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FREE WILL AND VIOLATION OF PHYSICAL LAWS
(Biological Grounds of Volitional Acts)
Michael Lipkind
International Institute of Biophysics, Neuss-Hombroich, Germany,
Kimron Veterinary Institute, Beit Dagan, Israel
Any comprehensive analysis of any manifestations of Consciousness inevitably comes to the dead end that is the Psycho-Physical Gap. This gap was designated by A. Gurwitsch (1953/1991) as the Break of Continuity, or Abrupt of Entirety and recently was proclaimed as Explanatory gap (J. Levine, 1983).
Till recently, the enigmatic problem of the psycho-physical gap was considered as related to pure philosophical realm with no possibility for scientific exploration that was expressed by the famous utterance by E. Du Bois-Reymond (1872): "Ignoramus et ignorabimus" ("Don’t know and never will"). However, this problem intrudes into the very heart of biological reality. In particular, the problem of the psycho-physical gap appears in "naked form" when considering at least two intrinsic biological phenomena. The 1st one concerns the transfer from a physical stimulation of receptors (e.g. rod cells in retina) to the respective feeling (e.g. visional image). Here the gap is between the physiological chain of events (receptor stimulation – neural conduction) that can be described in physical terms, and the final mental part, which is described in psychological terms. The strict structural localization of the physiological chain of the processes (before the gap) is confronted with the non-locality of mental processes (after the gap). The 2nd phenomenon concerns the normal human ontogenesis including the whole chain of events, namely, Zygote à Pre-cerebral embryo à Cerebral embryo à New-born à Child à adult Mind-possessing individual. A miraculous phenomenon of formation of immaterial mind (including Free Will as a necessary attribute) within a developing physical body along with the above sequence of events (which can be described in physical terms) is associated with the "ordinary" biological reality, that demanding scientific exploration and explanation. The latter can be reached using two opposite approaches.
According to the materialistic approach, Mind is reducible to physical fundamentals, so that mental state is identical to brain state; consequently, there is no freedom of choice – neither within the strict deterministic regularity of classic physics, nor within the probabilistic randomness and uncertainty of quantum physics. According to the behaviorist physiology based on the above principles, the behavior is realized by theoretically endless chain of the stimulus-response causation (closed physical circularity); hence, the Consciousness is epiphenomenon and the Free Will is illusion.
The main neurophysiological basis for the dualistic view is that at the level of neurons, neuronal networks, and areas of brain maps, Consciousness seems to disappear: there are no markers for it. Mind is non-spatial: there is no point in attributing positions to mental states and events. Accordingly, the Mind is an irreducible fundamental, so that the Free Will is not illusion, and then, there are two main questions:
(a) If in general the Free Will is defined as intention to do something, how can the intention originate from (within) the physical stuff of the brain? and (b) How does the Free Will "work", i.e. how can immaterial intention make influence upon the physical stuff? On the basis of such questions, the Free Will is defined as an influence on physical events that corresponds with mental intention and causes a physical change, which would NOT otherwise occur in IDENTICAL physical circumstances (Burns, 1999). In accordance with this, the volitional act is defined as being caused by the subject’s conscious decision, which may be caused by either prior neural events, or may be determined by no cause at all. In this respect, the main task is to search for a totally new paradigm based on counter-intuitive approach that may be designated as searching for extra ingredient. However, within the dualistic principles, Consciousness as it is as well as its various expressions (e.g. awareness, experience, feeling, cognition, intention, intuition, thought, decision, self, I, psyche, psi, soul etc.) are taken as such irreducible extra ingredient. The disadvantage of using such irreducible expressions of the extra ingredient consists in difficulties (up to full impossibility) for their ontological definition in non-tautological manner.
Any proposal that Free Will exists (i.e. it is not an illusion) means violation of the presently known physical laws and must necessarily involve a radical addition to them. That causes the following questions: Which physical laws are violated? How minimal can be such a violation? Would such violations be detectable? (Wilson, 1999). A particular question is what is a minimal level of energy, which is required to cause nerve cells in the brain to fire action potentials (to initiate neural stimulation). Here, there are two possibilities: (a) A volitional act itself as a function of the non-physical mind would supply such energy; (b) A non-physical mind might harness, rather than supply such energy during volitional acts. For this aim, the Mind-Brain interaction mechanisms were investigated, the general task being directed to elucidation whether a claimed violation of physical laws is so negligible that might go undetected. This means that if the required energy, coupled with the time during which it would need to be available, were low enough, then it could be "hidden" under quantum-mechanical uncertainty (Heisenberg). For this aim, the following processes of the brain activity were considered for the calculation: opening sodium channels, altering voltage gradients, synaptic transmission, neuronal modulation, and self-generation of action potentials by neurons. In each of the above cases, all the known cyto-molecular processes, e.g. conformational changes, voltage gradients, modifications of moving charges, release of transmitter and induction of action potentials were taken into account. The initial calculation concerned a primary question what minimal energy would be required from a non-physical Mind to trigger a single action potential in a single neuron. The calculations have shown that the opening of even one channel for an adequate period of time requires an energy input that is orders-of-magnitude greater than possible under quantum mechanical uncertainty, so it cannot go undetected. This requirement of energy, if met by a non-physical mind, would violate the 1st law of thermodynamics: energy would be created. The same violation of the 1st law of thermodynamics was derived from the calculation for the case of altering the voltage across the membrane, synaptic transmission, neuronal modulation, and self-generation of action potentials by neurons. The possibility was investigated whether a non-physical Mind may avoid violation of the energy conservation law by harnessing the existing energy to bring about the required changes (e.g. selective directional movement of ions with specific charges). The analysis has shown that this would require the violation of the law of momentum conservation and the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
The final conclusion is that if a non-physical mind is able to influence brain-directed neural processes, this means the violations of fundamental physical laws. Reductionist approach cannot explain it – it just denies the existence of a non-material Mind and Free Will. Dualistic approach has provided meanwhile only tautological pseudo-fundamentals. Dualistic appeals for a new paradigm look like expectation for a "Deus ex machina" of the medieval theater, or the Advent of Messiah – meanwhile there has been no constructive breakthrough.
The present paper proposes vitalistic theory of the Free Will based on the theory of the vectorial biological field by A. Gurwitsch (1944, 1991; Lipkind, 1989, 1998). The task was to reduce the notion of Consciousness (Free Will) to such elementary basic concept, which would be non-reducible to the physical fundamentals – yet not equal to the tautological pseudo-fundamental notions (like intention, awareness, etc.). The Gurwitschian field is irreducible to any physical field but it is defined by strictly determined postulation, in contrast to the vague non-defined field concepts (like that by P. Weiss). For the explanation of the "embryo’s psychics", the embryo’s knowledge about its own integral field configuration was used by Gurwitsch as the fundamental concept. Accordingly, it was postulated that the early (pre-cerebral) embryo "knows" its integral field and acts in order to smooth any possible both robust and light perturbations. However, the notion of knowledge as a fundamental concept is not enough unequivocal.
Therefore, here the notion of Geometrical Feeling is suggested as the elementary fundamental concept for protoconsciousness. The protoconsciousness is the embodied immanent capacity of any living cell to FEEL any spatial non-congruence between the cell’s evolving species-specific "ideal" GEOMETRIC FORM (determined by the Gurwitschian field), on one hand, and the real distribution of the material stuff "filling" this form, on the other hand. This means that any current non-congruence between the ideal geometrical frame determining the species-specific macro-morphology, on one hand, and the dynamically fluctuating distribution of the physical "meat" filling this frame, on the other hand, is "felt" by the living entity that reacts morphogenically to smooth the non-congruence. Consequently the combination "geometrical feeling" - "morphogenic reaction" can be considered as a rudimentary psychic act ("morphological mind"). The theory of the vectorial biological field by A. Gurwitsch gives a basis for elaboration of the naturalistic definition of consciousness. On that basis, the definitions of protoconsciousness (cellular), primordial consciousness (embryonic) and consciousness per se have been formulated in consistent succession. The ontogenesis of the human individual’s consciousness as well as the phylogenetic formation of the consciousness per se as a species-specific property of Homo sapiens show the stages from the "pre-cerebral" slowly reacting "morphological mentality" - through the quickly reacting neurophysiological (instinctive/reflective) behavior - to the consciousness per se.
