MAIN IDEA:

The main point of this book is that free will does not exist and that everything humans do is predefined by their biological, cultural, and evolutionary history, which happens within time frames ranging from milliseconds to millions of years. The author presents four possible positions regarding the issue of free will, clearly stating that he supports the first one and then proceeds to discuss why the other three are incorrect. Here are the choices:

1. The world is deterministic and there’s no free will.
2. The world is deterministic and there is free will.
3. The world is not deterministic; there’s no free will.
4. The world is not deterministic; there’s free will.

The author is a very good scientist and, therefore, clearly defines free will and a deterministic world.

About free will: “Here’s the challenge to a free willer: Find me the neuron that started this process in this man’s brain, the neuron that had an action potential for no reason, where no neuron spoke to it just before. Then show me that this neuron’s actions were not influenced by whether the man was tired, hungry, stressed, or in pain at the time. That nothing about this neuron’s function was altered by the sights, sounds, smells, and so on, experienced by the man in the previous minutes, nor by the levels of any hormones marinating his brain in the previous hours to days, nor whether he had experienced a life-changing event in recent months or years. And show me that this neuron’s supposedly freely willed functioning wasn’t affected by the man’s genes, or by the lifelong changes in regulation of those genes caused by experiences during his childhood. Nor by levels of hormones he was exposed to as a fetus, when that brain was being constructed. Nor by the centuries of history and ecology that shaped the invention of the culture in which he was raised. Show me a neuron being a causeless cause in this total sense.”

About the deterministic world: If you had a superhuman who knew the location of every particle in the universe at this moment, they’d be able to accurately predict every moment in the future. Moreover, if this superhuman (eventually termed “Laplace’s demon”) could re-create the exact location of every particle at any point in the past, it would lead to a present identical to our current one. The past and future of the universe are already determined…  Contemporary views of determinism have to incorporate the fact that certain types of predictability turn out to be impossible and certain aspects of the universe are actually nondeterministic. Moreover, contemporary models of determinism must also accommodate the role played by meta-level consciousness.

Finally, the author defines the issue’s importance by using the analogy of the graduate ceremony in an elite college, where some people are graduates, and others of the same age are garbage collectors: “Because we all know that the graduate and the garbage collector would switch places. And because, nevertheless, we rarely reflect on that sort of fact; we congratulate the graduate on all she’s accomplished and move out of the way of the garbage guy without glancing at him.

MY TAKE ON IT:

The author’s view of free will is just plain materialism. If no neuron activates spontaneously without any signals from other neurons or its previous internal condition, then there is no free will. This means that if there is no material cause for such activation, and we can identify some non-material(spiritual) cause, then there is free will. I think it is just incorrect to switch the issue from human free will and, consequently, human responsibility for actions to biological, cultural, and social factors that influence these actions. I also think it is incorrect to discount the non-deterministic character of physical reality proved by quantum mechanics, even if it applies at the micro level of reality. So, in my opinion, the world is non-deterministic, and even if human actions are influenced by a multitude of factors, these actions still represent choices made by humans and, therefore, are subject to their responsibility for these actions. The proof of the validity is the simple fact that human actions are easily changed by the external circumstances that provide reward or punishment for such actions, making any such actions only partially predictable. Actually, the predictability of human actions is directly correlated with levels of rewards and punishments. Light rewards or punishments make actions much less probable than heavy rewards or punishments.

For example, a university professor promoting antisemitism on campus, knowing that he will be formally slightly reprimanded and informally admired for his heroic stand against all-powerful Jews, will keep doing it again and again. However, he would find some other cause to promote if the punishment would be immediate dismissal and the impossibility of having a job in the educational system. The professor would still have free will to promote antisemitism, but there would be no openly antisemitic professors, only antisemitic former professors. The implementation of such a measure would change nothing in the biological and cultural history of antisemitic professors, so if there is no free will, sociological departments would be empty within a week. Since I believe in free will, I do not doubt that they continue to function as always, and only a few hard-core antisemites, if any, resign. Surely, they will still remain antisemitic, but quietly.