Free Will: Does It Exist?
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Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and this is Science Versus, the show that pits facts against free will.
Today on the show, does free will exist or is it just an illusion? It's a debate that scientists and philosophers have been having for a very long time, but now the internet has entered the ring. There's a meme that's been going around social media, and in these videos, you'll see people saying, I just remembered I have free will, and then they do whatever the hell they want. In one, there's a guy who dumps all his silverware out into a drawer and mixes it up. He doesn't even sort the spoons from the forks. In another video, you'll see a man eating potato chips and then climbing a ladder to his attic where he sits on a stool and continues eating potato chips. But then he'll bleat like a goat. So on the one hand, you have this celebration of our freedom, our free will, our ability to control our destinies and eat potato chips and bleat like whoever we want.
But what if that freedom isn't real? There are pockets of the internet telling us that basically everything has been destined before you even think of picking up a fork.
I think free will is an incoherent idea. We know that it doesn't exist and we know that what people think they have is an illusion. I don't think we have a shred of free will.
If this sounds mad, it's not. Going back decades, scientists have been publishing papers showing that free will might not exist. So are we kidding ourselves if we think we're freely making decisions? That I'm the one deciding to tell you the science instead of going, or bleed? Anyway, I did that. I made the choice to do two animal sounds. Or did I? Today we find out. Because when it comes to free will, you may think you have the power to decide to... But then there's science. Science vs Free Will is coming up just after the break.
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Are we doomed? Solving humanity's biggest threats. Part of the NPR Network. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dan Heath. On What It's Like to Be, I interview people about their jobs. Here's a married couple that drives a long-haul truck together.
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Welcome back today on the show. Free will, does it exist? Meryl Horne, PhD, is going to tell us all about it. Hi, Wendy. Hey, Meryl.
Yeah, we're going to crack this whole free will thing. That's great. Well, do you think we have free will, Wendy?
From what I know, I think it probably is an illusion, but it's such a good illusion that I don't know how we move on from that. Obviously, I think I have free will, but... I think I make choices. So how do you get behind that mirror?
I mean, that's what the science is helpful for, right? You don't have to just listen to us philosophize about, do we, don't we? Let's look at the science.
Exactly. So where do we begin? Can we get behind the mirror or is it just philosophizing?
I think we can. I think the science will actually help us see like, yeah, what's going on kind of behind the scenes. Okay. But first to just kind of set the stakes, you know, this might all feel like some silly little thought experiments, but the answer here does actually seem to matter.
Mm-hmm.
So, like, there have been some psychology experiments that get people to read something crapping on free will. Like, something that says, quote, science has demonstrated that free will is an illusion, unquote. Okay. And then the scientists see if reading that thing changes people's behavior. And these studies find that people will act worse. They're more likely to cheat, less likely to help other people, and more likely to be aggressive after reading stuff like this.
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