The Modular with Feedback Theory of Free Will by Peter C. Lugten
Many contemporary philosophers of mind and prominent neuroscientists accept either a hard or a soft version of determinism. In the “hard” version, our behavior is determined by the starting snapshot of the atoms in our brains at birth, thus incompatible with free will. In the “soft”, it is weakly “compatible” with determinism through either a hypothetical or moral authorship. The feared alternative to determinism is random, chaotic behavior, dressed up as "incompatibilism" or “libertarianism”. These ideas are mirrored in current debates about causation, and the level at which it occurs. In this paper, I overturn conventional notions, and propose free will to be compatible, not with determinism, but with chance.
A deterministic Universe, favored by Einstein, is no longer the default position accepted by physicists, and the ideas of several physicists with a contrary view are briefly mentioned. An understanding of pertinent aspects of brain functioning is also essential to the debate. These include neuroplasticity, the nature of consciousness, the way in which choices graduate from the subconscious to consciousness, and the way our character influences this process. Several neuroscientists have described oscillations of the electrical activity in neural circuits, which are able to represent ideas or behaviors, and which compete with each other on a modular basis. Here, I provide a neurological model of how free will emerges from oscillating modular neuronal activity. These, representing ideas, oscillate subconsciously, competing for conscious attention; choice between them is partly random. Our likely behavior is partly predetermined by our past experiences, which will result in some neural circuits being stronger than others. A conscious neural circuit that reflects our character, which I call the character module, approves or vetoes lower-level decisions. As a homeostatic mechanism, it will seek to maintain a sense of context and consistency; and a conscious desire for a sense of character and personality. I propose that this circuit learns from experience and then, given the brain’s neuroplasticity, uses this feedback to rebalance the oscillations appropriately, so that they conform to what we consider to be our will.
This paper considers the impact on the free will debate of Benjamin Libet’s experiments in the 1980’s, showing that voluntary movements are initiated in the brain one third of a second before the awareness of deciding to act. It sides with those who have argued that, whether or not there is time to consciously veto the subconscious decision, the artificiality of the experiment makes it irrelevant to free will in our living experience. The Modular with Feedback Theory applies not only to "snap" decisions, of the type explored in the Libet experiments, but to our moral core, allowing particular experiences to influence our future ethical judgments. It shows how, despite partial predetermination and partial randomness, our consciousness can train our subconscious such that we can accept responsibility for our generally but not entirely predictable decisions. The model explains will power as a struggle between modules representing temptation and resistance, which can be strengthened by the satisfaction felt from not giving in. It explains pathologies of free will, such as addiction, and “ego-depletion”, which can pervert, or weaken the character module’s normal feedback. The theory agrees that our free will can yield to determinism whenever we act out of habit, or dismiss ideas without thinking.
The model also links free will to creativity and humor, neither of which exists in any genuine sense in a deterministic world. It suggests that the same modules that compete, as ideas, for control of our will can on occasion combine in unexpected ways to produce a brilliant new idea, or a funny way of considering a situation: an “aha moment”, or an extemporized joke. The fact that one can train oneself to think in this way shows that this modular process is also facilitated by the feedback mechanism.
The Modular with Feedback Theory of Free Will allows for adequate but incomplete determination of our behavior. We gain a homeostatic consistency of character, essential to our participation in society, yet with the ability to occasionally do the unexpected. The mechanism grants us choice, making us free, but gives us ownership of the choice, making us responsible. We gain freedom through a mechanism the uncertainty of which we don’t fully understand, but which is sufficient to preclude determinism. Not only does it enable us to choose to act the way we want to act, but it means we possess free will in the sense that we really could have chosen to act differently.
