SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM- A CASE AGAINST FREEDOM
'Scientific materialism' is the attempt to show that all knowledge and reality is a product of the material world and is subject to its laws. Thus there is no freedom since all actions are a product of the way the material world works. The ideas of two scientists, Ernst Haeckel and Jacques Monod will be discussed.
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| Ernst Haeckel |
Haeckel: In the 'The Riddle of the universe' he argued that everything, including thought, was the product of the material world and was absolutely controlled by its laws. Thus freedom is seen to be an illusion. His view is described as a 'monist' view, since he believes there is one single reality, not two or more. Religion is also seen as mere superstition by such a view. Eventually, science would lead to a unified system of thought that would explain everything. In particular, he felt that physics had established itself beyond question and was the dominant force in our understanding.
Of course, he wrote in 1899, from which time science has moved on, especially physics. The implications of quantum theory for example, has added another dimension to the debate, which will be discussed next.
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| Jacques Monod |
Monod: He was interested in the implications of molecular biology and the changes that take place in evolution due to the random mutations at the genetic level. Monod thus argued that everything that takes place at higher levels of organisation, in this case the human being, is ultimately the result of chance. Once these chance mutations take place, everything else follows from them out of necessity. Such a view makes a creator God unnecessary; that we are given free-will by a divine creator is excluded by this view. The same can also be said about freedom itself, that to experience being free is merely human creativity, as all actions we take are results of chance (the circumstances) and necessity (the laws of nature).
What follows from here is that everything that takes place depends on physical laws, and that there is a decline of a dualistic notion of the universe: human freedom and physical determinism are not compatible with one another.
A CASE FOR FREEDOM: THE QUANTUM VIEW
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| THE W.Heisenberg |
The two aforementioned scientists used molecular biology and physics to say that freedom is an illusion. Some thinkers have used quantum physics, and especially what is known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, to put forward the case of free-will.
The uncertainty principle states that we can measure the position or the momentum a particle has, but we cannot know both of them at the same time accurately. The behaviour of particles also appears random and not caused. Thus quantum physics, deals with probability, not certainty at the sub-atomic level.
This principle is said to have revealed an element of chance at the heart of
reality, and this allows for freedom rather than determinism.
However, in quantum mechanics, simple events are undetermined: we cannot know what any one particle is going to do. We know what very large numbers of particles are likely to do. This approach is therefore statistical. An example of this would be exit polls: we might know how large numbers of people voted, but not any individual.
Thus, nature can still be regular and predictable, even if at the sub-atomic level individual particles are undetermined. Therefore, at the level at which human freedom operates (or at least we believe it operates), the quantum view does not seem to be relevant.
COMPLEX SITUATIONS: HOLISTIC AND REDUCTIONIST
There are two ways of examining any complex situation: a holistic point of view or a reductionist point of view. From a reductionist point of view, reality is found in the smallest component parts of any complex entity, i.e. you are made of the molecules, atoms and sub-atomic particles. From a holistic point of view, reality is seen in the complex entity itself, rather than its parts, by which it is meant that there is something that is 'you' over and above the existence of all the particles that you are comprised of.
Reductionist points of view tend to deny freedom, since if the particles you are made up of behave randomly, there is a lack of purposefulness in how you make choices, or by denying freedom of action by reducing everything to the mechanical rules that determine the operation of each component.
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| Albert Einstein |
Holistic approaches tend to see freedom as a feature of complex systems. The act of thinking and perceiving is one that involves a holistic approach. The eyes may scan and see a nose, a pair of eyes, hair, chin, clothes and so on. The mind though, puts those sensations together, checks them against memory, and experiences them together as compromising a particular person. Random perception does not make sense. Thus, if we remember Kant from the last post, the mind orders the world in terms of space, causality and time. For science to make sense, there has to be the presupposition that the world makes sense. Einstein did comment that 'God does not play dice' by which he meant that you cannot encounter the world on the basis of randomness. Therefore, it makes sense, that for the world to make sense, there has to be some sort of holistic view.
