Do We Have Free Will ?

Free will and its implications for science: By M.Hayath (2019) University of the Witwatersrand.

Nature follows a law like system, science is the realisation of this system. The capacity to explain and reduce nature to physical laws has been at the heart of science. However this means that our world is deterministic and merely reduced to laws. The notion of having a free will however goes against the idea of a “planned” universe. This paper will examine free will and its implications for science and how we can have a reality that is both deterministic and indeterministic. For the sake of this paper I will assume that we, individuals have free will. This paper is not about arguing that we do have free will, nor will it provide an account that says whether we do or do not act freely, it simply is showing what the implications for science are in the given situation that we do have free will. And in doing so I will show the relationship between science and free will.

A common argument against free will is determinism which is the argument that our actions are dictated by a prior cause and that prior cause has its own prior cause, in other words we do not have free will as we do not have power over our choices rather our choices have a cause itself which is not our own (Ogletree & Oberle, 98). One may believe they acted in a certain way by their own will but a prior thought, genetics an external influence and the very psychology of the individual in question nudged the agent into that direction such as a domino effect (Ogletree & Oberle, 97). This is the thesis of determinism and is not compatible with free will. The definition of free will and determinism has to be carefully laid out because there are various definitions of free will and how determinism and free will is laid out will inform us on its impact and the role it plays in shaping science. The type of free will which says that free will is the ability for your decisions to be caused by yourself is not satisfactory. This is because when we say that the decisions are caused by yourself you are in some way saying that your thoughts are determined by your inner mechanisms, consciousness etc. The definition is vague because it does not claim anything about your choice being free and not determined.However a revised definition of our choice being caused by ourselves will return towards the end of the paper because it does actually play a role when placed in the correct way. For now the definition of free will that will be followed is the ability to do otherwise, and choices made by myself are not under the influence of deterministic laws of science (Christian, 2). Although this paper will provide an account of what free will should entail in order to see its implications, this paper does not aim to prove nor favour free will, we are simply seeing what an account of free will would mean for science.

The argument of determinism is more central to this paper than other because of how it can be linked to science. This is important to this paper because it fits a role in examining sciences role in understanding free will. Given that humans are biological creatures with a biological mind, such a mind should follow the rules of science given that the brain is made of matter and matter is the study under physics, which are thought to operate under universal and deterministic laws. This is the view of science from a deterministic point. If there are rules as to how the universe operates, how is it possible that we have free will? If one were to take this scientific knowledge and apply it to a scenario in an individual’s life whereby the individual has to make a decision, with one hundred percent certainty we would be able to predict the option the individual would choose. The way this is understood is by viewing science or the universe following fixed laws discovered by science, and if we know all the laws we can predict the outcomes such as the choices if individuals. However when we speak of determinism we can view it from different ways such as: cause and effect and scientific law (Ogletree & Oberle, 98). While “cause and effect” and “scientific laws” can be distinguished from each other they do overlap. As deterministic scientific laws follows a cause and effect system. Consequently this cause and effect behaviour is understood as a pattern which gives us the scientific law. For example the effect of hydrogen combusting in oxygen causes the product of water always and necessarily in the correct conditions (Christian, 2).

If we look at how scientific laws are formulated from a deterministic perspective.

1. That every cause has an effect

2. That every cause has its own prior cause

3. Science follows this logic (Cause and effect)

4. If Science follows a cause and effect relationship then we can formulate scientific laws

5. If we can have scientific laws then we have no free will

6. We do have scientific laws

Thus we do not have free will.

From these premises it can be also be conceptualised that the cause and effect relationship is not only about the nature of science but that of a situation as well. By situation I am referring to any situation in ones timeline which by hypothetical imaginary thought can be freeze framed. That means determinism worked not only on the insides of one’s mind, in terms of biology but also in celestial and macro events that leads to a situation. It appears it is happening on an organic (micro level) level such as brain chemistry, genetics the agents past history and it is working on a (macro level) such as world events such as a storm that forces one to make a decision to take an alternate route to a certain destination. The situation of the storm is the macro level whereby the situation of the storm had a prior causes for instance air pressure which itself has had its own cause and so on. And the micro level whereby the very biology of the individual makes him arrive at a determined point. The very definition of destiny. A somewhat mathematical formulae of reality itself. If determinism is true then it is very possible of such a formulae.

For the purpose of this paper I will aim to separate determinism by means of the macro and micro, I will maintain that from a macro perspective determinism is true however if we turn to the micro or the brain of the agent or person the truth and extensity of determinism may be put into question. The universe is complex (macro) however we still are capable to place mathematical formulae to it such as in physics, however the brain (micro) has a complexity of its own which we cannot simply place a formulae in order to predict behaviour the same way we can predict the behaviour of molecules, stars, galaxies and the like (Newsome, 3). But aren’t brains made up of cells and chemicals which are themselves deterministic? This is exactly what determinism argues that science has deterministic laws and which are reflections of nature, and if something can be made into a law that means it is deterministic (Muller & Placek, 2). One could argue that the level at which we are comparing molecules and atoms to the brain is a silly comparison because it assumes that they can be brought to the same level. This is because the difference between the studying of atoms, molecules and the brain is that the brain is a form of life and has its own complexity and ways of operating. But even so, what then stops us from understanding and predicting an individual’s behaviour as we would with atoms and molecules? We cannot conclude that brain mechanisms operate deterministically because we lack knowledge, we do not have sufficient knowledge of the brain to say that it follows deterministic laws the way science generally does such as planets, galaxies and the like.

To understand whether such deterministic laws apply to the working of the brain one has to carry out investigations instead of assuming the uniformity from the view point that all phenomena in nature acts deterministically. Neuroscience is a field which may grant such insight. According to neuroscience free will is summed by this point:

“The brain seems to incorporate deliberately an element of randomness into its decision making process. The neural mechanisms that generate choices during resource acquisition, for example, seem to reflect an added “bonus” for probabilistic exploration of new environments and new alternatives. From an evolutionary point of view, occasional random choices perform the same creative function as occasional random mutations in the genome- they allow exploration of a much larger space of possibilities than would be encountered by simple deterministic processes. Our world, including human cognition, is shot through with probabilism” (Newsome, 2).

The article states that complex levels of processing is not to be confused with the action potentials of cells and molecules as there are levels of organisation in the brain, we are not looking at a single cell but a whole array of networks (Newsome,2). The flipping of the coin which has two possible outcomes but only one deterministic outcome because physics in the deterministic sense does not allow for an array of possibilities, it is linear. When we flip a coin and say that there is a fifty percent chance it would land on heads, it is more a psychological phenomenon of not knowing whether it will land on heads or tails but the coin landing on heads or tails is not a matter of chance as the motion of the coin and its trajectory are products of scientific law which are predictable. This means that determinism is linear such that there is only one possible way things can turn out or take form. Through that lens and generalizing such pattern of nature to other aspects such as human cognition can be argued to be a mistake because it does not acknowledge the complexity and the fact that there are processes in the brain that may not be purely mechanic, which may be more complex than cause and effect (Newsome, 2). Thinking in such terms such as cause and effect is a reductionist approach which is “To elucidate the physical mechanisms that link multiple phenomenal levels, which together comprise a unified whole” (Newsome, 4). We can compare some aspects of human cognition with a computer which is organized according to design, this organisation is a mechanism by which it can perform a function (Newsome, 4). The causation for it to perform a certain function does not lie in physics but in how the computer is designed (Newsome, 4). In other words its actions are determined by design not physical laws alone (it is however bound by physical laws). This does not mean that the brain is not causally determined it however gives us a better understanding of how to link determinism with the brain in terms of having a level of organization which enables us to process information so that we may function.

While some studies are in favor of free will other studies from neuroscience say that free will is not possible (lavazza, 3). And since there are different viewpoints of what free will supposed to entail, different neuroscientific research seems to have mixed results based on their definition of free will. This adds to my point made earlier that defining free will is difficult as it sets the parameters of study. What free will suppose to entail could be a whole philosophical study of its own. However in conclusion there is no concrete evidence for free will given that the results are mixed, and there is an inconsistency between the research parameters and consequently the overall results are affected, there is too much left open in current studies (lavazza, 3).

If it turns out that in the future that there is concrete evidence that humans have free will then it must mean that we have an incomplete if not wrong view of science. We view the universe and analyse it, we look for patterns and predictability as such we generate laws which add on to our knowledge. We look at ourselves in the same light assuming the same format by means of inference. If one is to study for instance the atomic structure of iron. A scientist looks at the iron itself and studies in depth its nature and composition. The scientist however does not take generalisations from science and apply those laws to the characteristics of the atomic nature and structure of iron (certain generalisations are made in science but initial investigation takes a view of all things being equal). However the study of free will does not take this form. When you ask a philosopher as to whether we have free will he takes a generalisation that most phenomena in science operate deterministically and applies this view of science and reality to the individual. However the philosopher does not put the individual under a microscope as a scientist would do to understand the atomic structure of iron. There seems to be a lack in the philosophical field where we simply omit the science of the brain and turn to the physical laws and apply it to human consciousness. Of course such physical laws will apply to human conscious but to what end and it does not consider the unique science of human consciousness itself. Rather we extrapolate a cause and effect logic to which we apply to free will. Not to confuse the reader I am not taking sides for free will, rather I am showing what a study of free will should entail.

Physical laws are an explanation of a phenomenon that we see in reality. When a phenomenon is experienced and then placed in a form of experiment, the result of the experiment gives us a physical law. In experimental physics experiments are carried out and data is collected, after the data collection there is analysis. Experimental physicists then find a pattern, explanation from the data to which we then possibly have a physical law. This scientific method has been used in the understanding of gravity, chemistry and many aspect of science (Cooke,2). It appears that if something has a pattern its future actions can be predicted.

In other words the fact that we can explain phenomenon means that it operates deterministically. To be able to explain something means that one has a conceptual understanding of something, once one has this acquired knowledge of phenomenon it can be placed into a law like fashion. This is the nature of science. But one has to be careful with this argument for if we take any event involving decision making once that event has occurred we can attach reason and explanation to it regardless, due to us psychologically tying events together. For instance if we take an individual and he has a choice between three options, after he has chosen one of the three options we can explain and attach reason and explanations as to why he chose the option he did. But we can do so for any option that he may have chosen. If free will is possible in terms of the definition: “The ability to do otherwise”. How do we test for free will because it seems that after an event concerning a person making a decision we can explain why he chose the choice he did by means of deterministic laws and explanations so how do we know that it could have been otherwise because we can give an explanation regardless of whichever option he chooses? I will address this question shortly.

Does free will escape the problem of explanation? Or is it the case that if we can explain something it necessarily means that the phenomena follows deterministic laws? I believe that at a micro level there has to be a gap. In that gap there should be a range of possibilities that will not follow a deterministic route. If there is any room for doubt for any explanation then free will may seem possible. In other words it comes down to our confidence in our scientific explanations. If there is room for some randomness or other phenomena we have a different system to determinism where free will seems to be a possibility. But returning to the issue of explanation and to make things clear. Human thought follows a narrative structure that necessarily follows an explanatory format (Crossley, 3). In other words when we say an individual has chosen one out of three options, after the event of this individual picking any one of the three options we can attach a narrative to which ever option was chosen, Because each option could contain an explanation for itself, they all have a reason for being one of the options.

We can ask why did the individual choose a specific option out of the three? The answer could be because neuron x was activated and neuron x was activated in response to a certain cause (explanation). Free will should have an absence of such an explanation or a gap where we cannot trace or predict a strict cause and effect relationship. The explanatory gap should not be out of lack of knowledge but rather an inability to predict and say what will happen next. Hypothetically let us have an individual whom has three options and he picks one out of the three, but before he does lets label three neurons with respect to each option X, Y, and Z. Now at the point before the individual makes a choice something prior had already happened which a determinist would argue would necessarily cause atrigger of one specific neuron which would make the individual chose a corresponding option.

However if we assume this individual has free will we must not be unable to say which neuron would be triggered from the prior cause, not from a lack of knowledge but from the fact the agent may choose otherwise, any neuron may trigger and is not necessarily caused by a prior cause but because some brain process enables the individual to choose the option he or she wants. But of course as mentioned earlier, AFTER an event has happened we can attach an explanation regardless of which option was chosen. That is because each neuron whichever may be triggered corresponds to a certain narrative or explanation. We can say he chose option one because neuron X fired because of a prior cause, he chose option two because neuron Y fired because that links to a prior cause and he chose option three because neuron Z fired due to a prior cause and so on. But this says more of our own psychology of trying to rationalise events than it says anything about free will. Therefore we can be bias in this respect. Because AFTER the individual makes his choice we can naturally make causal claims because regardless of which option was chosen we can think of an explanation of why he chose what he did, and for us that counts as the only possible way it could have been. Therefore we should make an analyses PRIOR to the individual choosing his option.

When we look at it this way at the point in time where any of the neurons can fired from a single prior cause for there to be free will besides from guessing we should not be able to tell which of the neurons would be activated. All three options may be explained in their own way AFTER the event because naturally when this individual chooses an option we can backwards rationalise and assume that his under the influence of some cause and effect relationship, which has its own deterministic laws and therefore conclude that he was only ever going to choose the option he did. But I argue this is a mistake. Because run the tape again and say he chooses a different option now, we can formulate a backwards rationalisation for what he chose now. For any of the options chosen we could attach a scientific backward rationalisation. We are under the false belief that just because we have an explanation for the option that was chosen that this person did not act freely. What we fail to understand is that it could have been any of three options of which all have their own corresponding rationalisations and deterministic scientific laws attached to them. Therefore it is important to know that the explanatory gap which I am referring to is the lack of a deterministic scientific explanation PRIOR to the event of the individual choosing. It is the lack of placing a deterministic scientific law which necessarily processes all the possible options and necessarily as an output results in a specific option which cannot be otherwise. This is the gap I am referring to. For us to have free will this scientific law must be missing, must be indeterministic or subject to randomness or other phenomena.

If it turns out that in the future that there is concrete evidence that humans have free will then it must mean that we have an incomplete if not wrong view of science. We view the universe and analyse it, we look for patterns and predictability as such we generate laws which add on to our knowledge. We look at ourselves in the same light assuming the same format by means of inference. If one is to study for instance the atomic structure of iron. A scientist looks at the iron itself and studies in depth its nature and composition. The scientist however does not take generalisations from science and apply those laws to the characteristics of the atomic nature and structure of iron (certain generalisations are made in science but initial investigation takes a view of all things being equal). However the study of free will does not take this form. When you ask a philosopher as to whether we have free will he takes a generalisation that most phenomena in science operate deterministically and applies this view of science and reality to the individual. However the philosopher does not put the individual under a microscope as a scientist would do to understand the atomic structure of iron. There seems to be a lack in the philosophical field where we simply omit the science of the brain and turn to the physical laws and apply it to human consciousness. Of course such physical laws will apply to human conscious but to what end and it does not consider the unique science of human consciousness itself. Rather we extrapolate a cause and effect logic to which we apply to free will. Not to confuse the reader I am not taking sides for free will, rather I am showing what a study of free will should entail.

Physical laws are an explanation of a phenomenon that we see in reality. When a phenomenon is experienced and then placed in a form of experiment, the result of the experiment gives us a physical law. In experimental physics experiments are carried out and data is collected, after the data collection there is analysis. Experimental physicists then find a pattern, explanation from the data to which we then possibly have a physical law. This scientific method has been used in the understanding of gravity, chemistry and many aspect of science (Cooke,2). It appears that if something has a pattern its future actions can be predicted.

In other words the fact that we can explain phenomenon means that it operates deterministically. To be able to explain something means that one has a conceptual understanding of something, once one has this acquired knowledge of phenomenon it can be placed into a law like fashion. This is the nature of science. But one has to be careful with this argument for if we take any event involving decision making once that event has occurred we can attach reason and explanation to it regardless, due to us psychologically tying events together. For instance if we take an individual and he has a choice between three options, after he has chosen one of the three options we can explain and attach reason and explanations as to why he chose the option he did. But we can do so for any option that he may have chosen. If free will is possible in terms of the definition: “The ability to do otherwise”. How do we test for free will because it seems that after an event concerning a person making a decision we can explain why he chose the choice he did by means of deterministic laws and explanations so how do we know that it could have been otherwise because we can give an explanation regardless of whichever option he chooses? I will address this question shortly.

Does free will escape the problem of explanation? Or is it the case that if we can explain something it necessarily means that the phenomena follows deterministic laws? I believe that at a micro level there has to be a gap. In that gap there should be a range of possibilities that will not follow a deterministic route. If there is any room for doubt for any explanation then free will may seem possible. In other words it comes down to our confidence in our scientific explanations. If there is room for some randomness or other phenomena we have a different system to determinism where free will seems to be a possibility. But returning to the issue of explanation and to make things clear. Human thought follows a narrative structure that necessarily follows an explanatory format (Crossley, 3). In other words when we say an individual has chosen one out of three options, after the event of this individual picking any one of the three options we can attach a narrative to which ever option was chosen, Because each option could contain an explanation for itself, they all have a reason for being one of the options.

We can ask why did the individual choose a specific option out of the three? The answer could be because neuron x was activated and neuron x was activated in response to a certain cause (explanation). Free will should have an absence of such an explanation or a gap where we cannot trace or predict a strict cause and effect relationship. The explanatory gap should not be out of lack of knowledge but rather an inability to predict and say what will happen next. Hypothetically let us have an individual whom has three options and he picks one out of the three, but before he does lets label three neurons with respect to each option X, Y, and Z. Now at the point before the individual makes a choice something prior had already happened which a determinist would argue would necessarily cause atrigger of one specific neuron which would make the individual chose a corresponding option.

However if we assume this individual has free will we must not be unable to say which neuron would be triggered from the prior cause, not from a lack of knowledge but from the fact the agent may choose otherwise, any neuron may trigger and is not necessarily caused by a prior cause but because some brain process enables the individual to choose the option he or she wants. But of course as mentioned earlier, AFTER an event has happened we can attach an explanation regardless of which option was chosen. That is because each neuron whichever may be triggered corresponds to a certain narrative or explanation. We can say he chose option one because neuron X fired because of a prior cause, he chose option two because neuron Y fired because that links to a prior cause and he chose option three because neuron Z fired due to a prior cause and so on. But this says more of our own psychology of trying to rationalize events than it says anything about free will. Therefore we can be bias in this respect. Because AFTER the individual makes his choice we can naturally make causal claims because regardless of which option was chosen we can think of an explanation of why he chose what he did, and for us that counts as the only possible way it could have been. Therefore we should make an analyses PRIOR to the individual choosing his option.

When we look at it this way at the point in time where any of the neurons can fired from a single prior cause for there to be free will besides from guessing we should not be able to tell which of the neurons would be activated. All three options may be explained in their own way AFTER the event because naturally when this individual chooses an option we can backwards rationalise and assume that his under the influence of some cause and effect relationship, which has its own deterministic laws and therefore conclude that he was only ever going to choose the option he did. But I argue this is a mistake. Because run the tape again and say he chooses a different option now, we can formulate a backwards rationalization for what he chose now. For any of the options chosen we could attach a scientific backward rationalization. We are under the false belief that just because we have an explanation for the option that was chosen that this person did not act freely. What we fail to understand is that it could have been any of three options of which all have their own corresponding rationalizations and deterministic scientific laws attached to them. Therefore it is important to know that the explanatory gap which I am referring to is the lack of a deterministic scientific explanation PRIOR to the event of the individual choosing. It is the lack of placing a deterministic scientific law which necessarily processes all the possible options and necessarily as an output results in a specific option which cannot be otherwise. This is the gap I am referring to. For us to have free will this scientific law must be missing, must be in-deterministic or subject to randomness or other phenomena.

To readers who may be confused by the idea of for us to have free will there must be an explanatory gap. One may say that of course I can explain why I did what I did, that is because there will always be a rationalisation for my actions, but that is my point that for all actions we can backwards rationalise it and assume that it is because of this rationalisation that I have acted thus I have acted deterministically. But this is not the explanatory gap I am referring to because there will always be an explanation of this sort for any action I carry out. The explanatory gap which I am referring to is on a micro level. A gap that exists between a prior cause and which neuron in the above example would be activated. For us to have free will this explanatory gap should exist. But if this gap is not filled by a deterministic scientific law which dictates which neuron would be activated necessarily then it must be filled with something else and I will go into details about this later. Before I do I need to touch on different perspectives of science either than determinism.

In modern physics there is a problem with the reconciling determinism and quantum mechanics, both of which have opposing views where quantum mechanics says that reality is unpredictable, a-causal and random (Bera, Acín, Kus, Mitchell & Lewenstein, 2). The distinction between determinism and quantum mechanics goes under various names in the modern science arguing that reality is divided into two realms (Bera et al., 4). Macro and micro, classical and quantum and logical and contradictory. Furthermore much of debate is where the boundary between these two views of reality exist (Bera, et al., 5). A question that may be raised is whether randomness or determinism is intrinsic to nature or are they merely due to the imperfection of our knowledge? (Bera et al., 7). This is an epistemic problem with regards to our view of science but however ties back to our idea of free will that if we can explain free will then it must mean that we do not have free will. but this gives us a further problem that how do we know whether us not being able to explain free will is a discovery of free will itself or merely a gap in our knowledge. Analogously one could argue that quantum mechanics is not a-causal, unpredictable and random but rather a failure of understanding the nature of quantum mechanics. Modern physics has paid attention to this point and is said to argue against the idea that quantum mechanics being failure of our understanding as quantum mechanics has been tested empirically and is consistent in its results (Bera, et al., 5).

From this we can deduce two views of reality, the deterministic (Classical physics) view and the indeterministic view (Quantum mechanics).

If we are to say that we have free will, it is accepting the notion of the universe that is similar to quantum mechanics. That it is possible to have physical phenomenon that is a-causal and random. Our free will could be argued to follow physical laws similar to quantum mechanics if not reduced to.

Support of this from science comes from evolution that certain genetic mutations occur randomly according to J.Gould “run the tape again, and the first step from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cell may take 12 billion years instead of two” (Gould, 34). The fact that we can have something in science that is non law like or follows randomness should force us to reconsider our understanding of the universe, it should mean that there is something missing in the scientific method. It is not a question of which sides are true but rather a question of how do we reconcile the two views of reality.

Earlier in this paper I have mentioned the macro and the micro. And maintained that the macro is deterministic and the micro need not be if we have free will. Having given an idea of what free will would mean for science it is still plausible to say that the macro can be maintained as deterministic whereas the micro cannot, because it is assumed that we have free will and it is thought not to follow deterministic rules of science, but perhaps something else such as the randomness of quantum mechanics.

The question is can we have these contradictory views of science? Although they are separated by means of the macro and micro they are not strictly distinct, For they interact. For instance a person interacts with the world around him, the micro does not isolate itself from deterministic laws, as there are basic chemistry and biology interactions in humans that follows deterministic laws. But we also have indeterministic laws and randomness. It is very much the same as trying to reconcile classical physics and quantum mechanics. Questions such as the age old problem in physics such as whether we can reconcile quantum mechanics and classical physics? Can we reconcile determinism and randomness? Can we reconcile free will and determinism? At the very basic level what can be noticed is that all these questions have the same problem in common, of trying to unify contradictory laws.

In philosophical logic and in science a contradiction means that something is false, or both premises could be possibly false (Konyndyk, 1986). In this case we have arrived at a point where we have a contradiction, but we cannot yet favour one view over the other in terms of having a science that is deterministic (classical physics) and a science that is not deterministic ( quantum physics). We are at the point where we have two views of reality but we cannot dispel either view because firstly both views have strong empirical claims and secondly they are not strictly referring to the same object. What I mean by they are not refereeing to the same object is that in terms of classical physics we are dealing with objects such as stars, moons, water, liquid and gases. But in terms of quantum mechanics we are looking at atoms and subatomic particles. So one has to take a step back and see at which point down the scale science changes from deterministic to indeterminitsic. Where these two theories are said to be go against each other is the inference that they both make which is that reality is shaped a specific way either deterministic or not deterministic but not does mean that we need to hold a specific stand we could hold both views but some see this as problematic. We are at a point where we are dealing with contradictions in science but that is not to say that they do not co-exist because they do , but at different levels. The trouble comes in when we have a logical contradiction, which is how is it possible that we can have something that is deterministic and not deterministic regardless at which levels they exist. Because they are both part of reality as a whole.

Contrary to belief contradictions in science occur frequently, examples of contradictions in science can be seen in the nature of light (Yanofsky, 166). Light has a dual nature which is that of a particle and that of a wave. Certain experiments claim that light is a wave and while other experiments claim that light is a particle (Yanofsky, 166).This leads us to ask what the correct form of light is and surprisingly according to convention, the correct answer is that it depends which experiment is carried out. If a wave experiment was carried out then in that case light is a wave and if a particle experiment was carried out then in that case it is a particle (Yanofsky, 166). These are the kind of paradoxes and contradictions that occur in sciences.

From this paper the study of assuming free will has brought me to a few concepts in science: randomness, determinism, indeterminsism and causality. Form these arising concepts one of the main results is refuting that determinism is the only metaphysical force that dictates the nature of science. So far what has been shown is that science is not solely dictated by determinism but there are other factors that can take part as well, and one of those factors I wish to speak about is non-causal behaviour (Werndl, 2016). Non-causal behaviour occurs in electromagnetism whereby the effects precede the cause which is a violation of what we know as determinism, it is however difficult for me to explain why this happens in certain electromagnetic experiments due to my lack of knowledge (Werndl, 2016). A clear cause and effect relationship in science depends on a physical law linking two events, that being said it is not always the case that we have strict causal laws in science linking two events. Having laws that link all events would mean that there is an infinite number of scientific laws because events can causally impact each other in infinite ways (Werndl, 2016). Other objections to causation in science such as the time reversal invariance. Physical laws in science whether classical or quantum are characterised as time reversal invariant. Which is: “in physics, mathematical operation of replacing the expression for time with its negative in formulas or equations so that they describe an event in which time runs backward or all the motions are reversed. A resultant formula or equation that remains unchanged by this operation is said to be time-reversal invariant, which implies that the same laws of physics apply equally well in both situations” (https://www.britannica.com/science/time-reversal#ref530567).

The issue laid out by philosophers and scientist is that causality is asymmetrical whereas time reversal invariance is symmetrical thus there is an inconsistency between the mathematical equations and the cause and effect relationship, ironically the cause and effect relationship gives rise to the same equations that contradict the cause and effect relationship (Werndl, 2016). That is not to say that there are no causal relations in science but this does say that we should be careful when we infer strong causal relations whose effects may not always take place. An example of this is in electromagnetism: “according to classical electromagnetism, an accelerating charge will be associated with electromagnetic radiation radiating outward from the charge. These laws also permit the time-reversed process according to which a spherically symmetric wave of electromagnetic radiation converges on a single charge which then accelerates—a process that appears to be rare, absent some special contrivances” (Werndl, 2016). What this means that a cause does not necessarily have the same effect each time. For there are rare occurrences of different effects in electromagnetism (Werndl, 2016). It turns out that we have this notion of scientific law, as a law that cannot be broken and is upheld by the universe as sacred and un-moved. Whereas in fact scientific law is more of an observation of phenomena than an unbreakable law of nature (Werndl, 2016).

This comes from the fact that even in classical physics whereby we take it for granted to be strictly deterministic actually has many instances where determinism is violated, for the scope of this paper I cannot fully explain or discuss this in detail. But one instance of a failure of determinism in everyday physics occurs in Newtonian physics whereby we have three identical balls approaching at 120 degrees, it would be assumed that they would always follow a certain path after impact. But in fact they sometimes move in different paths after collision. There are many instances whereby determinism fails again not only in Newtonian physics but in general relativity as well. This must not be mistaken to assume that determinism is wrong, but one must understand determinism within a certain framework in the sense that it’s not a fundamental law of nature because as said before there are many other factors that play in and randomness can interfere in a deterministic system at any point (Suppes, 254). This leads to suggest that science as we know it is not as straight forward and many papers on physics and philosophy would claim that the more we learn the less we seem to know, because more questions are raised (Suppes, 254).