Introduction

Do you believe in free will? Why do we have free will?

If you ask these questions of any atheist, I can tell you only that the answer will depend entirely on the person you ask. As has been pointed out previously, there is no such thing as a universal atheistic belief system. The only thing we can say for sure about all atheists is that none of us believe in a god. Beyond that, we can only generalize.

This article discusses one possible interpretation of the existence of free will. Namely, that free will (as it is commonly thought of) is just an illusion; that all decisions are really just an advanced form of computational analysis that takes place within the human brain. But more importantly, it will address why this concept is not in conflict with ideas like morality and personal accountability, as some people might fear.

Free Will and the Human Brain

The human brain is an incredibly complex structure. Whatever else you may think of it, there is no doubt that we still have a great deal to learn about how it functions. Most atheists believe that all of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions are just chemical processes within the brain. (This, at least, is very much supported by current scientific knowledge.)

Chemical processes work on very direct and predictable cause and effect relationships. In other words, some sort of stimulus causes a particular chemical to react in a particular way.

So where does free will come from? Is there such a thing as a truly random decision, or is it just an extremely complex but predefined set of chemical reactions?

Well, most people believe that this is just one of those areas where we don't yet understand how the brain functions. Some believe that a field like quantum physics may hold the answer as to how a particle can exhibit truly random behavior.

But others, such as this author, think that "free will" is really just an illusion; that the human brain really is just a complex analytical machine. The calculations are far too complex to even imagine, and it is this hidden complexity that gives us the illusion that we call free will.

What If Free Will is Just an Illusion?

The absence of free will does not have to excuse someone from proper behavior.

I've had this concern expressed to me this way: "If there is no true free will, doesn't that mean that no one can be held accountable for their actions? If a machine kills somebody, you don't send the machine to jail. It didn't have a choice in the matter."

The short answer: no, it doesn't imply anything of the sort.

If a machine malfunctions, we deal with the malfunction. If a machine — for example, a table saw — kills somebody due to a malfunction, you don't just keep letting it go on as if nothing happened. You either repair the machine, or you throw it away. And you take great care to put it in a place where it won't hurt anybody else until you decide to either repair or replace it.

If you think about it, this is already very similar to our current concept of criminal rehabilitation. When someone commits a crime like murder, we put them somewhere where they can't hurt anyone else (prison). Then we decide if we are going to rehabilitate (repair) them, or give them the death penalty (throw them away).

Criminal rehabilitation is an attempt to correct the malfunction that caused the bad behavior.

Choices and Learning

All of this is made possible because the human brain is not just a static computer; it is a learning computer.

Make no mistake about it: the human brain can definitely be upgraded and/or reprogrammed. We do it all the time. You can train someone to learn new behaviors, or unlearn existing behaviors.

From the moment we are born, every act of learning that we do is a process of improving the computer program in our heads. Parents teach their children all sorts of things, including the expected norms of social behavior.

"Teaching better morals" is just another way of saying that you are fixing a malfunctioning computer program. Maybe that person's parents did not do a particularly good job of teaching that particular lesson. Maybe you are just providing information that was missing in that individual's computer: his brain.

Some people may think this sounds "dehumanizing", but I don't believe it has to be seen that way. If this is in fact what it means to be human, then by definition it cannot be dehumanizing. In any case, it very clearly means that even if there is no such thing as true free will, we still do not have to accept behaviors that we don't like.

The fact is, even if we are just really advanced computers, we still have choices. The only question is the method that we use to arrive at that choice. And if others do not agree with our choices, we can decide to re-program our own computers, or risk having others do it for us.

Footnote: The Human Computer Explained

(This information is not really pertinent to the rest of the article. It is provided simply for additional understanding of the comparisons between a human brain and a computer.)

Earlier we described the brain as a set of chemical processes where a certain stimulus causes a particular chemical to react in a particular way.

This is not that different from how a computer functions. At its most basic level, the computer you are using right now is really just a series of electrical circuits, all of which can have one of two states: on or off. Each circuit controls a very small but distinct function. If you put enough of these circuits together, and make them all work in concert, you get the magic of the computer.

Modern computers pack millions upon millions of tiny circuits onto a chip about the size of a postage stamp. Your actions on the computer cause these circuits to turn on and off billions of times per second.

Ever wonder what a Gigahertz is? "Hertz" is basically a measure of how many times a circuit can turn on or off in one second. The prefix "Giga" means one billion. So a computer that has a computational speed of 2.4 GHz (gigahertz) can cycle its circuits on or off 2.4 billion times per second.

The human brain is not all that different, except that instead of electrical circuits, you have chemicals and organic compounds and structures. The brain is a giant, organic computer.

Just as not all computers are created equal, not all brains are created equal either. Some people are smarter than others: their brains are capable of learning more information, and learning it more quickly. People have all sorts of differing skills, suggesting that each individual's brain may be more advanced in some ways, and less capable in others. Someone might be capable of performing advanced mathematical calculations in their head, but that same person can't play a sport or make a drawing any better than a stick figure.