Every turtle deserves its own theory

I have just finished Sam’s essay on free will (I hesitate to call such a measly offering a book). What a scientist, he embraces science with the all-embracing passion of having nothing else to love. Ever technically correct in observation but never inspired in interpretation. I see in him symptoms of a malaise that has invaded our generation of scientists, those self-satisfied truth-seekers for truth’s sake.

The debate on free will and causality reminds me of a 001 quantum mechanical problem. An ensemble of identically-prepared systems evolve ala Schrodinger. We might imagine a particle is evolving through two slits, and eventually hits a wall. Having hit the wall, the particle must make up its mind and localize at some point on the wall. Having an ensemble of particles, we can sensibly talk about the probability distribution of localization - it follows the square of a wavefunction that is determined by Schrodinger. 

This interpretation seems to me strange, because identically-prepared particles evolving through identical slits and knocking on identical walls have a way of arriving at identical destinations. What is missing from this interpretation is that there is something infinitesimally different in the journey of each particle. The wall is not so symmetrical that it is a featureless invitation. Localized sources of symmetry-breaking appear, disappear and reappear elsewhere, drawing the quantum bee to classical honey. It is sufficient that these fluctuations occur roughly randomly over the entire wall, to provide a credible account of ‘collapse’. 

We can look really hard for these sources of symmetry-breaking. They are so small we might be hard-pressed to find them. They are necessarily small if they negligibly affect the probability of arrival – indeed the quantum mechanical problem is usually solved without the wall, because the wall as a classical object has too many degrees of freedom to simulate. Nevertheless, we can try really really hard to find these sources. A quantum pencil stood on its end doesn’t fall to the north by strength of will, there must be quantum winds that momentarily blow, quantum tremors in the ground. Suppose we succeed in measuring the quantum wind, and found the cause of collapse. (I don’t really know that we can, but just suppose.) True to its nature, the quantum wind is tiny, and changes direction so frequently that it is nigh unpredictable. Do we then discard our acausal theory of collapse? Why should we, when it works so well. When even having identified the quantum wind at great cost, we cannot predict it. 

The analogy with free will is imperfect, but I will try it. We have at great effort identified brain activity that precedes a conscious decision for simple actions. By monitoring your brain activity, a neuroscientist can predict your behaviour before you consciously ‘decide’ to act; how Sam delights in quantifying the lag time between brain activity and conscious decision-making. (I imagine the experiment is much more simplistic: they would correlate an MRI behaviour with a certain choice of A and B, and ask the test subject to repeatedly choose between A and B. Is this correct?) I further imagine that the neuroscientist will have a much harder time predicting more complex behaviours. 

How seriously should this lag time affect our worldview?  (Quite seriously, it is a beautiful confirmation of neurons at work.) Having identified the neurological cause of a decision, should we abandon a psychological theory of free will? Surely we feel like we have free will, if for no better reason than our ignorance of the microscopic bustle-hustle. This feeling of free will engenders our actions in an ineliminable way. I doubt it is possible to continuously hold an image of chained will, and have it affect our minute decisions; we defocus and forget. Will an effective theory of decision-making then neglect microscopic details, and focus on collective perceptions? Such a theory seems to me a better foundation to understand and appreciate our psychological agency. Much of Sam’s essay overreaches psychological conclusions from neurological observations. The result is that psychology is disempowered, and humans are told to be their brains. I return to one of my favourite thesis, that nature has walls of scales. It is ineffective (and perhaps hopeless) to derive every theory from the first turtle; a more reasonable dream is that every turtle deserves its own theory.