Do we have free will?
It is impossible to say either yes or no to this question. Our universe results from a single observation of itself by existence. This observation is outside of time and chooses one universe and its entire history from a population of potential universes. Is this choice random or an exercise of free will by existence (God)? The two possibilities are indistinguishable, so it is impossible to decide which is correct. Thus, it is impossible to say whether existence has free will. In our temporal universe, we observe a multitude of quantum events in which a single alternative is selected from two or more possible outcomes, a phenomenon called collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics. This takes place all the time everywhere, even at the lowest level of our brains, where it offers the only possibility for us to have free will, since everything at the higher levels of our brains is deterministic, if often chaotic. Jeffrey Satinover, in his book, The Quantum Brain (John Wiley and Sons, 2001), presents evidence that the brain does amplify this quantum indeterminism at its lowest level up to the level of experience, making it possible that we might have free will. However, are the quantum choices occurring in our brains made by our selves, or are they simply the random, quantum-mechanical collapsing of wave functions? Again, these are indistinguishable. So we are free to think that we have free will or not. Science doesn't seem to be able to give us the answer.
Aside from this basic truth about free will, there are a few other things we can say about it. First, if our universe results from a single observation of itself by existence, which chooses one universe and its entire history from the population of potential universes, then whether this choice is random or an exercise of free will by existence (God), does it not determine all of the outcomes of quantum choices in the temporal universe for all time? If your answer to this question led you to the conclusion that our temporal universe is really deterministic after all, you would be wrong. That the universe viewed outside of time is deterministic is unquestionably true, in the sense that once created, it is immutable. Viewed within time, however, it need not be deterministic, and in fact it is not. How is it possible that two views of the same universe can give incompatible answers to this question? This is simply a result of the paradoxical, temporal/atemporal nature of existence. In physics, there is a famous paradox called wave-particle duality. The same entity, the electron, viewed in different ways, can behave either like a particle or like a wave. Now, these are absolutely incompatible results. A particle is localized in space, while a wave is spread throughout space. How do physicists resolve this paradox? They don’t. They simply accept it. Bohr’s principle of complementarity states that this is the nature of reality and as long as you are clear about which experiment you are performing, there is no real conflict here. The electron is not a particle and a wave at the same time, it is a particle if you look at it one way and a wave if you look at it another way, and this is all right. In exactly the same way, it is all right that the atemporal universe is deterministic while the temporal universe is not, even though it is the same universe in both cases. In one case it is God looking at the universe and in the other case it is man. God’s knowledge is different from man’s. Man cannot begin to comprehend God’s way of knowing. This is similar to what philosophers call an eternalist position, except that philosophers in general are completely unaware of complementarity and how it arises from the nature of reality.
A second observation we can make on the subject of man’s having free will, aside from the impossibility of establishing it one way or the other, is that if the quantum level of our brains is the only possible place it could exist, then it would seem that we probably do have free will some of the time. It appears probable that some of our choices result from quantum-mechanical wave-function collapses in our brains. When a wave function “collapses,” the outcome is chosen from an ensemble of possible outcomes, each of which had some probability of being the observed outcome before the collapse. Who or what determines the chosen outcome? Physicists still argue about this, but the standard interpretation says that the choice is random and that this uncertainty is inherent in reality. No mechanism has ever been found to explain why one outcome is chosen over all of the others. Physicists don’t understand this and don’t like it one bit, but are forced to accept it. This is why Richard Feynman said, “Nobody understands quantum mechanics.”
In the concept model of the universe, the outcomes of wave-function collapses in our brains can be random, but they might also be determined by free choices of our selves. The two possibilities are indistinguishable, and quantum mechanics says that if two alternatives are indistinguishable and neither is impossible, then there is some nonzero probability that either will be observed. If the self were only an epiphenomenon of brain function, as most scientists believe, then it could not have free will and make the choices we’re talking about, but in the concept model, while the self is indeed generated by brain activity, as soon as it observes itself it becomes a self-generating conscious concept. Its consciousness might be able to make the choices in question, and then quantum mechanics would say that some of the time it does make them. Philosophers call this explanation for free will agent causation. Here the agent is the self. Some philosophers object that the agent’s choices are simply arbitrary or random and therefore not free, but while random is obviously not free, arbitrary is exactly what a free choice looks like.
Thus, it seems likely that some of our choices are free, and this may account for why we think we have free will. However, it is also likely that some of our choices that we think are free are really random, simply quantum mechanics at work. No one, not even our own brains, can tell if a particular choice was free or not free. So, while this view of free will seems to conclude that it probably exists in our temporal universe, it is still impossible to be sure about it in any particular case.
For the interested reader, here is my personal, unscientific view. Since I am free to believe either that I do or that I don’t have free will, I choose to believe that I have it with regard to the future, but that I don’t have it with regard to the past. If I’m faced with a choice, there’s some probability that it will be a free choice, so I assume it will be free. If I’m looking at something I’ve done, there’s no way to tell if that act was free, so I assume that it wasn’t. This allows me to look at life somewhat like William Shakespeare, who wrote that “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” In my view, I am a character in a giant stage production. My body, my brain, my personality are the makeup and costumes for my role. The actor, in the case of my role and all of the roles in this play, is consciousness in the form of our selves. Whatever has happened to me, whatever I have done, has been in accordance with the script of this stage production, which has as its author perhaps God, perhaps no one, depending on how this universe was chosen from the population of potential universes. It seems possible that the script allows some ad-libbing (free will) by the actors, although there is no way for the actors’ makeup, costumes, or characters (our physical aspects) to know when this is happening.
In choosing to look at my own free will in this way, am I making a free choice? I don’t know.