I CHOOSE TO SLAP YOU!

Let's talk about free will. Is it an illusion? Alternatively, is the illusion of free will an illusion, to keep us from ever knowing, and to keep the society as a whole from ever collapsing?

Wait, before you diss this blog and read no further...please hang on. Let me make my point. Here goes.

I once asked a friend, Does he believe in free will? Being the post-modernist, post enlightened, post human intellectual, he smirked a curt reply, "No." It was at that moment when I thought I saw a triumphant glint in his right eye as if he had made an Eureka finding, a first at it.

Without batting my eyelid, I gave him a tight slap and cheshire-smiled at him, "I just chose to slap you." Pause for thought?

Was my slap an act demonstrating that free will is still very much alive? Or was my slap an inevitable act pre-conditioned by my genetic composite, my upbringing, my immediate culture, some malfunctional aspect of my neurological structure, or a combination of the above - all of which are, in some neuroanatomical way, beyond my conscious control? (of course, that slap did not happen and I made it up; but don't you think some people deserve it sometimes?)

Now the 64 dollar question is this, Was my friend even right? That is, free will is an illusion. And a corollary to this is that those of us who believe otherwise have been bamboozled by our own brain to think so - since to think otherwise  (no free will) would make most of us into criminals of some sort or suicidal of the other sort.

Well, I hope you are still with me because here comes the train-wreck...My friend is not all that wrong after all... Pause for thought? Being a realist myself, my friend had a point, although a blunt one.

Let me explain and let's start with the Oprah paradox. We all know her. How can we not know her since she is the richest African American in the world! But we also know this about her: Oprah has a weight problem and she has been struggling with it from rags to riches.

While her popularity and wealth have skyrocketed, her fight with weight has been yo-yo-ing. Check it out. Switch on the Telly now. Witness it for yourself. Sadly, she is none the slimmer. Ask any teenager whether she wants to trade places with her (just the body shape) and most of the honest ones would respectfully squirm.

You'd have thought that Oprah is the last person on earth who can't lick this weight problem. She is successful, rich and famous, all of which are acquired through grit, determination and hard work. So, how on earth is she still so gravitationally-challenged?

Of course, she had her good days when things were looking bright by her looking slim but most days, she is unapologetically burly. At some point, I was sure that Oprah might have thought of throwing in the towel and admitting that it was her "genes that made her do it".

Or maybe a sinuous conspiracy of the seductive waft of aromatic bagel or the alluring sight of a bowl of banana split that took over her strong will. Or, maybe she was just not in the mood to stick to her self-imposed dietary discipline because her brain juices of self control (eg dopamine or the neurotransmitters in the basal ganglia) were low in supply for whatever reasons beyond her conscious choice.

Taking all these in, Don't you think that free will is almost an illusion? One more example closer to home? Ok, take New Year's resolutions. This is something we can relate to. How many of us can say that we have been successful in fulfilling our resolution by the end of the year? Any takers?

It usually starts with a bang of robust goals-listing and ends with a whimper of self-assured oblivion. The majority of us fails miserably in keeping New Year's resolution not because we can't make them, but because our conscious choices to fulfill them always get way-sided by circumstances that are seemingly beyond our control. Some blame it on their genes. Some on busyness. Some blame it on unconscious bad habits. One way or another, we are puppets not in control of our own strings. Where is the free will in all these?

It is said that men are born free; alas everywhere they are in chains. Are we?

When the Bible declares, "...Choose this day whom you wish to serve...," are we really that free to choose? Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine you are a newcomer to a mega church.

You tried your best to escape the service but your persistent close friend for 20 years managed to track you down and pummel you to go with her to church. Feeling greatly obligated, and wishing to earn brownie points with her since you've just discovered that you like her, you went along.

When you enter the mega church, you were overwhelmed. Every church member were at their Calvary best. It looked either like a cloned factory of good mannerism or a stadium of euphoric line dancers. Seated in your Dunlop pew, you are swooned by the catchy, feel-good music performed by a professional band and a phalanx of Prozac youth.

Then, comes the dynamic message delivered by a impeccably dressed, good looking, charismatic pastor. When altar calls come, you see the lemming effect where an endless stream of semi-hypnotic crowd rushed to the front. This is also where you got a nudge from your friend to follow suit. Any remnant of hesitation on your part is usually stripped away by an assigned pair of counselors egging you up your seat amidst a dozen pairs of curious eyes spotlighting you.

In a situation like this, it is usually only the socially comatose who would be able to effectively resist the mounting pressure to please. The question here is, How much of your choice to make the altar call trip a carefully thought-out, self-evaluated act and how much of it is a mindless succumb to peer and social sway?

In other words, Are you really free in a situation where your free will is effectively compromised and where external factors other than yourself overpower your own will? Is free will then an illusion?

Here is another more exacting scenario.

Can a man, whose brain is impaired by some accident to the extent that his former personality has been robbed from him, truly say that his choices are wholly consistent with who he was? If not, and he is not the same person as before due to the brain damage, how are we to deal with issue of personal responsibility and the concept of justice?

Let me elaborate with this curious story of a convicted felon named Simon Pirela. Simon was convicted of murder in 1982 and sentenced to death. He languished in prison for 20 years before a team of dedicated lawyers submitted medical evidence that he is mentally retarded.

On account of the latest medical findings, Simon was released from prison.

So, Simon was incarcerated for nothing. He was not responsible for his action. In other words, his action was mediated by a damaged brain and he was a person not in control of his mental faculties. Strangely, if every murderer and rapist can get away scot free by extending the plea of a damaged brain that erodes all acts of free will, then it won't be long before we convert all our penitentiaries into beachfront villas and chateau!

In an intimate way, we ourselves unknowingly acknowledge the restriction of free will. This is most obvious when we walk the other way when approaching a man with some of these characteristics: he's murmuring to himself; he's naked from the top; he reeks of alcohol; he's leering at young girls; he's smiling cheekily at you. Why did we choose avoidance as a strategy in the above encounter?

Well, obviously, we fear for our own safety and we know that any harm that comes to us would not be the fault of our assailant. Surely, we can understand why a mentally deranged man is not responsible for his actions. Can't we?

Recently, a married client of mine confessed to me that he cannot help but engage in extra marital affairs. He said that he still loves his wife and he cannot bear to divorce her. But he can never be faithful. He said that he just can't help himself and he has no self control.

The question is, Does my client have a point? Is it true that he really can't help himself? Where does free will factor into his overwhelming sexual urges? Should we blame his genes or neuronal wiring for his lack of self control? Recent science of affection has shown that there is a "monogamy gene" that can be found in men's brain.

Although this is far from conclusive, studies have shown that men are less satisfied with their relationship when they have a variant of this gene (AVPRIA gene). So, Does my client suffer from the effects of this variant gene that caused him to look elsewhere for creature comfort? If so, are some serial adulterers a byproduct of this defect in their brain? Should I then advise my client to go for a brain scan and show the positive result to his wife together with this note of lament, "my genes made me unfaithful"? Haven't I given enough examples to you, my dear reader, to show that free will is at the very least semi-illusional?

The rising star of neuroscience, Sam Harris, wrote in his book, Free Will, this "well-chosen" conclusion, "The moment we pay attention, it is possible to see that free will is nowhere to be found, and our experience is perfectly compatible with this truth. Thoughts and intentions simply arise in the mind. What else could they do? The truth about us is stranger than many suppose: The illusion of free will is itself illusion."

Are we paying enough attention? (Note to self: Isn't paying or directing attention a self-conscious act?) Is the illusion of free will restricted only to our subjective experiences, that is, the self-deluded feeling of "I am me and I am in control and I choose my choices", and this deception would start to unravel when we step back, reflect and come to this realization that we are merely a snowflake in an avalanche or a pebble on the beach, totally helpless to effect changes in our life, because we have no conscious control of all the myriad factors and prior causes that decisively determine our current choices?

Can we then sympathize with Harris' view after all the above examples? Well, for starters, my examples, except for the mentally ill or the archetypical sociopath, do not eradicate the experiential concept of free will. I think that this is obvious, and by now, you should know where I am coming from.

A survey has shown that people generally live more meaningful lives when they believe that they are the author of their fate. However, my belief in free will is not hinged on this romantic result of the survey. I think subjectively and conceptually, total, unfettered free will is an illusion. Warren buffet once remarked that had he been born in the streets of some third world country, his fate would be very different.

Genes, culture and economic background do play a part, sometimes a pivotal role, in determining the course of our life. They do hold the rudder at times. All you have to do is to talk to a person in love and you'd get a feel of what I mean. This quote says it all, "Falling in love is like creating a religion which has a fallible god." I believe the only person, fictional notwithstanding, who exercises almost complete free will is Robinson Crusoe (before Friday came along).

Let it be clear. My believe in free will is just a matter of degree. Imagine a continuum. At one end is "automaton" and at the other is "master of your destiny". I personally lean towards the latter end as I fully endorse these stirring words of psychologist William James, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitude of mind...if you change your mind, you can change your life."

I cannot accept that we are mere nuts, bolts and cogs in a machine of progress and self-improvement. Look at the great men and women of history and you can see their handiwork in every aspects of modern civilization.

In fact, they determined the direction of modernity. Imagine if mankind did not invent the railways, the airports, the Internet and the hadron collider. Our marvelous inventions made a difference because its inventors persisted amidst almost insurmountable odds. And their persistence is the personification of proactivity. We made a difference because we chose to make a difference.

There is the "I" which effected the change that the "I" doggedly desired. Shakespeare calls it the "changeful potency of will power". When it comes to willpower, one can take a page off Amanda Palmer.

She is known as the "Eight Foot Bride." Amanda is 22 years old and she hails from Boston. She is actually a street performer. That's her calling. A typical day for Amanda consists of painting her face white while donning a wedding dress with a veil over her face. In her hand, she holds a bouquet of flower. She then perches herself on a box like a platform and freezes in public for hours.

Imagine the prodigious force of self-discipline involved in executing such  an act of complete stillness. Amanda recalled that there were good days and bad. Once a frat boy, half drunk, came over to her and rubbed his head in her crotch as she looked skyward, thinking to herself, "Lord, what have I done to deserve this?" In 6 years, Amanda only broke character twice. Talk about the changeful potency of willpower! Or in Amanda's case, the "changeless" potency of willpower.

I believe that to stand like a "freeze frame" bride takes a lot of self control, not to mention a whole lot of guts. Amanda must have made a conscious choice from one moment to another to remain still and those choices were made by her exclusively. It is inconceivable that she was dictated by her genes or background or the hardwiring in her brain to perform the "eight foot bride" gig in public.

We can thus see in Amanda the power of self perseverance over the pull of her immediate circumstances. But for this belief of free will to be defensible, one will have to deal with this dilemma: Who is this "I" that is making all the choices? Who is the ultimate puppet master? Religion credits this to our soul, our core self, our self-wrought identity.

But the soul hypothesis is difficult to grasp because it is a scientifically nebulous concept. Until today, neuroscientists are unable to locate a distinct personality or entity called a soul in our brain. It is quite futile to tell science that our soul, like our spirit, is non-material, not visible to the naked eyes, and non-dimensional.

All neuroscientists see is a light-up brain correlating with our thought and activities very much like a well-decorated christmas tree acting in response to a trigger switch and nothing more; no soul, no spirit, not even a rare apparition of a semblance of your holographic self. So, in the language of science, the soul is just another name for the mind. And the mind is what our brain does. There is no "ghost in the machine". The machine (brain) is all there is.

While people of the book endorse the soul as the seat of our personality and self, and where free will originates, brain science takes another view. For them, free will is an emergent concept. The science behind this view is complex but in a nutshell, it is this: Our conscious self  arose in stages from the simplest of reactiveness to external stimulus (like a cockroach reacting to a burning match) to the complicated, modular self-awareness, that is, a consciousness of self or consciousness of consciousness (for example, we are aware that we are thinking and how such thinking impact our thoughts and behavior).

So, as we evolve over aeons, our primate brain grew and made billions and billions of neuronal rewiring and connections, regeneration and truncations, strengthening and specializing, all in atomic-second reaction to our changing environment, until it develops from one adaptive complexity to another; each time tinkering and pruning to meet the basic criteria for survival and ultimately, thriving. This long drawn out process accounts for the emergence of our conscious self. This also accounts for how the process itself has become it's own creator; the medium (brain) has become the message (informational consciousness of self). Just think about the Internet.

When it was first conceived in the fifties by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency in US), it was merely a project intended for restricted military usage. But now, today, look at how enormous and powerful the Internet has grown. At some point in it's development, it has grown so huge that it seems to have a life of its own. In other words, the Internet seems to have a working mind independent of our collective input. This is a blunt analogy for consciousness.

With this development of our conscious self, our free will emerges quite deterministically.  I know this is not easy to digest at one go. But this is where we are at in the field of brain science and my knowledge of it is merely elementary. Like proving the existence of the soul, this view is not perfect and it has yet to be proven conclusively.

Be that as it may, our free will is real and we are not helpless cogs in the vast inorganic machination that is this world. Individually, one impacts his/her immediate environment. Socially, as a group, we surmount obstacles; a good example of this is the history of the "Alcohol Anonymous" or AA. You will have to read their history (led by Bill Wilson) to know how group action can cause lasting personal transformation.

And lastly, collectively, on an international level, we, humanity, make a difference as we adapt to the energy crisis, the terrorism threats, political relations and climate changes.

Let me end with this inspiring story of an actress named Ruth Jones as an anecdotal tribute to the consummate power of self determination and free will. Ruth Gordon Jones was born in 1896. You may not know her but her persistence to become an actress is encouraging. You see, Ruth was only five feet tall. She was not a looker. And nothing about her acting stood out.

In fact, the President of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts told her this in her first year of studies, "We don't think you are suited to the stage...so, don't come back." Ruth refused to take no for an answer and persisted. After graduation, she scrambled from one audition to another and faced one rejection after another. But she never lost hope and made the conscious choice to hang on to her dream.

Once, she auditioned for a small agency whose head was Billy Shine. As usual, she was rejected. Unfazed, she decided to gatecrash into the rehearsal when she heard that a substitute was needed. She gave her all at the rehearsal only to be berated by Billy, "Did I engage you...Out! Get the hell out!" Crestfallen, Ruth dragged her suitcase out as 200 pairs of eyes watched her, the humiliation was unbearable. Still, Ruth refused to give up. In 1940, her efforts paid off as she got a part in "Abe Lincoln in Illinosis".

In her seventies, Ruth was recognized for her years of grit and gumption with an Academy Award for best supporting actress in "Rosemary's Baby". Ruth's indomitable spirit was truly admirable and she once declared these powerful words which I will close with, "Never give up; and never, under any circumstances, no matter what - never face the facts!"