[b]From “Moral Responsibility in a Deterministic Universe” by Ray Bradford
One option pursued by defenders of the forking paths model of decision making involves focusing on the randomness or indeterminacy involved in obtaining multiple potential effects from a given cause. Libertarian philosopher Robert Kane attempts to locate this indeterminacy on the quantum level. He argues that the mind essentially harnesses the existence of quantum indeterminacy and uses it to generate alternative paths. Many philosophers and physicists, including Einstein, have argued that describing quantum mechanics as indeterminate may ignore a critical, deterministic, hidden variable. However, even if quantum indeterminacy were conceded as ontological for the sake of argument, Kane’s argument still has a large burden to truly support the forking paths model. As Dennett points out, how can random resolutions of quantum-level events provide people with any control over their behaviors? Behavior arguably occurs on a much more macro-level where Newtonian physics apply. Moreover, while the movement of an individual particle on a quantum level may be ontologically indeterminate, its distributions prove easily predictable–hardly a strong starting point for the argument that indeterminacy can percolate up to alternative paths.[/b]
This is yet another fascinating aspect of the debate that revolves around free will. The role played by “reality” on the quantum level. Can the mind [does the mind] “essentially harnesses the existence of quantum indeterminacy and use it to generate alternative paths.”
And, if so, how does a mind operating on the macro-level even begin to pin this down? How precisely are the macro and micro worlds intertwined re “existence”?
And some [as with Einstein above] suggest the “indeterminacy” that seems to prevail on the level of “quantum mechanics” is really just reflective of the fact that physicists have simply not yet discovered the laws of matter [the bigger picture] that takes this indeterminacy away.
In other words, we will just have to sit back and wait patiently for the next Newton or Einstein to come along and shift the paradigm yet again.
There is always that tricky balance between those things we seem to control with one or another measure of autonomy and the truly mechanical parts that unfold both in and around us like clockwork.
And that always takes us back to the marvel that is mind. Matter like nothing else there has ever been before.