Free Will Of A Penny
Over the years Don has contended for a thorough going cause/effect description of reality. We’ve enjoyed exchanges exploring the possibility or impossibility of free will. This story is for you, Don.
“Explain free will,” I said.
“Imagine a copper penny that is exactly like an ordinary penny except that for this discussion it has consciousness. It know it is a coin and it knows that you sometimes flip it. And it knows that no external force dictates whether it comes up heads or tails on any individual flip.
“If the penny’s consciousness were like human consciousness, it would analyze the situation and conclude that it had free will. When it wanted to come up heads, and heads was the result, the penny would confirm its belief in its power to choose. When it came up tails instead, it would blame its own lack of commitment, or assume God had a hand in it.”
“The imaginary coin would believe that things don’t ‘just happen’ without causes. If nothing external controlled the results of the flips, a reasonable penny would assume the control came from its own will, influenced perhaps by God’s will, assuming it were a religious penny.”
“The penny’s belief in its own role would be wrong, but the penny’s belief in God’s role would be right. Probability—the essence of god’s power—dictates that the penny must some times come up tails even when the penny chooses to be heads.”
“But people aren’t pennies,” I said. “We have brains. And when our brains make choices, we move our arms and legs and mouths to make things happen. The penny has no way to turn its choices into reality, but we do.”
“We believe we do,” the old man said. “but we also believe in the scientific principle that any specific cause, no matter how complex, must have a specific effect. Therefore, we believe two realities that cannot both be true. If one is true, the other is false.”
“I’m not following you,” I said.
“The brain is fundamentally a machine. It’s a organic machine with chemical and electrical properties. When an electrical signal is formed, it can only make one specific thing happen. It can’t choose to sometimes make you think of a cow and sometimes make you fall in love. That one specific electrical impulse, in the one specific place in your brain, can have one and only one result on your actions.”
”We’ve been through this. Maybe the brain is exempt from the normal rules because of free will or the soul. I know I can’t define those things, but you can’t rule them out.”
“Nothing in life can be ruled out. But the penny analogy is a simple explanation of free will that makes sense and has no undefined concepts.”
“Being simpler doesn‘t make it right,” I pointed out. I needed to say something that sounded wise, for my own benefit.
“True, simplicity is not proof of truth. But since we can never understand true reality, if two models to explain the same facts, it is more rational to use the simpler one. It is a matter of convenience.”
FREE WILL OF A PENNY
God’s Debris
A Thought Experiment
By Scott Adams
2 thoughts on “Free Will Of A Penny”
Ah ha! Occam’s Razor. Yes indeed. Below is another take on the same principle. A poem expounding that everything that will ever exist is only a matter of understanding physics and the interplay of chemical components. If indeed we are only inhabiting space and time without free will, then all I can say is, “Enjoy the Ride”.
And now…..
The Music of Time
There is a melody that has existed
since the beginning,
since the cosmos opened it gates
and the light of creation
rushed forward against the darkness.
A melody sung by swirls of ancient dust
as galaxies formed and new worlds
danced among the stars.
There is a melody that rides the winds of time,
echoing against the edges of the universe
and reverberating within vast chambered neutrons.
For a moment in its journey
the melody pulls from the strings of a piano
drifts through the air
and settles on the membrane of my ear
before melting from the present.
There is a melody that will last
until the final spark of nature is extinguished.
A melody that has been caught
in the eddies of existence where it cannot escape,
for its indelible notes were, are and will be
written upon the fabric of this seemingly eternal
but far too brief iteration
of all that we will ever know.
The argument is tight. Given the parameters of science, that of description, I am not aware of any flaw in this story. However there is more than one way of looking at things, more than one story, many ways to speak the truth about experience. And is not experience, precisely what we have? Hope to post alternative stories, as persuasive as this one, in the future. And yes, “Enjoy the ride” is always helpful advice.
Your poem reminds me of the words quoted by Plato from Heraclitus the Obscure, Ta panta rhei kai ouden menei. In English, “every thing flows, and nothing remains.” Old Heraclitus knew how to get to the bloody bone of the matter, words that simultaneously provoke grief and exhilaration.