Did you really choose to read this? A Philosophical Perspective on the Neuroscience Behind Free Will

Did you choose your favorite color? Did you choose what to eat for breakfast? Did you choose to read this article? Do you have any influence on these decisions at all? Free will is defined as the power to act at one’s discretion, without constraint or a predetermined outcome. Most people like to believe that they are in the “driver’s seat” of their decision-making, having absolute free will in every moment. However, evidence from both neuroscience and philosophy may indicate otherwise.

The most common interpretation of free will is an individual’s agency. In both neuroscience and philosophy, this refers to the capacity of an entity to make choices and exert influence on the world. When we make a decision, we have a strong, intuitive, and an almost tangible sense of agency in the moment. I made this choice. This was my decision.

Despite this, several studies have shown that decisions, and even spontaneous actions, are generated unconsciously before we can even think about them. These choices can be predicted based on unconscious brain activity prior to any conscious decision-making, with one study noting significantly accurate predictions that were made up to eleven seconds before participants made a conscious choice.

Illustration by Pascal Gaggelli

The Argument for Determinism

Neuroscientist Dr. Robert Sapolsky, an advocate holding a strong stance against the notion of free will, argues that every behavior that your brain has ever produced has been influenced by a previous experience or a factor that can’t be controlled. In a podcast with the University of Chicago, he states that our choices and reasoning are entirely dependent on outside factors or influences. This line of thinking aligns with determinism, a philosophical concept in which all events are causally determined by prior events. In other words, the direct opposite of free will.

A critical part of the discussion of free will and determinism to note is the existence of what can be called deterministic priors. These are the several constraints or variables placed on us that include genetics, resources, upbringing, trauma, neurobiology, hormones, and on and on. Despite radical belief, factors such as socioeconomic status, race, and gender are a necessary part of this conversation, as not only are they out of our control, we often aren’t even aware of their impacts. Deterministic priors don’t just dictate what we can or can’t do, but what we can or can’t think.

At this step, we must consider the following: The effects of deterministic priors do not imply that we can’t make a choice, but that our reasons for making the choice are out of our control. For example, when you decided what your favorite food is, what went into that decision? Did you choose it because of how it tastes to you, the experiences or memories associated with it, the nutritional value, or another reason? Why was that specific reason the deciding factor for your preference? For every choice that we make, we can follow this line of thinking until it boils down to us simply stating: “It’s just who I am”. To that, Sapolsky responds that everything, from millions of years of evolution, to our hormone levels on a specific day, to our neurobiology at a very instant, influences who we are.

Who’s Really in Charge?

Establishments like the justice system and legal repercussions seem to crumble under the weight of this logic. Why hold anybody accountable if no one is really in control? However, the same way that trauma can affect a person’s likelihood to behave a certain way, other experiences can also influence future decision-oriented thinking. Consequences to actions such as legal repercussions act as constraints that affect our behavior. Additionally, our current justice system in the United States implicitly acknowledges the fact that agency comes in varying levels; children, individuals with mental disorders, and other groups are evaluated differently when legal consequences are considered.

Does this mean we have no real control? Not necessarily. Determinism is commonly confused with another philosophical doctrine known as fatalism, which suggests that events/occurrences in the future are entirely predetermined and inevitable, regardless of present actions. Determinism instead implies that while every event is affected by a prior one, these deterministic “chains” can be influenced in small ways to change an overall outcome or circumstance. Let’s use this distinction to further understand the extent of our agency as human beings.

The Decisions We Can Make

So, what choices do we have? Philosophical systems such as determinism and fatalism carry an air of futility with them that can feel disappointing and discouraging. But as it turns out, the brain is both deterministic and probabilistic. This means that there are often several probable outcomes that can occur when our brains engage in decision-oriented thinking, and moving between them is an act of exercising our agency.

While our decision-making processes follow chains that are dependent on our deterministic priors, this doesn’t prevent us from interacting with or influencing them. Certain constraints, such as physical wellbeing, our environment, and our habits and tendencies can be changed. The fact is, if we can influence any of our deterministic priors, even just a little bit, then it confirms that we have the capacity for free will. Instead of being a passive observer to these chains of actions and responses, we become recursive editors that are consciously acting within our constraints.

The best course of action, according to neuroscientist Dr. Rachel Barr, is to operate as if we do have complete free will. The more conscious efforts that we take to improving our circumstances and changing our deterministic priors, the more control that we gain. There are degrees of freedom; any use of our agency, however small it may be, can lead us from one probable outcome to another. Even the tiniest influences that we may exert will compound over time, such as choosing to wake up just a few minutes earlier, to spend one more hour outside, or to notice one more positive thing about ourselves each day.

Habits are the accumulation of tiny steps that occur over large periods of time. Change begins in seemingly insignificant ways before it alters everything we know. Our agency may come in small amounts, but it has a tremendous influence on our lives and our circumstances. Our capacity for free will proves that deterministic chains don’t tie us down, but instead give us the power to command them and shape our lives.

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Author's note:

My name is Aayush, and I’m a rising sophomore studying medical neuroscience! I’m interested in pursuing healthcare as a career and specializing in neurology or a similar discipline.

This is the first time I’ve written an article like this and wanted to choose a topic that I cared about a lot. I went through a lot of studies and articles, and have included links to all that I used for this post within the text. I find that in our increasingly self-aware society, concepts from neuroscience and philosophy tend to overlap often and have a

lot of relevance.

Thank you so much to Mari for giving me this opportunity to write about my interests and publish them! I definitely spent more time thinking about the topic and exploring than actually writing, which can explain her needing to constantly remind me to finish the project (I apologize twin).

Hope you made it this far and thank you so much for reading!

-Aayush Gandhe