Free Will

Free Will


Awareness of choices made in a particular situation occur after a brief subconscious interval, the neurophysiology of which 

can be recorded by monitoring alterations in the electromagnetic fields close to the brain, or by functional magnetic resonace imaging, before the individual becomes aware of a thought, impulse or the initiation of an action.

This delay reflects the time necessary for a brain to recreate the user friendly interface, the screen which we refer to as consciousness.


Some of what is manifest as brain physiology, comprehensible at the human level, is very slow compared to the nanosecond processing going on in the background. As a result, most of our “choices” are subliminal. 


We are accustomed to thinking about choices as conscious or subconscious, but there is a timescale problem as alluded to, and behavior is always a result of activity in both domains. 


In my view, the topic of free will is a perverse discussion. Subconscious processing is the way the brain works most of the time. We would be severely impaired if this were not the case. 


Our brains produce a simplified virtual world in the minds which we possess, or which possess us, a result of evolutionary design, the “goal” of which is survival and propagation of the species, a goal we might consider achieved, at least for now, albeit precariously.


Evolution is a highly intelligent process, informational, combinational and statistical, which we now understand fairly well, and it is certainly unconscious and devoid of free will.


The anthropocene is not the product of blind automated subconscious processing, but rather the outcome of the choices humans have made within the domains we are able to control consciously, of our free will, but not divorced from our own bodies, communal existence and environmental milliue. 


The origins of our choices may or may not be immediately apparent to us. We may speculate about their derivation, and our explanations, at the very least, may be inaccurate.


The biological machine which is our brain, has roughly 10 to the power of 10 (100,000,000,000) neurons, each of which is unconscious, and each of which has roughly 1000 connecting input elements called dendrites, each of which has innumerable synapses or connecting points on it, the neurons connecting with the dendrites and cell body of other cells via a large output channel called an axon, which in turn, may have several terminal branches to many synaptic relay stations. The number of off, on, and modulating switches in the system would amount to 10 to the power of 16 (100,000,000,000,000,000). The resulting combinatorial power and complexity is unimaginable, yet we take it for granted, unless we are judging somebody whose abilities are exceptional in some or many ways.


It is hard to estimate the number of elements required to produce consciousness, and, although it must be very high, it is nowhere near the number above. We do know which regions of the brain anatomically are involved in the process, these details not germane to this discussion.


The torrential cascade of events occurring during 1000th of a second in an active brain reflects molecular and subatomic processes happening on the 1 millionth and 1 billionth of a second time scale. Who would want to keep track of all that? That it would be completely superfluous is a dramatic understatement, and it would require an energy quotient way beyond the biological capability of generating. Our heads would literally burn up!


We live in this universe. Our minds are not part of a spirit world controlled by otherwordly powers. If you commit a crime, it is you who are responsible, unless there is an insanity plea, and deranged brain function is confirmed by judge and jury. 


Given the complexity of the brain as described, it is not surprising that it wouldn’t always work perfectly, yet it does most of the time. 


By the way, the brain is very busy while we are asleep. There is a lot going on while we are unconscious or hallucinating in a dream, but we may choose to wake up during dream sleep, free will, and stop the nonsense, or just wake up spontaneously, which puts an end to it, not free will. Sometimes we are conscious enough to choose to dream on, free will triumphing again.


If consciousness is produced by a biological brain, it certainly could be produced by a machine. That would not change the argument. Just like humans, these machines may be good or evil, or anywhere along that spectrum, given their complexity.


Similarly, other animals with large brains are certainly complex. But it’s hard to talk to them, so we judge by their behavior instead. Plants do not have a nervous system. They are wonderful, but they cannot be conscious. Neither is a mountain, however immense, nor a river finding its way to the sea.


Although very highly improbable, but not impossible, elements in the universe could combine spontaneously and make a brain. This doesn’t change the discussion either.


So we make our conscious choices and enjoy the ride if we’re lucky. 


Everything is a perturbation along the entropic gradiant toward proton decay, the end of time, and the next big flash or white hole (big bang in the vernacular, but there is no sound in a vacuum).


Aubrey Lieberman

2/16/24





 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Music and mind

  Music and Mind Created by Aubrey Lieberman in collaboration with ChatGPT 5.1 turbo — December 2025 Music enters the mind long before thought does. Before language, before memory, before the ability to name the world, there is rhythm. There is tone. There is the human body learning to sway, breathe, and respond to patterned sound. Music is not an ornament added to consciousness; it is one of the structural beams that holds consciousness up. The mind does not merely listen to music. It organizes itself through music. Some pieces awaken us. A line like “There’s something happening here…” can expand awareness faster than any lecture. Others invite us to begin again, to feel the world reopening with the quiet certainty of “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day.” Music becomes the annunciation of renewal, a reminder that consciousness can be rewritten. Other pieces turn inward, spiraling through the recursive spaces of thought. “Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel…” descri...
Read more

The foundation of awe, and the fog of reality

  The Foundation of Awe and the Fog of Reality Produced by Aubrey Lieberman with ChatGPT 5.0 turbo — September 2025 Wavicle is a word coined by quantum physicists a century ago. Wavicles don’t have simple properties like position and speed. When speed is determined, position cannot be, and vice versa. That’s what uncertainty means: reality itself is built upon probabilities that result in stable atoms and molecules. Without that, there’d be no matter, no life, no us. In the early 20th century, scientists learned that light (not only visible, but the entire electromagnetic spectrum) possesses both particle and wave like properties. To capture this duality, some began using the word wavicle. It emphasizes that the division into “wave” or “particle” is artificial; the true quantum entities are neither, but rather both. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle follows naturally: wavicles don’t carry precisely defined values of position and momentum simultaneously. This isn’t about limits of ...
Read more

Sticky Mittens

  Sticky Mittens   Developmental psychologists have put sticky mittens on baby hands, with which the tiny humans were able to grasp much more effectively, enabling them to do things they were previously thought to be incapable of. The researchers concluded that neural connectivity during early life exceeded the physical constraints imposed by the little hands. A human adult given sticky mittens, might climb a skyscraper, given wings, fly like a bird, given scuba gear, swim like a fish, given a telescope, explore the galaxies, given a microscope, enter the earths microbiome, given vibrating strings, makes celestial music, given a board and chalk, write the equations which govern life and the universe. Human general intelligence is the sticky mitten which enables us to grasp almost anything, even to make tools to enhance our intelligence beyond the limits we can imagine now. Perhaps we will collectively become smart enough to escape our evolutionary constraints, enabling kindnes...
Read more