© 2016 Philip Calabrese
© 2016 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
by Philip G. Calabrese
We are publishing the second presentation given at the Chicago Scientific Symposium 2016. Philip G. Calabrese sheds a completely new light on the concept of “Free Will”.
(Translation: Jean Royer)
¶ 1. Free Will.
What is “free will”? Can the existence of any amount of “free will” be proven? Can “personal free will” coexist with a mechanistic energy universe of pure antecedent causality? What happens in the brain and neurological system when someone makes a choice? Finally, if free will exists in the cosmos, then what are some implications of its existence?
In recent decades, with the advent of non-invasive methods such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) some of these questions have been scrutinized much more closely by neuroscientists who are now able to observe the activities of the living brain while agents make a choice. Many new and well-documented experiments have been done and ideas explored.[1]
One concept of “free will” is based on “could someone have done otherwise” [2] A much stronger notion of “free will” requires that the mind have “absolute autonomy” that is, choose in a way that is in no way determined by anything that has previously taken place in the brain or is external to it.
Although some fatal human decisions might fall into the second category (such as whether or not to accept eternal life) a very constrained decision, with only two possible options, might still be completely free. Walking first north one block and then west or walking first west and then north is a free will decision according to the “could have done otherwise” criterion even if absolute autonomy of constraint is not present. Yet depending on fantasy, it seems that I could freely choose either route.
¶ 2. Physical Determinism.
In contrast to the notion of free will in the cosmos is the notion that the universe is entirely deterministic, that its energetic reactions are reproducible and predictable, that physics and chemistry tell the whole story of what will happen in the future.
In this regard, it is good to remember the first law of conservation of matter and energy as formulated in its simplest but still valid form by I. Newton: “Any object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.” This law, plus two other axiomatic laws, were enough in the 17th century to describe and predict the mechanics of the solar system!
Newton’s three laws predicted the movements of celestial bodies so well that the famous mathematician of the 18th and 19th centuries P. La Place was able to say: “if a sufficiently powerful mind knew all the laws of nature and the location of each particle in the universe, it could accurately predict any future event.” [3]
In this mechanistic view of the cosmos, antecedent energy causality determines all future events. A bouncing ball must continue to bounce according to the laws of physics.
In summary, the argument against “free will” goes something like the following:
Observe a series of falling dominoes or a bouncing ball. They demonstrate how antecedent energy relationships cause a completely predictable future event. Physics and chemistry are based on the repeatability of such experiments.
Then, every finite event in the cosmos has traceable antecedents of finite causes. There are no actual effects without antecedent physical energy causes.
So, since the brain state has prior energy causes, that person has no “free will” or “choice” regarding his or her present or future actions. It is determined by the energy relationships that exist in the brain.
Furthermore, there is no scientific proof for free will. To believe in free will is to believe in something for which there is no scientific proof.
Physical determinism imagines that the stable and uniform part of the cosmos is the whole of the cosmos. Matter-energy in motion in space is conserved. Physical effects have physical causes. Physical causes can be traced according to the laws of energy. Therefore, proximity choices (actually made) are impossible. Such a choice would supposedly be a physical effect without a physical cause.
(However, scientists also thought that mass was conserved until A. Einstein came along and showed that mass (m) could be lost or gained by changing into energy (E) according to the famous formula E = mc2. Thus, conservation of mass was replaced by “conservation of total mass and energy”. Suddenly, seeing new mass appear was no longer “a physical effect without a physical cause”.)
The question is not how much free will we have to change what would otherwise be the future course of events. The question is whether we have any presently undetermined actions.
Monroe and B. Malle [4] give several good examples of such expressions of disbelief in free will including this one [5] which sums up the problem well: "The jargon of free will in everyday language…requires that we accept pockets of indeterminism in a world view otherwise conceived as deterministic.
Please note that the “deterministically conceived worldview” assumed here ignores the existence of those “pockets of indeterminism” of the cosmos called “living things”! Living things are not individually completely predictable when given the freedom to function! Ironically, these unmentioned “living things” include those who have precisely conceived such deterministic concepts of the cosmos. These people believe that they, and we, are nothing more than complicated machines. They also attempt to commit moral suicide by saying that neither they nor anyone else “could have done otherwise.” Believers in the omniscience of God have sometimes unwittingly been fellow travelers in this deterministic notion of the cosmos by proclaiming that since God knows the future, the future is already determined.
In such erroneous concepts of the living cosmos there is no room for free will. Everything is already determined before time by the past energy situation or by the omniscience of God.
However, in a universe of “living beings” who act for the benefit of the “me” and “other selves”, the deterministic world is simply the field of action of choices.
Recognizing the existence of free will is fundamental to understanding human life, the state of the world and individual responsibility for external actions.
¶ 3. Insights from Neuroscience.
Depending on the premises one holds, proving the existence of “free will” is difficult or impossible. Therefore, questions closely related to “free will” have been carefully examined by neurologists in a sustained effort to learn more about the decision-making process and what it involves, postponing the main question of its existence until later.
¶ 3.1 Free will in children and animals.
A. Gopnik and T. Kushnir show evidence[6] that children under 2 years of age understand “goal-directed actions,” “alternative methods,” and they recognize that “some actions reflect individual preferences and subjective desires.” Although an individual child must grow and develop (evolve?) a capacity to make broader and more meaningful choices, nevertheless, even a very young child exhibits some degree of personal preference. That primitive humans had to evolve to claim a sense of “free will” seems plausible, but even animals seem to grasp the elements of choice. This suggests that the “belief in free will” is innate.
The decisions of apes and other animals certainly form a basis for understanding the physiology and psychology of more complex decision-making by humans.[7] An animal can know the meaning of a movement and react based on instinct and non-physical “understanding.” This is also what takes place in human choice.
¶ 3.2 Meanings and free will.
Many common scientific experiments indicate that physical effects can be made manifest (and measured) by being based simply on what an agent has been led to believe to be true. As Baumeister, Clark, and Luguri put it: Meaning is essentially a nonphysical connection…
So a practical way to think about free will is the deliberate, intentional use of meaning to guide action… You are supposed to do something or not do something, based on what it means.[8]
While every finite effect has a finite cause, it has been experimentally verified that the energetic state of a person’s brain can, to some extent, be affected independently by that person’s subjective consciousness, by what that person believes or is led to believe.[9] Thus, some physical effects have non-physical causes. The well-known placebo effect in humans is a physical response to a non-physical “belief.”
There is even a measurable effect on behavior[10] of simply “believing that one has free will.” Those who believe they have free will consider more possibilities when faced with a choice. And reducing people’s belief in their free will (through manipulation) increases the likelihood of behavioral cheating.
What one believes can cause external actions different from those that result from another belief. This has been measured. "Meaning, symbols, and beliefs are powerful causes of nonphysical actions.
¶ 3.3 The self and free will.
Another essential aspect of decision-making is the “self” which, in humans, is even aware of its own consciousness. As reported by J. Ismael [11], Descartes argued for mind-matter dualism based on the “self” or “mind” as having no parts and therefore being non-material. [N.D.T.: mind has been translated as mental but in Descartes, if the term used is “mens”, it mainly designates the soul. For a reader of The Urantia Book the term soul would be inappropriate. Too bad for Descartes!]
Furthermore, the mind has the ability to unify individual living cells, parts of a living body, or even different individual animals and humans into an integrated whole. This property is found in colonies of bees, ants, and termites, in schools of fish and flocks of birds. A committee or assembly of people can “speak with one voice.”[12]
¶ 3.4 The determinations of free will.
The mind that subscribes to a completely deterministic universe (perhaps admitting a minor quantum of mechanical indeterminism) has no tolerance for non-material influences from outside the deterministic matter-energy system, calling it “dualism.” This would be a “metaphysical” assumption and therefore unacceptable as a scientific idea. Some people even examine how and in what way determinism could be compatible with free will and moral responsibility. [13]
In a limited sense this is true, because an actual decision necessarily includes some degree of determinism, namely the actual effects of the decision itself. If I decide to throw a stone at my neighbor’s window, the outcome will be determined by my free will.
I no longer had free will choice after the stone left my hand simply means that the stone breaking the window was the necessary and determined result of my free will wanting to break that window with that stone. There is a time after which a choice has already been made and determinism takes over.
Determinism coexists with choice. Living agents simply use the deterministic aspects of the universe when making decisions.
¶ 3.5 Last minute choices and preparations.
Another observation from neuroscience is that complex decisions can involve parallel, real-time assertions of possible alternative solutions with possible “last-minute cancellations” of attempted decisions. With little difficulty one can imagine circumstances in which an initial decision is rejected, for example due to inhibitions. There is thus a hierarchical aspect of the mind that wants to reject previous choices.
Therefore, unconscious preparations of the human brain in the period preceding a decision should not be taken as evidence of a lack of free will regarding that action. These preparations can be denied, thereby demonstrating that they are attempts. They simply anticipate a subsequent choice to be made, but do not determine the choice.
A man who goes to the kitchen every time his stomach growls with hunger is able to resist the preparations his stomach makes for another meal. (To be sure, some man somewhere has actually done this and so the neural preparations anticipating some decisions do not completely determine the actions that follow. Free will lives!)
¶ 3.6 Conservation of energy.
If we posit that agents are capable of “applying an external force” to the matter-energy realm, there would be no contradiction with the laws of physics, just the need for scientists to recognize that material mechanism is not without interface with a mind-mental realm to which humans have access to exercise some degree of free will.
For scientists, this would be to admit that there exists a previously unrecognized realm of energy, something akin to current conjectures of the hidden dimension from which the “Big Bang” is supposed to have burst into the existence of space-time as we know it, or, better yet, as the energy of the “zero point of the vacuum”, the energy of “empty space” from which “virtual” particles condense in space and can be reabsorbed into a higher energy realm.
Consider also the phenomenon of a physical state formed by the interface between a water surface and an atmosphere above with evaporated water. There is a constant back and forth of water molecules leaving the water surface (disappearing) and entering the atmosphere (by evaporation) and also the “emergence” (by condensation) of previously invisible water molecules from the air into the visible water surface.
Water drops condensing on a cold window mysteriously appear as if they came from some “outside” world devoid of water and violate the principle of conservation of energy if all things in the water world are assumed to have a cause originating in the water world. Something similar could happen between a “spiritual energy realm” and the “material energy realm.”
This framework provides a way for some free will to operate on a universe of physical laws and the research cited provides some empirical evidence for the existence of free will beyond subjective inner experience.
¶ 3.7 A philosophical proof of free will.
A philosophical (non-scientific) proof for the existence of “free will” is based on the existence of sin in the finite cosmos. Doing something that one knows to be morally wrong would be impossible if there were no free will. However, this argument presupposes that sin, willingly doing something wrong that “one could have done otherwise,” is a real experience.
However, the phenomenon of regret or guilt for a past choice is subjective evidence of free will. This feeling is very different from having no control over events that lead to the same outcome. It is precisely the poor choice that makes one guilty that is missing in the situation of no control.
Feelings of guilt or regret are common human experiences that hardly need to be proven. Their existence can be taken as axiomatic since they are universally experienced and intuitively grasped. However, the proof is philosophical and based on the subjective experience of guilt or regret and not strictly scientific (or objective) proof.
¶ 4. A Theory of “Free Will”.
Not everything that is true can be proven to be true with scientific proof. Just as it was necessary in plane geometry to include Euclid’s 5th postulate instead of trying to prove it from the first four postulates, it is also necessary to include a postulate or “axiom of choice in the cosmos” to obtain a philosophically adequate concept of the living cosmos. Although probably not scientifically provable, a certain degree of personal choice is part of everyone’s personal experience. It should not need proof. It is “self-evident.”
All knowledge is based on unproven axioms. So scientific claims against the unproven beliefs of religion are “the hospital mocking charity.” While religion should always be willing to accept the revelations of true science, science should tolerate religious beliefs based on values and feelings of justice and goodness—realities that cannot be expressed in scientific terms and are truly outside the scope of science.
Every scientific theory has unproven (and often implicit) axioms or premises that are the “intuitive” starting points for deductive implications. Plane geometry begins with “lines,” “arcs,” and “points” that are undefined except by examples of lines, arcs, and points in one or more contexts. So, we can say that the axioms (postulates) of plane geometry such as “two distinct points are on one and only one line” are understood as “Line” is taken as “a given” understood by the reader’s direct experience.
Similarly, physics and chemistry have undefined words and unproven hypotheses such as “matter,” “motion,” and “life” which are words understood by intuition. Otherwise, in what more basic words could these terms be defined? Whatever these most basic concepts are, they become the undefined words and axioms of a new theory (understanding).
The finite mind must simply have a starting point that is not technically defined but intuitively grasped for a mathematical deduction to take place.
Due to common experiences, many words do not need to be “defined” for communication. There is no need to define the word “apple”; it is enough to point to an apple and say the sounds of “apple” [p m] to establish the necessary association of the word (sound) “apple” with personal experience of the nature of an apple.
¶ 4.1 Free will is axiomatic.
It is a common experience to be able to choose and change the future. Contemporary neuroscience finds it difficult to explain where the energy would come from with which one could freely change the energy state of the brain. But this is no reason to assume that “free will” is impossible in the physical world. We are more than the physical world, our mind has the power to choose part of what will be. We could call it “the power to think.” Since this idea of “free will” is so intuitively grasped by ordinary people and even by the most mechanistic scientists, why should one need to “prove” its existence? Those who recklessly (and impudently) deny its existence should demonstrate its non-existence based on something other than the inconsistency of their mechanistic interpretation of life in the cosmos. The only reason to question free will is that it clashes with the vision of a completely determined cosmos, a vision which has recently gained currency despite its destructive implications for personal human dignity, freedom, and moral and spiritual conscience.
¶ 4.2 Terminology of free will.
A cursory examination of “free will” makes evident certain features necessary to a discussion of the phenomenon. Among these ideas is the notion of agency as contrasted with mere mechanism. The latter is inherently passive, while the former is inherently active, having the capacity to learn and adapt, it includes a sense of “self,” that self which chooses for its own good, which has some kind of “free will.”
Therefore, some kind of mind, of conscious self is necessary for the concept of “free will.” Moreover, there is necessarily a lapse of time associated with the choice made “by free will” in a space-time universe.
We can make a list of words and concepts already encountered without immediately deciding which ones could be defined in terms of the others and which ones could be considered synonymous. It is not necessary at the outset that the axioms be logically independent, but just consistent and that they include the essential features of “free will”.
- a) Agents (self, mind, conscious chooser, people)
- b) Energy-matter; the deterministic domain of space-time caused by, or affected by, agents
- c) A Spirit-Mind-Matter Interface Through which an agent can voluntarily add material energy to the physical cosmos and actualize some potential material effect.
- d) Knowledge by agents of the meaning and value of movements (physical and mental)
- e) Time periods; past, present and future periods during which an agent can choose to act.
¶ 4.3 Justification of selected undefined terms and axioms.
The justification for “undefined words” and “unproven axioms” used to form the basis of a mathematical representation of any field of science or philosophy lies in the fundamental and natural value of the chosen words and axioms as applied to various specific examples. For example, a theoretical “plane” allows points in space to be located relative to other points. It is easily applied to vertical walls or walls of any orientation. Two planes can allow the location of a line of intersection and so on. But, while very useful, the only justification for the undefined terms and associated axioms of three-dimensional geometry is their faithful representation of ideas of space that are common human experiences as we all attempt to understand and quantify simultaneous spatial relations.
Despite the deterministic tendency of current neuroscience, recognition of the facts of human psychology requires recognition of “free will” as a human psychological experience… “People have a psychological concept of ”free will"[14] that is not based on a metaphysical belief.
Again, in a vote in favor of practicality, Baumeister, Clark, and Luguri say: “…We incline to the view that deterministic inevitability is unnecessary as a basis for psychological theory. The psychological project of explaining human thought, emotion, and especially action requires in practice the assumption that multiple future outcomes are possible.”[15]
It is the assumption of absolute determinism in the cosmos that must be abandoned. It simply does not belong to anyone’s personal experience! Absolute determinism is contrary to common human psychological experiences.
¶ 5. Implications of Free Will.
There are many implications to be drawn from the existence of free will in the cosmos. Many have already been mentioned.
¶ 5.1 “Power of will”.
The apparent existence of some degree of free choice of an individual mind in the cosmos, the capacity to independently alter the course of matter as otherwise determined by antecedent causality, implies that there is something else associated with mind which is not reducible to the mathematical causality of energy-matter — something mysterious called “will power,” a capacity associated with the human mind and, to some extent, with all living.
Physicists constantly appeal to hidden dimensions and even to one dimension to explain the genesis of all space-time in the so-called Big Bang. A “theory of everything” assumes 11 physical dimensions to account for all quantum and relativistic observations. In considering such imaginative conjectures, physicists should not look with disapproval on the notion of a dimension of individual mental energy that adds some freedom of the individual mind to the physical cosmos.
¶ 5.2 An unrecognized energy source.
Again, some people will object that every neural act has a physical cause, and that nothing physical happens without a physical cause. Therefore, free will is an illusion. However, if new energy is introduced into the physical cosmos from outside, say from a different energy domain, to which the phenomenon of the human mind relates, then free will is compatible with the laws of conservation of energy since such laws have exceptions such as “unless an external force acts upon it.” Or, to be positive, introducing additional energy into an otherwise closed system alters that system in ways different from how it would have behaved without the new energy. But what exactly is the phenomenon that every scientist and non-scientist experiences every day as “free will” - doing something voluntarily!
That there is such a possibility of introducing energy into the physical cosmos is implied by the obvious phenomenon of free will which scientists and all other people have experienced. This new energy cannot come only from an energy field which is subject to complete determinism, for then there would be no human freedom to change the course of physical events other than those already determined in the combined system.
Free will implies a realm of experience and energy that is potential in contrast to actual, but can be made actual by a choice of proximity. There is thus in each temporal moment and for each person a set of potentials, some of which are in conflict with others, that can be chosen by that person at that moment. The new energy could be as small as a capacity of the mind to then open a valve from the realms of potential energy of the present-future to the realm of actual energy of the past-present.
Again, if free will exists—the capacity for immediate affect of the course of future events—then by implication there must be some little-recognized form of energy available to the human mind to activate “at will” and by which neural events and physical actions take place resulting in external effects. Free will in the cosmos also implies that every finite event is not predetermined. Finite actual choices exist.
This energy by which the human mind makes the immediate choice to open the valve from potential energy to actual energy must be an unrecognized energy of pure mind. This option of the mind to actually open or close the “decision valve” must be an innate property of the mind.
Perhaps a better description would be that of the various electrical circuits that the mind can either close (make actual) or keep open (potential). Making neural connections is something of a matter of choice as we work toward accomplishing a task, or choose not to work (or grow) toward that task. With new connections (neural circuits) come new possibilities for action and patterns of behavior.
¶ 5.3 The comprehensible universe.
If the universe is comprehensible, (movements make sense to the mind) then understanding must be a prior foundation of the universe because understanding always transcends what is understood. “I think. Therefore the universe thinks.” I understand, therefore the universe understands. I transcend matter by choice, therefore the universe transcends matter by choice.
Idea-decisions are the basic units of the mind’s activities. The mind understands the meaning (idea) of a potential act and then decides on the basis of its value to the individual mind. These capacities of the mind are too sophisticated to plausibly “emerge” from mechanism alone. Water does not rise above its source. It is not enough for determinism to “begging the question” by saying that these capacities “emerged” by pure evolution from simpler things and that otherwise they would not exist now.
It has been shown that the mind itself can produce external physical effects (acts) depending on whether the mind correctly or misunderstands the meaning of certain movements. This already indicates that the mind has a way of affecting the deterministic environment.
Furthermore, the mind can choose actions that correspond to a spiritual ideal of “goodness.”
“Will is the manifestation of the human mind that allows subjective consciousness to express itself objectively and experience the phenomenon of aspiring to be like God” [16].
The capacity of human beings to make moral choices and to change the course of the material energy of the universe implies that there is a connection in the phenomenon of the human mind between an inner volitional (spiritual) realm of choice of action and the outer material realm of antecedent mathematical causality.
This inner (spiritual) perception of values by which a mind evaluates the virtue (goodness, truth and beauty) of a choice (to actualize certain potentials) is in contrast to the outer mechanistic world of deterministic effects of all previous choices of various choosers in the eternal cosmos.
The mechanistic effects (shadows) of those who chose before limit the possible actions that can benefit those who choose later. However, we can know from experience that the first Chooser chose to allow subsequent free choices rather than deciding everything in advance. While effects have causes, first causes have original effects, and God, the First Cause, decided from the beginning to include in the finite evolutionary cosmos a free will in the minds of personal human beings, thus giving them a unique capacity.
Mechanistic theories that do not include the phenomenon of choice have no application in the living cosmos. Cosmic mechanism has a living mind. A pure mechanism could never ask itself the question: Am I only a machine?
¶ 5.4 The Choice in time and eternity.
This “possibility of choice” must also be part of the original (eternal) cosmos which includes the deterministic past-present domain which immediately opens onto various alternating present-future domains. In the beginning (or without beginning) there was choice - free will - otherwise we could not personally observe (experience) it now.
If choice existed in the beginning, or eternally, then there were choosers in the beginning, or better yet, choosers without beginning.
Realities that are potential (present-future) can only be actualized during a certain period of time. This “decision time” varies in duration depending on the situation, from a short interval of time to decide whether one will watch the sunset tonight to a long period of time to decide on a scientific career. However, at a certain point the period begins and at another point the decision period has passed and the potential can no longer become actual.
Physicists like A. Einstein admitted that their mathematical models of physics cannot distinguish between retrograde and anterograde motion in time. This suggests that something is missing in these physical models, especially considering how easily people distinguish between the past and the future.
¶ 5.5 Cosmic Morality.
If there is no free will, then there is no reason to blame anyone for what they do since they have no other way to do what they do. This was the view of F. Nietzsche who said that people invented “free will” so that they could blame other people and deem them worthy of punishment for their bad behavior.[17]
Nor is it consistent to embrace both complete determinism and free will. Logically speaking, if there is free will—the freedom to change the course of future events now, even in the most insignificant way—then this implies that there cannot be complete determinism in the cosmos.
Some people somehow imagine complete determinism coupled with moral responsibility for actions but it is clear that the two are not compatible. A baby or an adult, as agents can be held directly responsible for breaking a dish but not guilty (not morally responsible for a bad act). Guilt requires knowing that an act is not good (or not socially acceptable) and yet performing it freely.
Thus, the existence of “free will” leads directly to questions of standards of morality and ethics. Without free will there is no morality because no one “could have done otherwise” than what happened. This views agents as mere machines.
¶ 5.6 The Source of energy and free will.
In any “theory of everything” the realm of science (physics, chemistry, and mathematics) must be recognized as having origins that go back eternally to the absolute (deterministic) laws of matter, energy, and mind. This is the mathematical realm of antecedent causation. It is contrasted with the volitional realm.
Although every finite physical event can be traced back to its cause in the Absolute energy, this does not imply that there is only matter energy in the cosmos. It is not the whole of it. The bigger picture must include the observers (each person’s mind) as well as the material universe that is being observed.
The observer of matter possesses the power of will, which means choices regarding matter. Unlike matter which must behave uniformly according to physical law, the observer can decide and determine a part of this material environment.
When we go back to the cause of this partial will power in humans, then, to be consistent, the source of will and the source of energy must be unified into a single First living Source, personalized as God.
Science is a way of learning about the material side of First Source—God’s prior energy decisions and choices (physical laws). Religion is a way of knowing the spiritual God Himself, the Chooser.
Moral laws operate in the material and intellectual world, but the facts of science are no truer than the moral laws of the spiritual (volitional) realm of people. “Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you” and “do to others what you would have them do to you” and even “do what you imagine God would want.”
¶ 5.7 Science and religion.
Science and religion do indeed have a different understanding of reality. They speak of the same universe of things but religion adds meanings-values to these same scientific facts. The spiritual and moral universe can no more be separated from the universe of material energy than the material mind of the human being can be separated from the body of that human being.
In terms of primitive physical concepts, science seeks to say what happens and how things happen. Religion seeks to say the meaning and value of those same things that happen.
The method of science is logic and measurement. The method of religion is to choose according to the golden rule (or if possible, divine love) when making moral choices.
So there is no conflict between science and religion. Science tells us what and how. Religion tells us if it is good and perhaps how to do better.
The agnostic scientist is right in demanding a physical cause for all physical effects: There is always an energetic aspect alongside the spiritual aspect, all unified in One Absolute, the First Source and Center of infinite Reality whose personal manifestation is known as God, our spiritual Father.
The one-eyed agnostic scientist errs when he insists that determinism is all there is to infinite Reality. He could use his imagination to recognize the intellectual spiritual reality that affects matter and which, unlike physical matter, has choices. These choices come with a sense of responsibility for the value of the effect they cause.
¶ Notes
Surrounding Free Will, edited by Alfred R. Mele, Oxford University Press, 2015, has 15 chapters by 35 authors and covering a wide spectrum of related topics. ↩︎
The Origins and Development of Our Conception of Free Will, A. Gopnik and T. Kushnir, Ch. 2 p5 in [1] ↩︎
“Free Will Belief and Reality”, R. Baumeister, C. Clark & J. Luguri, Ch. 4 p49 in [1] ↩︎
“Free Will without Metaphysics”, Ch. 3 p27 in [1] ↩︎
Voluntary action: Brains, minds and society, S. Maasen, W. Prinz, & G. Roth, Oxford Univ. Press, 20033 ↩︎
“The Origins and Development of Our Conception of Free Will” A. Gopnik & T. Kushnir, Ch. 2 p7 in [1] ↩︎
“Monkey Decision Making as a Model System for Human Decision Making” A. Roskies, Ch. 12 p 232 in [1] 4 ↩︎
“Free Will Belief and Reality” R. Baumeister, C. Clark & J. Luguri, Ch. 4 p55 in [1] ↩︎
“Free Will Belief and Reality” R. Baumeister, C. Clark & J. Luguri, Ch. 4 p61 in [1] ↩︎
As reported in ‘Measuring and Manipulating Beliefs and Behaviors Associated with Free Will’ J. Schooler, T. Nadelhoffer, E. Nahmias & K. Vohs, Ch. 5 in [1] ↩︎
“On Being Someone” J. Ismael Ch. 14 p275 in [1] ↩︎
“On Being Someone” J. (Being someone) Ismael Ch. 14 p 278 in [1] ↩︎
“Incompatibilism and ‘Bypassed’ Agency” G. Björnsson, Ch. 6 in [1] 5 act. ↩︎
“Free Will without Metaphysics” A. Monroe & B. Malle, Ch. 3 p35 in [1] ↩︎
“Free Will Belief and Reality” R. Baumeister, C. Clark & J. Luguri, Ch. 4 p 51 in [1] ↩︎
The Urantia Book, (The Urantia Book) Urantia Foundation, RR Donnelly & Sons, Chicago 1955, p. 1431. (UB 130:2.10) ↩︎
“Free Will Belief and Reality” R. Baumeister, C. Clark & J. Luguri, Ch. 4 p65 in [1] ↩︎