Metaphysics special: Do we have free will?
“DID I really just decide to have fish and chips for lunch?” Humans have been wrestling with such questions for millennia. Maybe not about the fish and chips, but about whether we are truly in control or whether some external agent – be that an omnipotent god or the laws of physics – predetermines the trajectory of our lives.
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. Who is the “I” who decided to have fish and chips? Your gut reaction might tell you that you are a conscious entity controlling your physical body. But that physical body includes the brain that generates your consciousness. There is no splitting the two.
Metaphysics special: What is consciousness?
We do know that any sense we have of being in control of our actions is, to some extent, an illusion. In particular, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet showed in the 1980s that mechanisms within the brain initiate actions long before that brain’s owner is aware of deciding to perform them.
It’s a big extrapolation to claim that all of our actions are outside our control. “Libet deals with the very short-term precursors of very simple actions,” says Patrick Haggard, a neuroscientist at University College London. Then again, even longer-term decisions and actions are the result of specific brain processes. “I assume this is also deterministic,” says Haggard.