Warren Brown - How Can Free Will Work?

Assume that free will is real, not an illusion, and that the only reality is physical. How then could the will possibly be free? By what mechanism could human choice transcend the strong determinism of a closed physical world? One can try diminishing one side or the other: reducing free will or softening determinism, but each has its own difficulties.

Warren S. Brown is founder and previous director of the Lee Edward Travis Research Institute at the Fuller Theological Seminary and Professor of Psychology in the Graduate School of Psychology.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[terryhammer]

Finally! Someone addresses the free will question in a sensible way. Emergence of the mind and and the resultant possibility of top-down causality supersedes determinism.

[explore-n]

after all the years I've been watching the show, I can say; this is the best delivered interview

[gert]

If I understand him right, Brown's argument seems to be that if a system is sufficiently complex and dynamic, 'something' happens which means that physical processes stop being governed by physics, and can become governed by processing and evaluating information. (AKA minds making choices).

My problem with this is that information isn't a 'thing in itself' which neurons do something with, rather information is a a type od description of actual, ontological things in themselves. So you can describe neural processes in terms of information processing, but there isn't some extra thing which is information.

In which case, the argument that information processing somehow escapes the physical system of neural activity doesn't make sense. Because information processing is simply a way of describing that physical neural activity. The other option would be that information is more than this, which Brown would need to describe and make an argument for its existence.

[MrWhatever]

I have no free will. But I’m responsible for what this organism does so I gotta keep an eye on this guy and give it the most up to date information out there. Hopefully Mr know it all does the right things

[TheTroofSayer]

Robert introduces Warren Brown as a physicalist. At 6:21 Brown leads into discussion on agency & information - "... at every level in biology its becoming increasingly apparent that there are non-reductive properties." There's a *lot* to unpack - in the interests of brevity, I'll just say that free will is best understood when we assume association (CS Peirce) & meaning as fundamental for all agents throughout all levels. That is, every agent makes choices by associating meanings. Every agent has to "know how to be" & free will is integral to its ability to learn, by making associations. Free will applies to *all* living agents, not just humans, & case for physicalism becomes very weak, once we factor in association as fundamental.

[brianlebreton]

Well done. Love the back and forth. Robert is so good at bringing to the surface the key differences in perspectives. These interviews are never “a walk in the park” even if the interviewee thinks they have it all figured out.

[Appleblade]

I love Aristotle's statement about this from his Ethics. Regarding human action he says... 'The origin of action is choice ... and [the origin] of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end ... Hence, choice is either disiderative reason or ratiocinative desire, and such an origin of action is a man'. Of course, it goes without saying that we can only choose an option when we can think of it. We aren't free to do everything... only the options that present themselves in whatever time we have for contemplation. The reductive question of whether my choice is made by my neurons, and perhaps their choices by some quantum wave flux amplified in the molecules of those neurons (as Freeman Dyson speculated), doesn't come up in Aristotle, of course, but you have to wonder if he would be a reductionist in science or an emergence advocate. Perhaps the reasoning and desiring being that emerges in a brain takes on a 'life of its own', and makes choices devoid of motivation 'from behind', but rather, purely, by motivation of the appeal of the considered objects. That seems to be Anselm's idea of freedom... when choosing morally, humans consider the objective appeal of the considered options, and aren't tilted one way or another toward them by anything prior. (Btw, Aquinas disagrees, and says we are both able to see the good with its inherent appeal, but are also inclined by God towards it... so that we are doubly guilty if we choose evil.)

[mcgee]

I agree with what he is saying. But when you break it down its still Casual Determinism.

[Jacobk-gr]

0:50 no, you can have more freedom if you take the pieces of patterns and connect them inside. You don’t have to experience everything, look at movies and how we see creatures that never existed. It’s so simple but we missed it lmao. The body is a reflection of earth, an environment for changes and we absorb the details but conscious allows the guidance of reflection instead of just reflecting the patterns now the patterns can flow into different states and connections because it exists as one inside us and so we can manipulate it to different forms. That’s also why we can throw free will out the window and just follow something or someone and let it control us. Like did a guy research cancer under his own will or did the grief or excitement push them? What pushes you? Your goals, understandings, everything? It’s not the patterns but how we grow in connection.

[patientson]

I was thinking of Prof or Dr Brown, Warren Brown. He mentioned something I haven't fully evaluated, but have always wanted to say out, plus do.

[richardharvey]

Hi Closer to Truth, I do love these videos!, we always get such stimulating ideas from the speakers. I am deeply fascinated by the detail and depth to which people can reach to sustain ideas that they have simply imagined!. The whole concept of 'free will' comes from that fanciful side of the human mind that transcends reality that does not require any physical evidence to support it.
I do think that in this case we need to start with some stricter definitions, the question put in the video caption, 'can free will work' requires that work be defined. This could simply be that the idea can be incorporated into all sort of ideas and cognitive delusions without any material effect and without needing to conform to any of the natural laws of science where the coherent sequence of cause and effect must be clear and repeatable. All the parameters that I would apply to the concept of work, but that would deny the 'reality' of concepts, thoughts and ideas altogether.
It might also be necessary to establish a strict definition of 'free', again does that imply absence of any restriction or external influence?.
All that aside I assume that within that realm of fantasy where most people spend most of their conscious time, the environment of warped observation, desire, intention and design, where individuals would like to establish some credibility for their imaginary concepts that freedom of thought is absolutely essential! as soon as anyone starts to insist that such behaviour must be in any way regulated, restricted or shackled is anathema!, the whole point of cognitive delusion is that it is immune to any criticism, challenge or amendment.
Cheers, Richard.

[bakmanthetitan]

The cope of this emergence argument is fascinating. "You can't reduce a neuron to the physics that underlies it"... yes you can :). I don't think there's any hope for progress in the philosophy of agency and freedom if we permit sloppy reasoning like this.

[rikkafe]

Is there not an issue relying on our past experiences when considering a choice? I say this because as far as I am aware we have no control over what our mind serves up as its next thought. A simple example would be selecting a DVD from a collection of DVD's, why did you choose the one you did? What factors are actually at play in the decision?

[piehound]

To FREE OR NOT TO FREE, THAT IS THE QUESTION. Good discussage. Whether tis nobler . . . etc etc.

[TheLlywelyn]

So many here mistake science for their own emphatic belief. We must maintain humility in what science knows, vs what is yet unproven. When we create dogma our mind closes. 'No free will' is still just a position, still very much debated. We don't even comprehend consciousness, emergence is a developing concept, etc, so a bit early to conclude emphatically there is no free will.

[stoictraveler]

Wow that was truly fascinating thanks- again!

[gettaasteroid]

The idea that free will is supplemental to the human mind, Dr Brown uses the word "efficacious", that free will can replace whatever is in 'mind', started as a reaction to the idea that there are hallucinatory objects, in particular Edwin Holt's New Realism. There was a publication in 1920 called "Essays in Critical Realism" that began with the premise of supplemental or "efficacious" mind. Critical Realism includes a diverse group ranging from George Santayana to Roy Sellars to Alfred Lovejoy and Durant Drake.

[sleethmitchell]

much of our clockwork determinism that seems so intuitive feels uneasy at the failure of cause and effect at the quantum level.

[bittertruth]

There is a moment where freewill stops working completely! When you're in an airplane which is going to crash in another 5 minutes ...

[AndreasMiller]

Just make him answer the question "If you were born in another persons place, physically the same as that person and raised the same, would you make any different choices?" Unless he believes in a soul, obviously that person would not have been able to make different choices, because it would be the same person it is now.