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Freewill 6

Further papers and books related to freewill.

1.) Freewill in scientific psychology - Roy Baumeister - Studies show the self control and free choices involve energy use.

2.) Free will, information, quantum mechanics and biology - Peter Schuster

3.) The Unconscious will: How the pursuit of goals operates outside of conscious awareness - Custers, R. & Aarts, H.

1.)

Freewill in Scientific Psychology

Roy Baumeister, Florida State University

Perspectives on Psychological Science, vol. 3, No. 1 (2008)

INTRODUCTION: Baumeister argues for the efficacy of freewill. In particular studies show that the processes of both self control and rational choice deplete glucose in the bloodstream, leading to a deterioration in subsequent performance. This can, however, be at least partly restored by the administration of more glucose. It appears unlikely that evolution would have selected for such a high energy process if it was not efficacious. Consciousness is closely associated to freewill and these studies therefore carry a strong implication that consciousness itself is also a physical thing or process involving energy and being efficacious.

Baumeister discusses freewill in terms of self-regulation, flexibility in behaviour and conscious decision making. He points out that many philosophers, including Kant, have supported the idea of a capacity for freewill, but suggested that it is only used part of the time. P. He examines the reason for the scientific and psychological consensus against the existence of freewill. He suggests a metaphysical element in this, with some scientists feeling that rejection of freewill is part of being a scientist. The fact that Libet and similar experiments have shown that actual movements of the body are not driven by free will is acknowledged, but Baumeister points to researchers such as Gollwitzer (1. 1999), who distinguishes between the decision to act and the action or movement itself. It is suggested that free will may have a role in the deliberative stage. For instance, free will could govern the decision to go for a walk, but the actions of getting up, going out the door and putting one foot in front of the other would be unconsciously driven.

Participants in studies rate others' choice of actions as most free when the choices concerned come after conscious deliberation, and also when the decisions taken were in defiance of either external pressure or short-term interests. Participants who wrote accounts of their own history felt freer when they were pursuing their chosen long-term goals.

Self control, such as the ability to resist short-term benefits in favour of long-term goals and also rational choice based on deliberative thinking are here seen as two of the most important factors associated with freewill. Baumeister argues that reasoning entails at least a limited degree of freewill in that people can alter their behaviour on the basis of reasoning. Similarly self control equates to the ability to alter behaviour in line with some goal. Baumeister cautions that the ability of modern technology to study periods of milliseconds may have blinded some researchers to the importance of processes that take extended periods of time. He wonders why people agonise over decisions if they actually have no influence on them, and also suffer negative stress effects in situations where they lack control over their lives. The implication is that the use of time and energy on such a process should have been selected out by evolution if it had no relevance.

The author argues that while researchers such as Wegner have shown that people are sometimes not aware of the causes of their actions, that is very different from saying that they never determine their actions. The consensus against freewill has set the bar as high as possible in denying that freewill ever has any influence or exists at all. They have to show that none of the apparent occurrences of freewill are real, rather just producing scattered examples of freewill being an illusion, some involving rather contrived conditions.

In Baumeister's own experimental studies, it was found that the performance of self control tasks deteriorated if there had been previous self-control tasks. The implication of this is that some resource is used up during the exercise of self control. The exercise of choice seems to have the same effect. Subsequent to the exercise of either self control or choice, attempts to exercise further self control saw performance deteriorate, in a way that did not occur when participants were just thinking or answering questions. This suggests that self control and rational choice both draw on some form of energy. Gailliot et al (2. 2007) found that self control caused reductions of glucose in the bloodstream, and that low levels of glucose were correlated with poor self control. Administration of glucose counteracted some of this deterioration.

This finding has important implications for the freewill argument. If free choice was only some form of illusion, it is not clear why it would be adaptive for evolution to select for something that consumed a lot of energy, but had no influence on behaviour. There is a rather convoluted suggestion that we have the illusion of freewill because that makes us think that others have freewill and should therefore be punished if they do not make choices that are favourable to the group. However, if freewill is just such a charade, it is surprising that it should require such a noticeable amount of energy. It is much more plausible that the depletion of glucose represents high-energy processing that has a direct impact on the choice of behaviour.

There is perhaps a deeper implication, not discussed in this articles that consciousness which is closely related to the experience of free choice is itself a physical thing or process requiring energy. This should not be a surprise given the nature of the physical laws, but at the moment it looks to be contrary to the scientific consensus. The high energy cost of freewill suggested here also serves to explain why it is used only sparingly, and that is one reason why we rely on unconscious responses for much of our activities.

The scientific consensus against freewill has created some anxiety that as this 'knowledge' gradually leaks from the laboratory into the popular mind there will be a deterioration in public behaviour. Ingenious arguments have been advanced this, but studies suggest that we should fear such a deterioration. Vohs & Schooler (3. 2008) found that participants who had read a study advocating the non-existence of freewill were more likely than controls to take advantage of an opportunity to cheat in a subsequent test. Other studies by Baumeister et al showed that participants encouraged not to believe in freewill were more aggressive and less helpful towards others.

References:-
1.) Gollwitzer, P.M. (1999) - Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans - American Psychologist, 54, pp. 493-503
2.) Gailliot et al (2007) - Self control relies on glucose as a limited energy source - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, pp.325-336 P. 3.) Vohs, K. & Schooler, J. (2008) - The value of believing in freewill - Psychology Science, 19, pp. 49-54

2.)

Free will, information, quantum mechanics and biology

Peter Schuster, University of Vienna

Complexity, 27 July 2009

This article seems to illustrate some of the difficulties that modern thinkers have in getting to grips with the questions of consciousness and freewill. In the early part of the article the author states baldly that conscious free decisions are a subjective illusion, on the basis of the Libet experiments. Curiously, he goes on to quote at some length parts of Roy Baumeister's interesting 2008 paper, 'Free will in scientific psychology', which argues that the Libet experiments refer to immediate action, but do not concern themselves with more deliberative thinking. The part of the Baumeister's article quoted here refers to the biological cost of the processes associated with freewill. This is developed further with accounts of studies that show levels of glucose in the bloodstream fall when self control or free choice making are being exercised. This evidence of energy consumption looks to argue the process as being purely illusory.

The latter part of the article is in a way hard to discuss, because it seems to discuss the wrong question. The main drive of the argument seems to be that the interactions of biomolecules can be understood in the same way as other chemical reactions, with no need to resort to examining the quantum mechanical underpinnings, just as understanding car mechanics does not require an examination of the electromagnetic forces holding the machine together. This looks true so far as it goes, but does not appear to even approach the main discussion as to whether it might be necessary to look for functional quantum coherence in order to explain consciousness. Furthermore, like most conventional explanations it runs into the sand. Reactions with biomolecules follow similar rules to other chemical reactions, but they are associated with consciousness which other chemical reactions are not. This is what has to be explained.

3.)

The Unconscious will: How the pursuit of goals operates outside of conscious awareness

Custers, R. & Aarts, H.

Science, 2 July 2010, vol. 329, no. 5987, pp. 47-50, DOI: 10.1126/science.1188595

The authors claim to demonstrate that goals and motivations can arise unconsciously, and that they can propose a mechanism by which this happens. The main part of the paper discusses experiments involving 'priming'. The authors refer to a study conducted by J. Bargh et al, in which subjects undertook language puzzles. One group was primed with a puzzle referring to winning and achieving, while a control group were not primed in this way. The primed group were found to be more motivated in their puzzle solving. Similar examples are quoted for studies where groups are primed for cooperation, earning money or working in a concentrated way. There are examples of more stringent tests where the priming is subliminal.

There appears to be a lack of coherence in the way in which this idea is developed. The authors claim that goal pursuit is 'influenced and controlled unconsciously', but the studies only appear to substantiate the 'influenced' part of their proposition. In the example of the language puzzles, the experimenters select the goal of solving puzzles, and the subjects implicitly adopt these goals by agreeing to participate in the study. As described, the primed group are more motivated than the control, but they still have the same goal that has been pre-selected by the experimenters themselves. The same goes for the other examples. People could be primed to be more cooperative or more acquisitive in economic games, but the aim of the game remained the same, and only the approach to these aims was influenced. Again the sight of a briefcase on entering the office could make people more work-orientated, but their goal had already been established when they went to the office.

The authors also discuss reward processes in the brain. They point out that people have to take into account the reward potential of particular goals, relative to the effort expected to be invested in achieving them. The authors accept that even of goals have been selected unconsciously, it is still necessary to justify continuing pursuit of these goals. They indicate how neuroimaging has shown that subcortical limbic (relating to emotions) structures in the brain link to prefrontal cortical areas, which in turn respond to various types of reward. Strangely, they do not discuss whether these emotion-based systems might play some part in the initial selection of goals, although common sense would suggest that they were more important in peripheral priming. In fact, the brain systems described appear quite capable of supporting goal-selection without any help from external priming if necessary.

However, the authors' object here is to demonstrate that not even the post-selection assessment of goals is conscious. But once again, they rely on the priming argument. Subjects make more effort in a particular exercise if they receive supportive subliminal signals, but the actual goal is all the time being determined by the experimenters, subliminal signals or not. The evidence that people can be encouraged or discouraged in an activity by peripheral signals is hardly news, and even in these studies, this is not decisive in the retention of the original goal.

There is a certain naive charm to the presentation of this material. Not only is there a confusion between encouraging/discouraging influences and the actual setting and retention of goals, the latter all being done by those running the studies, but there is a general detachment from the real world, and a feeling that the authors need to get out a bit more. In real world situations, people may not be nudged towards a single goal as in these experiments, but may have to decide between disparate and/or conflicting goals. This is the point where the connection between limbic areas and the prefrontal cortex may have to provide a common neural currency with which to make decisions between different goals. P. This is not necessarily to argue that is not possible for goals to arise unconsciously, only that it has not been demonstrated at all in these studies. A great part of the brain's processing is unconscious, and it seems quite possible that some trivial goals may arise unconsciously. The problem with wanting to demonstrate the non-existence of freewill is that it sets the bar very high. It is not sufficient to demonstrate some instances where there is no freewill, it is necessary to demonstrate that it can never occur.