PETE: Hey Bill.
It’s Pete from Atlanta, Georgia, and I was
wondering if you believe in free will?
It feels like the idea of choice is the biggest
argument for free will, but is choice real
or is it just an idea in our heads?
If I look at my life I feel like I’m here
through a series of single decisions and it
just kind of feels very linear and kind of
on a track.
But I’m not so sure.
What do you think about it?
Thanks.
BILL NYE: So is there such a thing as free
will?
The answer is clearly “it depends what you
mean.”
So I am so compelled by these tests where
they have brain scans going on, working real
time, and then the subject is asked to make
a choice.
And they can see on the brain scan that the
choice has already been made before the person
is able to articulate it or even watch the
choice had been made have it bounce back and
forth and then settle on another choice.
This is a wonderful question, but that there
is no free will—that, to me, is an extraordinary
claim, because I feel that I have made choices
– and this might be what you’re driving
at—I feel that I have made choices freely
based on things that have happened around
me, based on the environment and my experiences
and my perception of the experiences of others.
So in other words if there really were absolutely
no free will could you then predict what every
single person in the universe or on Earth
is going to do and where he or she will end
up.
And then furthermore can that not be influenced
by some cosmic force or forces that we can’t
assess?
It could be.
It just doesn’t seem reasonable.
I think much more reasonable is: our brains
are complicated, and they got this big or
as big as they are organically through evolution,
with layer being added upon layer.
So our ability to choose is often confused.
Our ability to make choices is often affected
by the environment, by our experiences and
by biochemistry, the shape of our brain.
So I think the answer is clearly “some of
each.”
