Evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne seems obsessed with denying free will. In a recent post on his blog, Why Evolution Is True, he supported the claim of theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder that we do not have free will:

If youve read this site, youll know that my own views are pretty much the same as hers, at least about free will. We dont have it, and the fundamental indeterminacy of quantum mechanics doesnt give it to us either.

Hossenfelder doesnt pull any punches:

This means in a nutshell that the whole story of the universe in every single detail was determined already at the big bang. We are just watching it play out.

QED!

Both Coyne and Hossenfelder are atheists, materialists, and deterministsa sort of intellectual dark triadand their beliefs are scientifically and logically uninformed. They use denial of free will to prop up their materialist and determinist irreligion. It is not science; it is an ideological project, without a shred of science or logic to back it up.

There are three lines of evidence supporting the reality of free will: Neuroscience, physics and philosophy all point to the fact that free will is real. In this post, Ill discuss the neuroscience. But first, we must start by understanding what free will is. Erroneous definition of free will is at the root of many mistakes inherent in denying it.

It turns out that free will is rather hard to define rigorously, if taken all by itself. Many have tried. Definitions such as choice that is uncaused, choice that is an inclination that originates wholly within an organism, and choice that entails the existence of alternative possibilities have been proposed. Each is inadequate to the situation.

The definition of free will really depends on the definition of will. Will is a subset of appetite (an Aristotelian term), which means an inclination to act. There are two kinds of appetitesensitive appetite and rational appetite. Sensitive appetites are appetites that arise from concrete perceptions and imagination. I perceive a piece of cake, and I imagine how wonderful it would taste, so (if I am impulsive) I eat it.

Rational appetite is inclination to act based on reason, not on perceptions or imagination. Suppose, for example, that I am on a diet. My decision about whether to eat a piece of cake because of its appearance and how I imagine it will taste is fundamentally different from my decision about whether I will break my diet in order to do so. One inclinationmy sensitive appetiteis based on concrete perception. The other inclinationto follow my dietis based on abstract reason.

Only abstract reason/rational appetite is the will part of free will. Sensitive appetite is not part of the willit is a passion based wholly on material factorsmy brain chemistry, etc. Sensitive appetite is not freethis kind of appetite is indeed dictated by my molecules and neurotransmitters. I can condition it and override it but in itself, it is wholly material and subject to the laws of nature.

My willmy rational appetiteis an immaterial power of my mind. My will can be influenced by my passions but it is inherently free of material determinism of any kind. For example, my decision whether or not to eat that piece of cake is the result of the struggle between my material passions and my immaterial willbetween my sensitive and my rational appetite. Sometimes my passion wins. Sometimes my reasonmy willwins.

Now that we have a satisfactory definition of will, what do we mean by free will? Philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas gave the best answer: My free will is inclination based on abstract reasoning that arises wholly from me. Nothing other than me determines my will. I determine my will and my will is an immaterial power of my soul. In this specific sense, I have free will.

Now lets get to the neuroscience. Neuroscience has a lot to contribute to the debate over free will and all of it supports the reality of free will. There isnt a shred of neuroscientific evidence that contradicts the reality of free will.

Two major types of experiments address the question of free will:

The first is the experiments of Benjamin Libet, a mid- to late 20th century neuroscientist who studied the precise timing of electrical activity in the brain and conscious decisions to do simple tasks such pushing a button. Libet found that we have pre-conscious impulses characterized by spikes in brain waves that precede conscious decisions by about a half-second. But he also found that these pre-conscious impulses (which are not freely generated) are merely temptations. We retain the power to accept or reject them, and acceptance or rejection of these temptations is not accompanied by brain waves. Libet called this state free wont: We are bombarded by temptations that are beyond our immediate control but we have the immaterial freedom to accept or reject them. He noted the congruence between his experimental results and the traditional Jewish and Christian understanding of sin. We are tempted involuntarily but we always have freedom to comply with or reject temptation.

The second set of experiments is, in my view, even more compelling. They derive from the work of Wilder Penfield, the pioneer in the neurosurgery of epilepsy in the mid-20th century. Penfield performed over a thousand awake brain operations on patients with epilepsy. He stimulated their brains and the recorded the effect of stimulation on these awake patients. He found that he was able to stimulate practically any concrete mental phenomenonmovement of limbs, perceptions of light or smell or tactile sensations, emotions, memoriesbut he was never able to stimulate abstract thought or free will. In his memoir, Mystery of the Mind, he concluded that abstract thought and free will (which he called the mind as distinct from automatic responses like perceptions, movements, or emotions) did not originate in the brain, but were immaterial powers of the soul. He began his career as a strict materialist but ended his career as a convinced dualist.

He also noted a remarkable fact: there are no intellectual seizures, and by implication, no seizures that invoke free will. There are no calculus seizures, no logic seizures, no seizures that make the patients think abstractly or will (apparently) freely. There are no seizures that make you choose to be a Republican or a Democrat, no seizures that make you Christian or Jewish, no seizures that make you apply certain kinds of logic to a problem rather than another kind of logic. This is remarkable: if the will is merely the product of brain activity, at least some seizures should evoke will. They never do. Many seizures do feature complex manifestations (theyre called complex partial seizures), but these complex seizures always involve concrete thoughts and actions perceptions, emotions, and stereotypic movements. There are no seizures that invoke abstract thought or abstract decisionsthere are no free will seizures.

This remains true to this day. There are no reports in the medical literaturedespite literally billons of seizures suffered by patients in the modern eraof any seizure that replicates free will. This remarkable factliterally based on billions of data pointsclearly shows that the will is not determined by the material state of the brain. If the will were determined by neural activity, the willabstract choice based on reasonwould at least occasionally be replicated by seizures. It never is.

Coyne, Hossenfelder and other free will deniers are ignorant of the mountain of neuroscience evidence confirming free will. They are also ignorant of the philosophical reasoning supporting free will and of the evidence in physics that refutes determinism (but these are both subjects for another post).

If Dr. Coyne reads this far in this post, I challenge him: If free will is determined by brain states, show us the medical or neuroscience evidence that free will is ever evoked by seizure or by neurosurgical stimulation of the brain. In other words, Dr. Coyne, show me the neuroscience behind your bizarre denial of free will.

NeurosurgeonMichael Egnorhas written a fair bit on free will forMind Matters News.Here are some selections to consider:

No free will meansno justice:Free will is the cornerstone of all human rights and the cornerstone of our Constitutional rights. The denial of free will is, literally, the denial of human freedom. Without free will, we are livestock, without the presumption of innocence, without actual innocence, and without rights. A justice system that has no respect for free willa justice system in which human choices are diseases is a system of livestock management applied to homo sapiens.

Also:

Jerry Coyne just cant give updenying free will.Coynes denial of free will, based on determinism, is science denial and junk metaphysics

How Libets free will researchis misrepresented:Sometimes, says Michael Egnor, misrepresentation may be deliberate because Libets work doesnt support a materialist perspective.

Doesalien hand syndromeshow that we dont really have free will? One womans left hand seemed to have a mind of its own. Did it?

and

Does brain stimulation researchchallenge free will?If we can be forced to want something, is the will still free?

Read the original post:
Neuroscience Can Help Us Understand Why Free Will Is Real - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence