“Defending Free Will & The Self”
Frank S. Robinson in Philosophy Now magazine
So, the human brain evolves to be in sync with what matter had already evolved into before. But how to explain this “extra layer of cognition” going all the way back to the time when the universe is described by the folks at CERN by noting that…
“It took 380,000 years for electrons to be trapped in orbits around nuclei, forming the first atoms. These were mainly helium and hydrogen, which are still by far the most abundant elements in the universe. 1.6 million years later, gravity began to form stars and galaxies from clouds of gas.”
So, in a determined universe, we go from matter that is just electrons trapped in orbits around nuclei, to atoms, to mostly hydrogen and helium, to clouds of gas, to stars, to super novas exploding and producing all of the heavier elements that managed to become living matter that has evolved on planet earth into a species compelled to have this extra layer of cognition.
And this extra layer now includes a human psychology that, in having the capacity to choose among alternatives, is also able to delude itself into thinking that it can do this of its own free will.
What’s wrong with this picture? Or, more to the point, how do we demonstrate what’s right with it? Other than in the manner in which over time nature compels us to. If nature doesn’t compel us to destroy ourselves first. Or if nature doesn’t compel one or another aggregation of mindless matter to commence the next “extinction event” here on earth. One that this time includes us.
Freedom evolves. That’s a good way to put it. We just don’t know if it was ever able not to evolve as it did. Or to evolve as it did because we had an actual say in in choosing the direction.
But: Sans God there would be no advantages or disadvantages in the evolution of matter. That would imply some manifestation of teleology. Matter evolving one way rather than another in order to achieve some purpose or a goal.
From my frame of mind, it seems that compatibilism was compelled by nature [re human psychology] because this extra layer of cognition allows “I” to make that crucial peacegirlian distinction between participating in the evolution of matter in a way that mindless matters [like dominoes] cannot. Even though nothing at all could or would ever be other than what it must be.
After all, it’s not like Mother Nature actually does exist as an entity pondering the advantages and disadvantages of a big brain and then freely opting herself to choose the one we’ve got.