“Is the self an illusion?”
“Is there an ‘I’ responsible for the behavior?”
“Or is the behavior biologically determined?”
These are difficult questions yet important for our understanding of the truth. We all feel that there is an inner self in each of us, responsible for the choices we make, and the values we hold.
This notion of self considers that there is an entity ‘I’ independent of the physics of all things, operating freely with individuality.
The self serves as the source of our true identity. What if I tell you that this ‘self’ is an illusion created by our beloved natural selection.
Certain neural activities and chemicals in your biological system make you function the way you do and thus determine your personality.
If we change the neural wiring and the amount of chemicals released, your personality would change.
There are instances wherein a brain injury led to a complete change in one’s personality.
(Where does this leave the freely functioning self?)
Just by increasing the serotonin levels, we would get to be competent leaders. The mere fact that our internal system consists of a complex myriad of physical activities is enough to debunk the naive notion of an independent self.
A lawyer convinced a California jury that eating junk food had impaired the ability of his client to think clearly and rationally, hence he must not be charged for the crimes.
In light of this, Evolutionary Psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson asked if ‘high testosterone’ could be used as a defense for male criminals.
Philosopher Jay Garfield believes that such a dualistic picture of humans (body and self) does not make sense from the naturalistic perspective as our actions are just a part of the ‘physics’ of things.
The physical system that you currently possess got shaped by the evolutionary history spanning millions of years.
Moreover from the big bang to the present state of your body, the countless physical process took place leading from one stage to another. These physical processes took place in a deterministic manner and in turn determine the next step of action.
For instance, right after the big bang, the universe was extremely hot but as it expanded (just as the universe is always expanding) it eventually cooled leading to the formation of elements. From then gravity enabled the formation of the first stars and galaxies.
Here we can see that the universe functioned in a deterministic manner, wherein one event( cooling of the universe) led to another (formation of elements).
If we stretch this logic further, we can see how previous events would be responsible for the formation of human tribes, the agricultural revolution, and the enlightenment or the scientific revolution. On a micro level, we may even trace it to predict your next action (as at the end of the day you are just a part of ‘physics’ of all things).
From an entirely different (and philosophical) perspective we can say that if we ask the three magical letters ‘why’ enough times, we’ll get to expose the self through purely Socratic questioning.
Premise 1: You choose to eat pizza over a burger
WHY
Premise 2: You ‘feel’ like eating pizza currently
WHY
Premise 3: You’ve been eating burgers for the past few weeks as you didn’t ‘feel’ like eating pizza before.
WHY…..
Again we can see that your actions are governed by internal urges completely out of your control. You did not choose to eat pizza over the burger, you just ate it.
You cannot choose to ‘want’ something. Even if you do something against your wants, still there was something inside you that made you act in that manner.
The Naturalistic perspective ( the most reliable perspective to view reality) leaves no room for any sort of ‘self’ to emerge, independent of our physical structure. Hence I make the claim that Free Will or the sense of a freely functioning self remains a mere figment of the imagination.
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