of tics afterward. The control which can be exerted (from seconds to hours at a time) may merely postpone and exacerbate the ultimate expression of the tic.
In alien hand syndrome, the afflicted individual's limb will produce meaningful behaviours without the intention of the subject. The clinical definition requires "feeling that one limb is foreign or has a will of its own, together with observable involuntary motor activity" (emphasis in original). This syndrome is often a result of damage to the corpus callosum, either when it is severed to treat intractable epilepsy or due to a stroke. The standard neurological explanation is that the felt will reported by the speaking left hemisphere does not correspond with the actions performed by the non-speaking right hemisphere, thus suggesting that the two hemispheres may have independent senses of will.
Similarly, one of the most important ("first rank") diagnostic symptoms of schizophrenia is the delusion of being controlled by an external force. People with schizophrenia will sometimes report that, although they are acting in the world, they did not initiate, or will, the particular actions they performed. This is sometimes likened to being a robot controlled by someone else. Although the neural mechanisms of schizophrenia are not yet clear, one influential hypothesis is that there is a breakdown in brain systems that compare motor commands with the feedback received from the body (known as proprioception), leading to attendant hallucinations and delusions of control.
Also, obsessive-compulsive disorder and other compulsive behaviour, such as compulsive overeating and addiction, may be linked to a lack of free will. And only hints, or degrees, of this may be linked to a lack of totally free will.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050322170245/http://www.tsa-usa.org/research/definitions.html

[Scooby Doo]

unrelated and too much analysing going on in your head.

cos you control your own thinking, unconscious is just acting on past learning and experiences, and with parctice if these were bad responses they can be changed so as they become new natural responses, - so free will all the time.

behaviour is not dependent physics

[SimplyUnited]

The inner world of atom is still the greatest mystery in science alongside that mystery of the structure and function of the universe. The fact of the matter is that it is inside of an atom where the secrets of the universe are to be found if anywhere within all the possibilities of the world. It was a faithfully held belief by the scientists up to the age of Albert Einstein that a mathematical equation could be drawn to explain the mysteries of the universe and therefore those of human life. That is until the time of the quantum mechanics that changed everything about human perception of the mysterious inner world of atom and also about the nature of the universe. We know now that there is uncertainty at the heart of each atom where laws of Newtonian physics do not apply, where there is nothing that we can exemplify in our normal world. Scientists ever since have tried to peer into the secretive heart of atom but the attempts so far have not born much fruit. The atomic world as well as the universe is still as much a mystery as ever.

It is only very modern that attention has been drawn again to the tradition methods of science, to the understanding of the universe that is within grasp of science. The nature of the question thus has changed once again to consider as what is gravity? What reason is this world that way it is? Why the laws of physics are the way they are? And why they are in place at the first place? This is the region where science mingles with philosophy to understand the nature of our inquiry first of all before we attempt to understand the universe, or life.

This is therefore clear by the very reason of science that there is more to the world that science can ever grasp. The laws of physics as we know them have limited scope of application. And there are things beyond that we do not know. Then the question is - is the fact that there are things beyond predictable world of science also the reason that we have free will? There might be a will stronger still than anything that we are able to see with science beyond science, the Will of God, or there could be just randomness of existence afar? The fact that we are able to ask questions systematically or randomly is perhaps the best proof of a free human will in existence so far.

[sajeev86]

Fundamentally, a rational person would believe that everything has an antecedent or a collective of antecedents to bring about the present action. That is the law of nature.

To refute this claim, try and think very hard to break this chain of events. I mean, try and think of an action that did not have a action before it.

Physicalist philosophers have refuted notions of thought being separate from action; that is, conscious and unconscious thought are derived from physical means and therefore are actions of nature even though we are right to believe that we have OUR actions separate from OUR thoughts. This very separation that we believe OUR actions different from OUR thoughts gives rise to the judicial system in society; with the enquiries into intention to do harm and actually going about doing the harm.

As for the argument of the determinist, it is indeed very problematic for society because it alters our notions of responsibilities within society itself.

We can philosophise all we want (as my father would say) about free will, determinism, personal responsibility and social responsibility among other things, but a lot of these questions lead to more questions (certainly more questions than answers) and when it comes to practical purposes it gets us nowhere.

I think these matters have been resolved as far as we can resolve them, or at least as far as society can resolve them. It engenders a sense of Pragmatism (that has swept across America): to do things that feel good for ourselves and society to be the right thing to do.

[moretoo]

take 1atom of carbon and add two atoms of oxeygen the atoms act the same but now they are water, sort of works with ideas too

[anonymus]

We were born like that, so people just accept that they are inferior to the laws

[giginotgigi]

Laws of physics only govern the nature. Nothing to do with free will. You can dream for anything but it is nature to define the achievement.

[joe.finkle]

Silke is correct. I've been saying that on here for months and I think this may be the first time I've seen anyone else make the argument that chaos theory magnifying quantum uncertainty affects free will. :-)

To fill in a little detail, Bell's Theorem proves that quantum uncertainty is a real fundamental part of nature and the world is not deterministic. Chaos theory describes how any difference in initial conditions, no matter how small, leads to a large difference in potential results at some point later. That is why the weather can never be predicted beyond a certain degree of accuracy. (Of course the best theoretically possible weather predictions are much much much better than what we can actually do, but there is still a limit.)

Most systems occurring in nature with more than about 4 mathematical dimensions, or degrees of freedom, are chaotic. Each neural network in the brain that governs some small piece of a brain function has about a hundred degrees of freedom. It has never been proven that are brains are chaotic, but it is nearly certain that they are. Thus, our brains are free, according to the laws of physics. Their future is undetermined.

So our will, defined as the process of making a decision, is free, as in not predetermined. It is quite literally a self determining system whose outcome is governed largely by other decisions we have made in the past, as well as outside influence.

The idea that our will is self determining satisfies many of the concerns about free will. It is a definition of free will that actually exists in the world and fits well into our conception of it. Therefore, I think it makes a good response to the question of the nature of free will and whether we have it.

[waldo_mcginty]

Brain chemistry rather than brain physics might be more relevant here but even that does not negate free will.If thought and actions were just a matter of the effect of gravity on neurons & synapses all humans would think and act exactly the same given that gravity is pretty much a constant.The brain reacts physically and chemically to external stimuli perceived through the senses.That alone tends to suggest that we are not robots or computers.