Abstract
Living organisms appear to have agency, the ability to act freely, and humans appear to have free will, the ability to rationally decide what to do. However, it is not clear how such properties can be produced by naturalistic processes, and there are indeed neuroscientific measurements that cast doubt on the existence of free will. Here I present a naturalistic theory of agency, consciousness, and free will. Elementary forms of agency evolved very early in the evolution of life, utilizing an extension of the basic Darwinian scheme that combines and entangles deterministic and stochastic causation. The extension effectively produces an active form of causation, as well as meaning intrinsic to the organism. Consciousness arose when animals evolved advanced nervous systems and social lifestyles that enabled communication mutually affecting each animal’s intrinsic meaning. I argue that various forms of agency that subsequently arose in evolution, preconscious, conscious, intelligent, symbolic, and rational agency, still coexist in humans. This coexistence, combined with the fact that agency is not instantaneous but takes time to build up, makes simple interpretations of neuroscientific results on free will (taken here as rational, symbolic agency) problematic. The conclusion of the study is that conscious free will, including a form of agent causation, is fully consistent with a naturalistic world-view and can be produced by the specific processes discussed. The result closely resembles existing approaches to life and mind that are inspired by phenomenology.
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Notes
The terms ‘feedback’ and ‘feedback loop’ are used in this article in the technical sense as any kind of cyclic, circular, or mutual causation, and not as denoting only stabilizing (negative) feedback.
It is sometimes assumed that neuronal systems are (primarily) deterministic systems. However, in practice neurons and neuronal systems display a considerable level of stochasticity, both at the neuronal and behavioural level (Faisal et al. 2008), and indeed a major effort in neurobiological experiments consists of separating signal from noise.
For readers who like to think in mathematical terms, the following may help. The transformation proposed here roughly corresponds to the difference between addition and multiplication. If d and s stand for deterministic and stochastic factors, respectively, then d + s could be either primarily deterministic or primarily stochastic, depending on the size of d and s. But in d × s it would be impossible to say which factor is the more (or only) important one. E.g., in 123 + 5 one might neglect 5, but in 123 × 5 neglecting 5 would make no sense. The modulated stochastic causation of Fig. 1c is in fact a multiplicative interaction of deterministic and stochastic factors. The final result in Fig. 1d is obviously further complicated by the feedback cycle, the evolutionary drive, the time-varying environment, and the retention of changes in the organism (through its state and learning).
For example in the work of Merleau-Ponty (discussed in de Preester 2003, pp. 201–202), in the work of Damasio with its emphasis on homeostasis as implicitly valuable to the organism, e.g. “the extension and transfer of homeostatic goals to objects and situations that become imbued with biological value” (Damasio and Carvalho 2013, p. 145), and in the work of Kauffman with its emphasis on the autonomy of life, acting on its own behalf, implying “Once there is an autonomous agent, there is a semantics from its privileged point of view” (Kauffman 2000, p. 111).
Noting that molecules act ‘as if’ they prefer to be spread out through a volume rather than remain concentrated in a corner of this volume would not add explanatory power beyond the mechanistic explanation. The mechanisms work purely ‘on the spot’, without being forward looking in any sense.
In that scheme the modulation of stochasticity can only be understood from its expected future benefits, not from its immediate mechanistic consequences (which are at a particular point in time not distinguishable from those of a non-modulated stochasticity). Thus the mechanism itself is, in some sense, forward looking, although it has evolved through regular, backward looking evolutionary mechanisms (van Hateren 2014a).
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I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript for thoughtful comments and suggestions.
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van Hateren, J.H. The origin of agency, consciousness, and free will. Phenom Cogn Sci 14, 979–1000 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-014-9396-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-014-9396-5