
A 2007 free will cartoon used in a theist blog (Ѻ) about William Craig (Ѻ) and the asserted formula: No Free Will = No Moral Responsibility (add discussion)

A 2007 free will cartoon used in a theist blog (Ѻ) about William Craig (Ѻ) and the asserted formula:

No Free Will = No Moral Responsibility

(add discussion)

In theories, free will is a conception that a person exercises control over the choices made in their reaction existence (life), in a way that is autonomous and or exempt from the laws of nature.

Overview
The reason that many people seem to deny the view that the theory of free will is now defunct is that the the model of free will and the subsequent "choosing" of right from wrong which lies at the heart of morality and and thus ingrained views of life-death, purpose, and the understanding of the "self" in the context of the universe.

Legal implications

See main: Science-connected legal cases ; See also: Slave stealing parable

One reason many hold fast to the notion of free will is that it not only underwrites the religious notion of "sin" and the theory of "judgment", as described in the Ra theology theory of the weighting of the soul (soul weight in the Ab-ra-ham-ic faiths or karma weight in the B-ra-hma-ic faiths), but also underwrites the legal system of most countries.

In the US, for instance, the 1978 case of United States v. Grayson established the Supreme Court's stance on free will as being a "universal and persistent" foundation of the system of law, distinct from "a deterministic view of human conduct that is inconsistent with the underlying precepts of the criminal justice system." Therefore, a scientific non-belief in the theory of free will is considered an illegal view in modern times. Said another way, according to American neuroscientist Sam Harris, "any scientific developments that threaten our notion of free will would seem to put the ethics of punishing people for their bad behavior in question." [13]

Hmol sciences
In human chemistry and human thermodynamics, a human being is defined as a molecule, i.e. a "human molecule", and systems of humans are defined as thermodynamics systems, governed by the laws of chemistry and physics. In this view, the conception of a molecule, human or otherwise, with a free will, becomes an absurdity. The modern view, conversely, shows the concept of free will to be a defunct scientific theory, replaced by more updated views, such as induced movement, among others.

Readiness potential
The first scientific disproof of the theory of free will was done in 1982 by American neuroscientist Benjamin Libet, who found that electrical activity of the brain precedes so-called "conscious" choice of free will by 350 milliseconds.


The "forced" input of a billions of photons (force carriers) causes the twenty-six-element human molecule to "move" into a straightened upright position; when the light is no longer present (e.g. nighttime), the human molecule reverts back to its bent position (e.g. curled in sleep). The "forced" input of a single photon (a force carrier) causes the three-element retinal molecule to "move" into a straightened position; when the light is no longer present, the retinal molecule reverts back to the bent position.

The "forced" input of a billions of photons (force carriers) causes the twenty-six-element human molecule to "move" into a straightened upright position; when the light is no longer present (e.g. nighttime), the human molecule reverts back to its bent position (e.g. curled in sleep). The "forced" input of a single photon (a force carrier) causes the three-element retinal molecule to "move" into a straightened position; when the light is no longer present, the retinal molecule reverts back to the bent position.

Thermodynamics
When one first begins to analyze the process of human life from either a chemical or thermodynamic point of view, such as Goethe did in 1809, as Henry Adams did in 1910, as C.G. Darwin did in 1952, as Bazargan did in 1956, or as Valiery Chalidze did in 2000, the issue of "free will" is one of the first major topics of debate that arises. In other words, from a chemical or thermodynamic point of view, a person is a molecule, i.e. a human molecule, no different than any other heat-driven animate molecule in the universe, and the actions or movements of molecules are determined by Gauge boson exchange forces. [1]

When viewing the question of free will and "choice" in terms of human chemical reactions, particularly regarding the effect of love, as in love the chemical reaction, the distinction becomes clearer. Sixty-five percent of people, for instance, agree with the statement: "falling in love was not really a choice; it just struck me (e.g. love at first sight)" [9]

ABC model of will | Retinal model of molecular choice
The basic model for the description of "free will" or induced movement in molecular life (animate activity), is the movement dynamics involved in the life of the 3-element retinal molecule C20H28O (pictured above), a light sensitive molecule found in the retina of the eye. If the energy contained in a single photon is of the correct wavelength, between 400 and 700 nm, it will function to break what are called pi-bonds found between the eleventh and twelfth carbon atoms near the kink in the structure of the retinal molecule. When these pi-bonds break, this ‘forces’ the retinal molecule to rearrange into a straightened configuration.

This basic model, in which a molecule is forced to react, i.e. moves dynamically, to a photon or field particle stimulus, is the basic model (poster child) for human molecular life, i.e. for all human behavior. The human molecule, a 26-element molecule, is no different than the retinal molecule, a 3-element molecule. Human chemical reactions will always be exact and repetitive, similar to the bending and straightening actions of the simple retinal molecule. More to the point, the central nervous system of the retinal molecule is no different, complexity aside, than the central nervous system of the human molecule: each CNS is comprised, at its core, of valence shell electron-photon interactions.


The "ABC model" of free will: (A) retinal molecule in ground state (normal state); (B) light (or one or more photons) with a frequency of 400 to 700 nm absorbs into the the carbon atom (note: atom shown is actually beryllium) at the 11 position, thus causing (exchange force) an electron to jump up in orbital position (excited state); (C) the retinal molecule reacts to this by "moving" to the straightened position, a short-lived heightened energy configuration. [14]

The "ABC model" of free will: (A) retinal molecule in ground state (normal state); (B) light (or one or more photons) with a frequency of 400 to 700 nm absorbs into the the carbon atom (note: atom shown is actually beryllium) at the 11 position, thus causing (exchange force) an electron to jump up in orbital position (excited state); (C) the retinal molecule reacts to this by "moving" to the straightened position, a short-lived heightened energy configuration. [14]

This photon inducing, exchange force, retinal-bending mechanism, to note, was is an expansion of the 1913 Bohr model of the atom applied to the phenomenon of molecular movement and mechanism with light interaction as discovered in 1958 by the American biochemist George Wald and his co-workers; work for which Wald won a share of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragnar Granit. [2]

Correct view
One of the first to state the correct view of free will, namely that from a molecular point of view, was Dutch philosopher Bededict de Spinoza, who in the 17th century stated that “experience tells us clearly that men believe they are free simply because they are conscious of their actions and unconscious of the causes whereby these actions are determined; further, it is plain that the dictates of the mind are simply another name for the appetites that vary according to the varying state of the body.” [3] These states, in a human chemistry point of view, can be understood in an analogous fashion as being evolved forms of the "octet rule" where atoms and molecules seek to satisfy their orbital satieties.

The correct view, as Goethe discerned, is that person does not have a free will, but only a "perceptual free will". In his own words, "none are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free". In other words, the feeling that one is "choosing their actions" is nothing more than a build up of electromagnetic potential, in the neurological structure and social bonding structure of the individual, that mediates the force of choice over other possible actions. [1] In 1784, German philosopher Immanuel Kant outlined the one of the clearest statements on the description of free will, in a form which predates the basics of human chemical mechanism, after reading Prussian demographer Johann Peter Süssmilch’s tables of births and deaths: [7]

“Whatever concept one may hold, from a metaphysical point of view, concerning the freedom of will, certainly its appearances, which are human actions, like every other natural event are determined by universal laws.”

In 1869, Russian novelist and philosopher Leo Tolstoy stated the all-molecules-obey-the-same-laws-logic in his classic book War and Peace: [8]

“A particle of matter cannot tell us that it is unconscious of the laws of attraction and repulsion and that the law is not true; but man, who is the subject of history, says bluntly: I am free, and am therefore not subject to laws.”

In modern terms, one can see the logic of Tolstoy's argument when looking at standard molecular evolution tables.

Incorrect view
The incorrect view that a person does have a free will, implies that all molecules have a free will. This type of logic, however, leads to obvious theoretical absurdities.

In 1921, English experimental biologist James Johnstone speculative about the physical chemistry implications of free will vs. determinism in biology, concluding that the question is meaningless, because the mind cannot be measured. [12]

In his 1921 lecture on Cartesian economics, English physical chemist Frederick Soddy set to position the science of economics on the first two laws of thermodynamics, but teetered on the divide between animate (cell or amoeba) and inanimate (Brownian movement) life but on the topic of free will stated: [11]

“Life is the expression of the interaction of two totally distinct things represented by probability and free will, thought the ultimate nature of these two things will probably remain, a thousand years hence, as far off as ever.”

In 1952, to cite an example of logic gone wrong, English physicst Charles Galton Darwin, in his book The Next Million Years, correctly argued that humans are molecules and that thermodynamics governs their operation, but then in a side note he states that man, differing from other molecules, has a free will owing to his unpredictibility. Specifically, in a system of gas molecules, the external conditions are determined by the constraints of the containing vessel; the analogy for humans, according to Darwin, is that the earth itself is the containing vessel. Similarly, the internal conditions of human systems, which are analogous to the property of being conservative dynamical systems, lies, as Darwin says, ‘of course much deeper’. In short, Darwin argues that: [4]

“The laws governing the nature of human molecules, lie much deeper [as compared to systems of gas molecules], because unlike a molecule, a man has a free will, which make his actions unpredictable.”

In a modern sense, we know that Darwin is completely wrong on this latter point, i.e. man absolutely does not have a free will, nor does any other atom or molecule. The short of this explanation is that if one believes that one type of molecule has a free will than one must prove that all molecules have a free will, which is an argument in absurdity. Nevertheless, Darwin justifies this, humorously, by stating that the ‘the individual collisions of the human molecules may be a little less predictable than those of the gas molecules.’ [4]

In 1956, likewise, Iranian engineer and thermodynamicist Mehdi Bazargan stated that: [5]

“When dealing with human societies and humans with free will, thermodynamic law and formulae require a coefficient, which can be called a balancing coefficient and is less than 1 in unbalanced societies and more than 1 in societies governed by true religions and affections.”

This type of flawed logic, wherein human beings are supposed to have special exceptions in the laws of science, is a common one.

In 1985, one of the more convoluted arguments in support of the existence of free will was proposed by American physical chemist George Scott in his book Atoms of the Living Flame: an Odyssey into Ethics and the Physical Chemistry of Free Will, wherein he argued, essentially, that human nervous systems a in a far-from-equilibrium state, governed by Prigoginean type nonequilibrium thermodynamics of the sort that "could chaotically amplify indeterminate events at the micro level." [10]

In the 2000 book Entropy Demystified - Potential Order, Life, and Money, writer Valery Chalidze spends the first 190-pages outlining his take on economic thermodynamics, but then knowing that the implications of thermodynamics precludes free will, i.e. makes impossible by necessary consequence, she inserts a four page in conclusion section at the end of the book titled "The Unpredictability of Will and Physics" where he states, for instance:

“Our will, which is informed energy, is capable of deviating from the prescriptions of physical laws.”

Beyond this, he argues that "the obvious reason to reject human will as a physical property is its unpredictability." [6]

Quantum mechanics
In 1927, Werner Heisenberg derived the Heisenberg uncertainty relation and the following year Arthur Eddington, in his On the Nature of the Physical World, speculated on free will in the context of quantum mechanics. In the years since, countless numbers have engaged in quantum-based theories, collectively known as "ontic opening theories", either for or against free will. [13] One recent example would be American quantum physicist Robert Doyle who argues that the collapse of the wave function gives people a two-stage version of free will.

Quotes
The following are related quotes:

“It would thus make no difference whether a quantum of mental energy inserts itself into the course of the material process or not: the law of the conservation of energy as formulated hitherto would not be impaired.”
— Oswald Kulpe (c.1900), cited by Carl Jung [2

“This tentative extension of the forced movement or tropism theory of animal conduct may explain why higher animals and human beings seem to possess freedom of will, although all movements are of the nature of forced movements. The tropistic effects of memory images and the modification and inhibition of tropisms by memory images make the number of possible reactions so great that prediction becomes almost impossible and it is this impossibility chiefly which gives rise to the doctrine of free will. The theory of free will originated and is held not among physicists but among verbalists. We have shown that an organism goes where its legs carry it and that the direction of the motion is forced upon the organism.”
— Jacques Loeb (1918), Forced Movements, Tropisms, and Animal Conduct (pg. 171)

“Our conception of the existence of ''free will'' in human beings rests on the fact that our knowledge is often not sufficiently complete to account for the orienting forces, especially when we carry out a "premeditated" act, or when we carry out an act which gives us pain or may lead to our destruction, and our incomplete knowledge is due to the sheer endless number of possible combinations and mutual inhibitions of the orienting effect of individual memory images.”
— Jacques Loeb (1918), Forced Movements, Tropisms, and Animal Conduct (pg. 172)

“Scientists and philosophers realized long ago that free will could not be squared with our growing understanding of the physical world. Nevertheless, many still deny this fact.”
— Sam Harris (2010), The Moral Landscape [13]