Just read my children a fantastic picture book. They’ve heard the story many times, so it’s lost its impact, but every time an adult hears it for the first time, they are truly shocked.
It’s called Tadpole’s Promise (it’s on Amazon) and….I don’t want to spoil it, actually, so I’m not going to tell you what happens. But it deals with the fact that a tadpole’s change into a frog and a caterpillar’s change into a butterfly are automated processes, impossible to resist, and as predetermined as the fact that a frog will always … oops, I nearly gave it away. Anyway, it’s fascinating ending because kids love the story and adults invariably hate it.
I found myself wondering whether that’s because it exposes a prejudice that means nothing to children and everything to adults. For most children, free will is not an issue because their needs are generally met externally, they live within social structures where they follow the rules, for the most part, and it is possible for them to act on most of their desires without adverse consequences. (I remember being totally shocked by Margaret Boden suggesting in a lecture that young children (under 5s, say) are not truly conscious beings because of the simplicity/naivete of their cognitive processes and experiences. I don’t like it, and I don’t agree, but I kind of know what she means).
Adults, on the other hand, feel they have more responsibility. And so they are blessed/cursed with the sense that they have choices to make. But do they? Really, I mean?
Neuroscientists tell us we don’t have anything like free will. In New Scientist a while back, Patricia Churchland, a neuroscientist based at the University of California, Davis, discussed this subject, opening with a startling anecdote:
In 2003, the Archives of Neurology carried a startling clinical report. A middle-aged Virginian man with no history of any misdemeanour began to stash child pornography and sexually molest his 8-year-old stepdaughter. Placed in the court system, his sexual behaviour became increasingly compulsive. Eventually, after repeatedly complaining of headaches and vertigo, he was sent for a brain scan. It showed a large but benign tumour in the frontal area of his brain, invading the septum and hypothalmus - regions known to regulate sexual behaviour.
After removal of the tumour, his sexual interests returned to normal. Months later, his sexual focus on young girls rekindled, and a new scan revealed that bits of tissue missed in the surgery had grown into a sizeable tumour. Surgery once again restored his behavioural profile to "normal".
Churchland goes on to ask, “Did the man have free will? Was he responsible for his behaviour? Can a tumour usurp one's free will?” Sexual desires, she points out, are regulated by hormones that act on neurons in the septum and connected brain areas. Where does this leave us with personal responsibility? You can access a PDF of the article via the “articles” page of her website (it’s subscription only on newscientist.com).
Every time I discuss the issue of free will, people (including me) try to wriggle out of the inescapable conclusion that we are carbon-based machines that are controlled by a lump of carbon-based jelly sited in the skull. This jelly sends out chemical and electrical signals that do all kinds of interesting things, including giving us the illusion that something inside our heads is separate from the physical stuff – a soul, or mind, or whatever you want to call it – and allowing us (whatever “us” is) to direct the body and thoughts.
It’s a nice idea, but it doesn’t really add up, does it? Like the grown-up tadpole who ate his childhood sweetheart (OK, there you go), we follow stimuli, and obey the drives and impulses set out by our genes and our experience.
But, also like the frog, we’re best off thinking that there’s nothing amiss. So feel free to ignore this post if you want. As Steven Pinker has put it, “free will is a fictional construction, but it has applications in the real world.”
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