more on free will

I first want to say that I find the arguments for randomness based on quantum physics rather stupid, because there are all of these principles showing that despite the disorder of quantum systems, somehow as you zoom out order arises. It's not like the world is completely unpredictable. Maybe we can't predict quantum entanglement or position or anything, but we can predict where the sun will rise and the trajectory of a rocket ship. So I think that arguing for randomness based on quantum physics is rather stupid.

Anyway, I was thinking about the fact that as time goes on, we are unearthing more and more evidence of the neurological basis of... everything. I have realized all along that my belief in dualism is somewhat threatened by my simultaneous belief in the physical basis of mental illness. It seems, however, that that is a small enough discrepancy to overlook. However, what do I do when more and more evidence arises from genetics and neuroscience that really begins to eliminate any idea of a separate, non-physical, accountable self?

I read this article for my lab meeting last week or so about the neural connections between addiction and PTSD. I can't remember the exact structures, so this is going to be a vague description, but the circuitry for PTSD and the circuitry for addiction seem related. For both there is an activating system and an inhibitory system. There is evidence to believe that when you active one, you activate the other, and these changes create marked changes in the physical structure of the brain, like enlarged or shrunken parts of the brain. So for instance if you get lasting neurological damage from a tramatic situation which leads to PTSD (has something to do with dendritic retraction; I haven't looked into it enough), it can either activate the system activating addiction (which is I think the core of the accumbens) or it can deactivate the inhibitory system (which I think is input to the shell of the accumbens). Experiments on rats that are both fear conditioned and bar-pushing trained have shown a lot of correlation between the two.

Anyway, this is very nice, and very convenient for people like my uncle that came back from a traumatizing war with severe PTSD and fell hopelessly into substance addiction, but really it is beginning to erode at the personal responsibility we hold dear. I mean, the legal system really revolves around the idea that people have responsibility for their own actions. The insantiy plea is a little... um... hairy, but for the most part, we as a society or as a world believe in agency. The more we find out about the deterministic nature of neuroscience (which is large enough, I'll tell you, to escape the thorns of quantum uncertainty), the more our conceptions of human responsibility are being slowly shattered. However, we welcome such revelations with open hands because they could mean effective treatments for PTSD and addiction. But what about the self, this self we experience as being independent of these addictions and problems? What happens when the jaws of discovery chew away everything, and all that is left is this self, and then that is gone too, prey to deterministic nueronal circuits and deterministic gene expression?

We are obviously still a long way from this since there are reasons to believe that we are incredibly complex systems affected by initial genetic compostion, by environmental factors that physical change us and physical alter gene expression, by the ever-changing circuits in our brains. Even so, it is beginning to become clear that there are things that are undisputably deterinistic, or at least deterministic disadvantages, such as the propensity for addiction after having PTSD. Obviously not everyone with PTSD develops addictions, but the fact that the higher incidence can be physically explained is kind of scary to me (as well as really cool, I'll admit it).

I don't know, I'm still clinging to my Cartesian soul, and nothing I learn in neuroscience can really affect my belief in my religion since I believe science is a hierarchy nested within religion, and thus it has no essential power over religious truths.

There was this interesting idea we were learning about in philosophy a few weeks ago by this guy called Frankfurt I think, and I think it is an idea that is reflected in a lot of theories about free will. His idea is essentially that free-will arises from multiple-order desires, perceptions, actions, etc. If we have a first order desire to smoke, and we smoke, we don't have free will; we are prey to that addiction. But if we have a second order desire to desire not to smoke, and we identify with that desire, then we are suddenly moral agents. I think it's an interesting idea, and I actually really like a lot of Frankfurt's ideas about holistic desires, but I think it doesn't really solve the physical problem. I mean, what if a second order desire is just a more complicated neural circuit? I know it seems ambiguous sometimes which level of desire will win out (to smoke or not to smoke), but I'm sure that if we knew everything about the universe we could explain these variations physically. And again, that bothers me.

I suspect that at the end, even if we figure out we don't really have free will becaouse our brains are determined, we will be forced to act like we do. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I think that is a really funny paradox. Forced to believe in free will. My what a crazy species we are.