Atheist American philosopher and podcast host, Sam Harris explains the idea of determinism in his book titled “Free Will“. The key principal of Sam Harris’ argument against free will can be found on page 34:
“Decisions, intentions, efforts, goals, willpower, etc., are causal states of the brain, leading to specific behaviors, and behaviors lead to outcomes in the world. Human choice, therefore, is as important as fanciers of free will believe. But the next choice you make will come out of the darkness of prior causes that you, the conscious witness of your experience, did not bring into being…
From the perspective of your conscious awareness, you are no more responsible for the next thing you think (and therefore do) than you are for the fact that you were born into this world.” (Sam Harris, Free Will, pg 34-35)
What intrigues me about the idea of determinism is the studies that seem to confirm its validity:
“The physiologist Benjamin Libet famously used EEG to show that activity in the brain’s motor cortex can be detected some 300 milliseconds before a person feels that he has decided to move… More recently, direct recordings from the cortex showed that the activity of merely 256 neurons was sufficient to predict with 80 percent accuracy a person’s decision to move 700 milliseconds before he became aware of it.
These findings are difficult to reconcile with the sense that we are the conscious authors of our actions. One fact now seems indisputable: Some moments before you are aware of what you will do next—a time in which you subjectively appear to have complete freedom to behave however you please—your brain has already determined what you will do. You then become conscious of this ‘decision’ and believe that you are in the process of making it.” (Ibid. pg 7-8)
An example from EST training (from the 1970s) demonstrated the idea that we are not as free to choose as we like to think we are. The participant in the exercise was asked, at the count of three, to either raise or lower his hand that had been raised to the level in front of his face. After repeating the exercise the instructor asked the participant:
“’What happened the second time?’
‘The second time was really strange. I decided before you said “three” that I was going to raise my hand because the first time I’d lowered it. You said “one two three” and for about a second nothing happened. Then I said to myself, “I don’t feel like raising it.” Another couple of seconds went by with nothing and then I thought I’m going to raise it anyway. Two more seconds passed and the damn hand went down!’
(Laughter)
‘Okay, Robert, you asked about our having control over our thoughts and decisions we make. Is your question answered?’
Robert stares at Michael and shakes his head slowly. ‘I guess I didn’t have much control then, but… but I must be free to choose … something.’
‘Oh yeah,’ says Michael [somewhat sarcastically]. ‘At the end of the day we go into choice and it’ll be quite clear what you’re free to choose.’” (Luke Rhinehart, The Book of EST, pg. 182)
Evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein (who, incidentally, also does not believe in god), has debated Sam Harris over this subject. Brett argues that the idea of determinism is completely inconsistent with evolution. Commenting on this debate later, Brett elaborated:
“So, my point is, look, I can’t say for sure that we don’t live in a deterministic universe, but I can say that a deterministic universe would be a very bizarre one. … And one of the manifestations of this is free will. In which we are actually able to choose. However, the fact that there, to me, appears to be free will, actual free will at our disposal, does not say that there’s nearly as much of it as people think. We are not very free. So I think Sam Harris has a point. Which is that we are highly, highly constrained. And I agree with him in that. But we are not totally constrained. And that’s the question. Is the amount of free will not very much, or zero? And my answer would be that a universe where its zero would be a very strange place indeed. It would make a mockery of subjective experience. There would be no point in having it. But, that doesn’t nail it down, that just says that, the argument that we have no free will, is a philosophical loser because it makes a more complicated universe, rather than a less complicated universe. It’s an Occam’s razor failure.” (I lost the argument with Sam Harris and still have free will, from Livestream #136)
How much truth is there in the proverb, “As a man thinketh, in his heart, so is he.” (Prov 23:7)? How do we reconcile the idea that there is no strong scientific evidence that supports that we have free will, yet scripture confirms we do? (See for example John 5:30, 2 Ne 2:27; 10:23, Mosiah 2:21, Alma 12:31, Helaman 14:30). Is there some validity to Brett Weinstein’s assessment, there appears to be “actual free will at our disposal,” but that there’s not “nearly as much of it as people think… that we are highly, highly constrained.”?
According to NeuroTray.com:
“The human brain can process up to 11 million bits of information per second. This is the natural processing capacity of the brain, including the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious mind. However, the conscious mind has a very limited capacity and it can handle anything from 40 to 120 bits of information in a second.” (https://neurotray.com/how-many-bits-of-information-can-the-brain-process/)
If free will (or free agency) is a true principal, as scriptures confirm, then there must lie something within the 40 to 120 bits of information in a second that our conscious mind is able to process and yet science is unable to measure, where our free will is exerted. The “80 percent accuracy of a person’s decision to move 700 milliseconds before he became aware of it” that science is able to confirm, still leaves a certain unmeasured percent where free will, if it exists, would have to be being exercised.
Years ago I remember being impressed while listening to an audio recording of Deepak Chopra relating how the human brain is able to digest food, monitor the location of stars, play the piano, and make a baby, all at the same time. While the brain is processing millions of bits of information in any given moment, we remain only conscious of (by some estimates) only seven to nine. And yet in the pride of our hearts we have the audacity to believe in something like, “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” (Invictus, William E. Henley)?
Despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary, we are taught that:
“…the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.” (2 Ne 2:16)
Somewhere in the recesses of our unconscious, the seemingly pre-determined choices that bubble up before we become conscious of them, have their origins in habits formed previously that serve to determine beforehand much of what we find ourselves doing in the present moment. Of course, Sam Harris argues that “there is no way I can influence my desires— for what tools of influence would I use?” (Free Will, pg. 20)
The only way I can explain the conundrum is to accept that what the scriptures teach about agency is true, and therefore, there are hidden instances (Sam Harris actually uses the word “hidden” to describe this behavior on pg 44), outside of moments that science has been able to measure, where we can and do exercise free agency in ways that influence future unconscious intentions that bubble up into present decisions and actions.
I liken it to the process of exercising your heart. You can work on most muscles in your body by working out with them directly, but when it comes to the heart, you can only affect it indirectly through cardiovascular exercise.
Joseph Smith describes the process this way:
“Are you not dependent on your faith, or belief, for the acquisition of all knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence? Would you exert yourselves to obtain wisdom and intelligence unless you did believe that you could obtain them?… Turn your thoughts on your own minds, and see if faith is not the moving cause of all action in yourselves” Lectures on Faith, Lecture 1:11.
Examine the root word for determinism:
de·ter·mine
verb [with object]
1 cause (something) to occur in a particular way; be the decisive factor in:
2 [no object] firmly decide:
And the suffix
-ism
1 forming nouns denoting an action or its result:
2 forming nouns denoting a system, principle, or ideological movement:
The only dictionary definition for the word “determinism” is “the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will.” However, when we apply the rule of language for the suffix “-ism” to “determine” there’s no reason the word could not as easily mean “the action of determining or firmly deciding”, which implies the exercise of free will. It’s worth reflecting on the juxtaposition of these two conflicting definitions.
Consider the story of the “Fifty-Cent Lesson” from Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich:
“Shortly after Mr. Darby received his degree from the ‘University of Hard Knocks,’ and had decided to profit by his experience in the gold mining business, he had the good fortune to be present on an occasion that proved to him that ‘No’ does not necessarily mean no.
One afternoon he was helping his uncle grind wheat in an old fashioned mill. The uncle operated a large farm on which a number of colored sharecrop farmers lived. Quietly, the door was opened, and a small colored child, the daughter of a tenant, walked in and took her place near the door.
The uncle looked up, saw the child, and barked at her roughly, ‘what do you want?’ Meekly, the child replied, ‘My mammy say send her fifty cents.’ ‘I’ll not do it,’ the uncle retorted, ‘Now you run on home.’ ‘Yas sah,’ the child replied. But she did not move. The uncle went ahead with his work, so busily engaged that he did not pay enough attention to the child to observe that she did not leave. When he looked up and saw her still standing there, he yelled at her, ‘I told you to go on home! Now go, or I’ll take a switch to you.’ The little girl said ‘yas sah,’ but she did not budge an inch. The uncle dropped a sack of grain he was about to pour into the mill hopper, picked up a barrel stave, and started toward the child with an expression on his face that indicated trouble.
Darby held his breath. He was certain he was about to witness a murder. He knew his uncle had a fierce temper. He knew that colored children were not supposed to defy white people in that part of the country.
When the uncle reached the spot where the child was standing, she quickly stepped forward one step, looked up into his eyes, and screamed at the top of her shrill voice, ‘MY MAMMY’S GOTTA HAVE THAT FIFTY CENTS!’
The uncle stopped, looked at her for a minute, then slowly laid the barrel stave on the floor, put his hand in his pocket, took out half a dollar, and gave it to her. The child took the money and slowly backed toward the door, never taking her eyes off the man whom she had just conquered.
After she had gone, the uncle sat down on a box and looked out the window into space for more than ten minutes. He was pondering, with awe, over the whipping he had just taken. Mr. Darby, too, was doing some thinking. That was the first time in all his experience that he had seen a colored child deliberately master an adult white person. How did she do it? What happened to his uncle that caused him to lose his fierceness and become as docile as a lamb? What strange power did this child use that made her master over her superior?”
(Think and Grow Rich, pg 12-14)
This story exemplifies the second definition I have applied to the word “determinism,” or perhaps better, “determination” (firmness of purpose; resoluteness). If you could have measured using EEG what was going on in the mind of the child during this confrontation, would you have been able “to predict with 80 percent accuracy” her “decision to move 700 milliseconds” before she became aware of it? Are there moments where we bypass the conditions of what science has been able to measure? Are there moments where we determine “to serve [God] at all hazards” (see Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pg 150), that set in motion future actions in ways we are completely unaware?
I firmly believe that at this very moment we are in contact with God through His Spirit. He is giving us life. He is not a distant God. He is an immediate and an intimate God. He knows our thoughts because He gives us the ability and freedom to think. He knows how to judge us because everything we do uses His power. He lends us life and light (see Mosiah 2:21). We have only the illusion of privacy. We have the freedom to act and choose, but our freedom operates inside His creation. Everything is dependent on His power.
I was impressed by something that was shared with me over a year ago on what it means to be “added upon”. If you’ve ever engaged in an internal debate in which you were tempted to do something and you held yourself back from doing so, you have (every one of us has) been added upon. The more we do that over the course of a lifetime and the more we connect to the Record of Heaven, the more we are able to understand and see and comprehend the truth of all things. It’s what we are here to experience. It’s what we are here to do. And every time we make a move in that direction, we are “added upon.” (see Abraham 3:26)