Mindless Robots?

A psychological study at Yale describes an experiment that demonstrates that choices are made by the brain which activates the body before we are conscious of them. The rational part of the brain then gives a rational interpretation of the act that occurred before there was any ratiocination. The article that describes this study is entitled: “Are We Mindless Robots?”

I read neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga (“The Thinking Mind,” “Who’s in Charge”) and Daniel Kahneman (“Thinking, Fast and Slow”), and I am ready to accept that “free will” is an illusion. I have long quit using those concepts as useless terms for scientific thinking as are other supernatural entities and places. That doesn’t mean, as I have continually argued, that these concepts are useless in ordinary or poetic speech.

I am prepared to accept that my behavior is influenced, shaped, and even determined by my upbringing and genetic structure, by previous choices, by my interactions with others from the day I was born and before. The habits of my mind or, if you wish, the grooves of my brain which constitute my personality or character are well established. Those who know me well can, with high probability, predict my behavior in certain situations before I am even conscious of it. The talk of willing an act freely (that is without determining restraints) is quite silly.

However, I do not believe that talk of “freedom” and “responsibility” or “culpability” is silly, nor that these are useless concepts even in science. Nor do I think that personality, character, or habits of mind are unchangeable or inevitable. These concepts are social constructions, useful in human interaction including friendship, governance, collaboration, education, planning, and thinking itself.

They are concepts that develop as we develop in our interactions. Freedom and responsibility are not things outside space and time. Character and personality are achievements over time in relation to specific situations to which our organisms are responding. And they are social, collaborative achievements. None of us are totally free (the dogmatic or absolutist illusion). None of us can act without limits and rules (the libertarian illusion). No one of us can decide the correct attitudes and values that should limit our behavior (the conservative and liberal illusions). But all of us can work together to determine these limits and restraints — progressively over time in common space, based on the vision and values we choose. And through the word games we decide to play with one another.

Freedom is not a state of being. It is an intention. I may not be totally free; but I can and do take responsibility for my behavior and ours. And when I do, I become freer.

Are we mindless robots because we do not have free will? We do have minds. We are conscious. That is, as Descartes said, beyond doubt. But what that means and how that happens I do not know — yet. (Neuroscientists are still working on that.) I do know that I have a mind because I have a brain that integrates high informational complexity in a single organism. And, through symbolic behavior, I interact with many conscious living beings and especially fellow humans. And while I accept that we are not fully in charge of our behavior, I also accept that we are getting there. Therefore, I accept responsibility. We become in charge of our behavior progressively as we dispel our illusions and think constructively and creatively together.

We are therefore culpable and laudable. We should act that way. Philosopher David Hume said, a “should” cannot be derived from an “is” nor a “value“ from a “fact.” I accept this if that “is” is static and that “fact” is objective. But value can indeed be derived if the “is” is dynamic and the “fact” is conscious. The dynamic “is” is human intentional and transcending existence. The non-objective “fact” is human intentional and transcending consciousness. (What Merleau-Ponty named the “facticity” of existence‚ the revised Cartesian ego.)

The dynamism, intentionality, and transcendence of human being-in-the-world is what makes freedom possible, fully to come and even now in anticipation. Freedom is our human prospect if we so choose over time.

Or, not!

The question for me is not “are we mindless robots?” but whether we are becoming so through our chosen beliefs and behaviors.