Evolution of Free Will

The question of free will has been bugging me since around April 2005, prior to that, it was a given that free will was absolute - every choice or lack of choice was your decision to make (Sartre we are condemned to be free).

From a physics point of view, the development of free will is nonsense, since free will transcends the deterministic nature of the physical universe (ignoring for the moment spooky quantum behaviour). Consequently, free will cannot exist. Therefore, we are deterministic, but ... we have the illusion of free will. We believe we make choices, we believe we a distinct from others. But why would such an illusion evolve? What is the benefit of thinking we have free will? I haven't seen any good theories on this; generally, it is ignored or left unanswered. When answers are given, they tend to be of the “it makes us feel good” variety. Feeling good about ourselves means we will be more likely to reproduce and pass those characteristics on, as opposed to those who find life sucks and do away with themselves before they can reproduce (pass their genes on).

Recent posts on breal's blog and a series of exchanges with MOI have led me to think a little more about it. Here are my latest thoughts:

People exhibit a dichotomy, on one hand people tend to avoid being too different from others; on the other hand, people claim to exercise independence of thought and choice. If people did exercise independent thought and choice, I would expect to see much less clustering behaviour - but I do not, people definitely cluster.

It can be argued that people have limited ranges of comfortable sensory input, so it is reasonable for this to limit available choices and, indeed, drive choices toward a median (for example, preferring a sweetened beverage over plain water). So clustering is natural and expected. Sounds sensible, however, one would therefore expect choices to constantly be driven to the same locus. They are not. Fashions, tastes and trends change, yet, people cluster around the new loci. If our sensory input ranges were truly limited, then we would expect people to continue to listen to classical or big band, but they do not, these are non-mainstream, not of interest or appeal to the majority. It is unreasonable to assume evolutionary pressures have evolved musical taste so quickly. A more reasonable explanation is that people independently choose to like the new music. Yet this independent choice is an illusion, because they have really just chosen to be like everyone else. What is the evolutionary benefit of that?

It is unfair to say that people are mindless sheep; there are differences between individuals.

I have two explanations (which, to the best of my knowledge are original - yep, you heard it here first) and they both relate to survival (not surprising given I am trying to understand it as a product of evolution).

One: As individuals, we compete for resources in order to survive. If everybody is clustered together and trying to survive of the same bit of land, chaos and violence would rapidly ensue resulting in the loss of genetic information (recall Richard Dawkin’s proposed the gene as the smallest survival unit in his book The Selfish Gene). If violence did not occur, eventually the land would be unable to sustain the population.

So by being independent, striking out on our own, we seek to distance ourselves from the group / community. But not really. Let's face it, there is safety in numbers. We are safest from predators, if we are in the middle of the group rather than on the periphery where a hungry predator picks us off. Consequently, we have this built in drive to be independent and to do our own thing, but it is countered by a desire of not endangering ourselves. So, instead of crossing the mountains and settling alone 300 miles away, we instead opt to move down the road a few yards. Therefore, we cluster, despite wanting to strike out on our own.

Two: an alternate view, or possibly complementary view is that our primary function is to ensure we pass our genetic information to future generations. One way to do this is for us to believe that we are unique and special and our genes definitely need to get to the next generation because no one else is like me. To badly misappropriate Pascal, I think, I choose, therefore I am fit to reproduce, unlike those sheep over there. If the differences are too great, then reproduction likely would not go ahead, so once again, you choose to be different by conforming, more or less, to the crowd.

Image nabbed from here.