1.    什麼是「『自由』『意志』」？ 

在我又一次表示我對「自由意志」這個概念的看法前，我先簡單的說一下我對「自由」、「意志」、和「自由意志」三個「詞彙」的了解。

一般來說，「自由」有兩個意思：

a.    在政治學或社會學領域，它指「不受外力侷限(的情況或條件)。」

b.    在形上學或神學領域，它指「一個事件或現象沒有造成它產生的『原因』(的情況或條件)。」；或者說，一個事件或現象「自發」或「自身為因」的情況或條件。

「意志」的意思通常指：一個人試圖達到某種目的的願望、欲望、或企圖，以及此願望、欲望、或企圖(以下總稱「願望」)的強烈度。「強烈度」指：一個人為了達到她/他的目的，願意付出和能夠承受的「上限」。

以上關於「自由」的第一個所指或意義，並不適用於「自由意志」的概念；當人們討論「人有或沒有『自由意志』？」時，問題的焦點在於：

一個人的「意志」是(她/他)自發的？還是被其他因素「制約」(而產生)或「誘發」的？

2.    大腦神經學

許多學者引用大腦神經學的研究成果，闡釋人其實沒有「自由意志」。一個常被引用的論述是「大腦比你先知道」。我不研究大腦神經學，自然沒有批駁這種觀點的資格或能力。就我讀過的相關報導或研究結果來說，我認為這類論述和「甕中鬼影」有同樣的思路盲點。

以日常生活語言來說，人有或產生這個或那個願望；以及它因人(或同一個人因時、因地)有不同的強烈度，是絕大多數人都有的經驗。如果說，「我」沒有或不能產生願望，但「我」的神經細胞、神經網絡、或神經傳導質有或能產生它，聽起來好像有點怪怪的。

3.    社會建構論

「社會建構論」認為：

我們每個人的「觀點」(是通稱「意識」的一部分)以及受這些觀點指導所產生的「行為」，都是我們成長過程中，在「社會」(「文化」)的影響、教導、訓練、或「制約」下形成的。

我大致接受這個理論。我相信在分析：「(人的)意志是『自發』或被其他因素『制約』或『誘發』？」這個問題上，它比大腦神經學研究成果更有相關性。

4.    什麼是「人」？

不過，我認為如果要進一步討論「大腦神經學」和「社會建構論」的研究或理論跟「自由意志」是否相關，我們需要先回答：「什麼是『人』？」

許多文化都有類似「冠禮」的儀式。一位青少年經過這類儀式後，進入她/他人生的另一個階段；或取得某種社會地位。但是，舉行「冠禮」之後並不表示一位青少年就此「『成』人」。我們的成長是個持續不斷的改變過程，直到我們過世。昨日之「我」跟今日之「我」一定有少許不同，但這兩個有少許不同的「我」，應該還是被看成同一個「我」。換言之，在四度空間中，一個人在人生軌跡上的任何一「點」，是她/他「經驗」、「生理器官」、「神經網絡」、以及這三者結合而成「意識」四個成分加起來的「向量」。如果我們硬要把「人」和構成她/他這個「人」的成分(如意識或神經網絡)加以分別，就不免陷入「二元論」或「多元論」的泥淖；或「大腦比你先知道」這類「戲論」或邏輯謬誤。

如果以上的分析說得通，也就是說，我們不能把「人」和構成「人」的成分當做兩個個體來對待，則我認為：「即使在大腦神經學研究和社會建構論的主張下，如果一個人有『意志』，它是這個人自己(基於自己經驗或生理需求)產生的。」

人的願望可能被種種因素「制約」或「誘發」，這些因素包括兒時聽到的故事、當下流行的電視節目、和無所不在的廣告等等。但是最後要執行或落實它的「強烈度」，仍然是一個人自己的決定。

但是，「人有或沒有『自由意志』？」這個問題真的重要嗎？

5.    「自由意志」和「責任」

一般討論這個議題的學者，往往把「責任」分成「道德責任」和「法律責任」來論述。由於我們當下身處於「後真相」( = 「真相不值兩個大洋」)時代，侈言「道德責任」有點矯作或不合時宜。我也大致接受尼采對「道德」所做的分析，我就只談「法律責任」。

霍布士指出，人們接受威權和法律的管束，是為了避免叢林世界的運作模式，增加各自存活的機率；而不是因為人賤或有奴性。一個人的行為損害到其他社會成員權益時，對方或社會將採取某種「反制」措施。因此，我們生活在社會中需要「守法」，或需要面對「不守法」的後果。這個現實和我們有沒有「自由意志」並不相關；它是多數人在「(我們大家)同意有維持社會秩序的必要。」這個觀念或意志下所形成的共識。如果一個人缺乏「自由意志」、「判斷能力」、或「(對)行為(負責)能力」，她/他仍需要面對「被隔離在社會之外」的處置。

一位羅馬學者曾說，「對法律『無知』不是避免(受到)法律制裁的藉口。」(大意如此)，這個觀點也適用於「『沒有』自由意志」的人。

6.    「自由意志」和「選擇能力」

除了各宗教基本教義派的死忠者外，多數人接受地球上生物界的洋洋大觀以及人成為「萬物之靈」的現況，是生物「演化」的結果。「自然淘汰」和「適者生存」這兩個「生物演化」原則大概也適用於文化的發展及演變。只是我們需要把「自然淘汰」的概念修改為「社會淘汰」。文化發展和生物演化過程一個完全不同的地方，在於文化沒有相當於「基因」的因素，也就缺乏相當於「突變」的機制。

那促成文化發展及演變的機制或動力是什麼呢？這個問題有待「文化研究」領域的學者來深入討論。我在此借用「管理學」中一個概念來略表淺見。

一個企業要蓬勃擴展，受到財務、技術、人力、和大環境等等因素的影響；但一個重要的環節是：該企業的「決策機制」以及各階層主管「選擇」適當(或有利)「決策」的能力。

「決策能力」表現在：選擇適當的「目標」，規劃適當的「執行方案」，適當的運用現有資源等等。在上述「選擇」、「規劃」、和「運用」的行動中，行動者也不斷的在做種種「判斷」和「選擇」的動作。

人的適當「判斷」和「選擇」是企業能蓬勃擴展的動力；兩者也是人類能建立輝煌文化的動力。人的「想像力」和「創造力」導致的結果，則扮演著「(基因)演化論」中「突變」機制的角色。不過，我要強調：「想像力」和「創造力」不是無中生有的所謂「浮現性質」；它們是經驗累積以及觸類旁通和自由聯想這類活動的結果。我們能累積經驗以及進行觸類旁通和自由聯想的活動，是因為我們在具有神經細胞、神經網絡、或神經傳導質以及其他生理結構所致。當然，我們是在「社會」這個環境中成長，它也是構成「我」這個「人」不可或缺的條件。

7.    結論

面對人類過去的歷史發展和當下的經濟活動，我想很少人能否認：

「在面對眾多選項時，人有(理性的)『選擇』能力」。

「理性的」一詞中的「理性」在此指「工具理性」。它沒有哲學或形上學的意涵，只是用來描述一種能幫助人增加存活機率的傾向或行為。如果行為和「增加存活機率」無關，「選擇」是否「理性的」並不重要。

「選擇」和「意志」一樣，它蘊含或預設「目的」；和「意志」一樣，「選擇」也會決定一個人行動的後果(或此人的「命運」) 。因此，「『選擇』能力」(這個概念)可以完成許多學者賦予「自由意志」的功能。

這是我認為「人有或沒有『自由意志』？」這個問題並不重要的理由。

8.    後記

2017年10月張系國博士在他《海默三部曲》的新書發表會上說，這三本書也在探討「人有或沒有『自由意志』？」。我當時在會後對他說，我也常常思考這個問題，有空時我把我的想法整理一下，向你請教。在將近一年後，我總算有了把它們寫出來的「意志」。只是垂垂老矣的我，思考已不甚周全，說理也沒有過去嚴謹；意見不成熟是想當然耳的結果。

本文內容的論點在拙作《「自由意志」的討論》(本欄開欄文)一文中都已提及；只是本文比較簡短和把結論放在另一個重點。請一併參考。十多年來，在這個部落格上，我大概已經表達過三或四次對「自由意志」的觀點，每次都有些修改，這次也不例外。想來(希望？)以上所說並不會是我對這個概念的「最後意見」。請系國兄和網友們不吝指教。

Do Rats Have Free Will?          

Neuroskeptic, the Discover, 11/12/14

New research on the neural basis of ‘spontaneous’ actions in rats could shed light on the philosophical mystery that is human ‘free will’.

The study, just published in Nature Neuroscience, is called Neural antecedents of self-initiated actions in secondary motor cortex. It’s from researchers Masayoshi Murakami and colleagues of Portugal’s excellently-named Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown.

The senior author is Zach Mainen, whom I interviewed recently after he helped organize the campaign for reform of Europe’s Human Brain Project.

Murakami et al. trained rats to perform a task requiring patience. In each trial, the rat heard a sound and had to wait in place until a second sound occured. If they waited, they got a large amount of water as a reward. If they moved to get some water too soon, however, they only got a small amount.

Using tiny electrodes implanted in the premotor cortex of the rats’ brains, Murakami et al. discovered that some neurons seemed to act as “integrators” (or counters) – over the course of the waiting period, their firing activity gradually increased. If activity reached a certain threshold before the second sound played, the rat would stop waiting and ‘spontaneously’ decide to go for the small reward.

These “integrator” neurons didn’t always count at the same speed, however. On some trials, they ‘ramped up’ more quickly – and when this happened, the rat was more impatient. This image shows the relationship between ramp up rates and waiting time. (請至原網頁參考相關圖片)

Why did the integrators sometimes count faster than other times? Murakami et al. found a second class of neurons, whose rate of firing (which varied seemingly at random) predicted the rate at which the integrators “counted up”. The authors suggest, therefore, that these latter neurons provide inputs to the neural integrators. When the total amount of input reaches a threshold, a ‘spontaneous’ action is triggered.

What does this have to do with free will? Well, it all goes back to 1983, when a neuroscientist called Benjamin Libet found, using EEG, that a certain pattern of brain activity – a “readiness potential” – occurs in the human brain just before ‘spontaneous’ actions. In fact, this brain event happens even before we are aware of deciding to act.

Libet’s much-discussed finding has been seen as evidence against free will because it seems to suggest that ‘the brain decides to act before we do’.

But what if the readiness potential is somehow the equivalent of the rat “integrator”? That would be a big deal, say Murakami et al. In this case,

activity preceding bound crossing, either input or accumulated activity, could be said to participate causally in the timing of an action, but does not uniquely specify it. The integration-to-bound theory implies that no decision has been made until the bound has been reached… as at any moment up to bound crossing, the arrival of opposing inputs may avert an action.

In other words, maybe the readiness potential is not a consequence of a decision that has already been made, but rather is a contributor to a decision that only happens later.

This is in fact not a new idea. I blogged about this kind of interpretation of the Libet experiment last year, and integrate-to-bound models are quite common in neuroscience (e.g.). However Murakami et al. say that they’re the first researchers to find direct evidence for this model in decision making.

They conclude that the integrator threshold might even reflect the boundary between unconscious and conscious neural processes:

Crossing the threshold from unawareness to awareness [could be] a reflection of bound crossing [in the integrator].

In this way, the integration-to-bound theory may help to resolve the contradiction between the subjective report of free will and the requirement for causal antecedents to non-capricious, willed actions.

…our results provide a starting point for investigating mechanisms underlying concepts such as self, will and intention to act, which might be conserved among mammalian species.

Murakami M, Vicente MI, Costa GM, & Mainen ZF (2014). Neural antecedents of self-initiated actions in secondary motor cortex. Nature neuroscience, 17 (11), 1574-82 PMID: 25262496

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2014/11/12/rats-free-will/#.VGVuV5PF8-s

Belief in Free Will Not Threatened by Neuroscience

Christian Jarrett, 09/29/14

A key finding from neuroscience research over the last few decades is that non-conscious preparatory brain activity appears to precede the subjective feeling of making a decision. Some neuroscientists, like Sam Harris, have argued that this shows our sense of free will is an illusion, and that lay people would realize this too if they were given a vivid demonstration of the implications of the science (see below). Books have even started to appear with titles like My Brain Made Me Do It: The Rise of Neuroscience and the Threat to Moral Responsibility by Eliezer J. Sternberg.

However, in a new paper, a team led by Eddy Nahmias counter such claims. They believe that Harris and others (who they dub “willusionists”) make several unfounded assumptions about the basis of most people’s sense of free will. Using a series of vivid hypothetical scenarios based on Harris’ own writings, Nahmias and his colleagues tested whether people’s belief in free will really is challenged by “neuroprediction” – the idea of neuroscientists using brain activity to predict a person’s choices – and by the related notion that mental activity is no more than brain activity.

The research involved hundreds of undergrads at Georgia State University in Atlanta. They were told about a piece of wearable brain imaging technology – a cap – available in the future that would allow neuroscientists to predict a person’s decisions before they made them. They also read a story about a woman named Jill who wore the cap for a month, and how scientists predicted her every choice, including her votes in elections.

Most of the students (80 per cent) agreed that this future technology was plausible, but they didn’t think it undermined Jill’s free will. Most of them only felt her free will was threatened if they were told that the neuroscientists manipulated Jill’s brain activity to alter her decisions. Similar results were found in a follow-up study in which the scenario descriptions made clear that “all human mental activity just is brain activity”, and in another that swapped the power of brain imaging technology for the mind reading skills of a psychic. In each case, students only felt that free will was threatened if Jill’s decisions were manipulated, not if they were merely predicted via her brain activity or via her mind and soul (by the psychic).

Nahmias and their team said their results showed that most people have a “theory-lite” view of free will – they aren’t bothered by claims about mental activity being reduced to neural activity, nor by the idea that such activity precedes conscious decision-making and is readable by scientists. “Most people recognise that just because ‘my brain made me do it,’ that does not mean that I didn’t do it of my own free will,” the researchers said.

As neuroscience evidence increasingly enters the courtroom, these new findings have important implications for understanding how such evidence might influence legal verdicts about culpability. An obvious limitation of the research is its dependence on students in Atlanta. It will be interesting to see if the same findings apply in other cultures.

This post first appeared on the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog.

http://www.wired.com/2014/09/belief-free-will-threatened-neuroscience/

《「自由意志」的信念難以動搖》(A belief in free will is a tough one to shake)一文的作者Jones教授顯然認為人沒有「自由意志」；但他在此文中有下面這段文字：

If everyone lost their belief in free will, it could affect how we behave. People who are led to reject free will are more likely to cheat at things, for example, and are also less concerned about punishing other wrongdoers.

如果這段話屬實，則人會因為自己有某種「資訊」或接受某種「觀點」而改變自己的行為或立場。我相信這表示人有：「『選擇空間』、『選項集合』、與『選擇能力』」等等。根據我對「自由意志」的了解，以上這段文字支持人有「自由意志」的觀點(請參考開欄文)。

A belief in free will is a tough one to shake           

Dan Jones, 09/24/14

MOST people believe we have free will and so are the conscious authors of our own life stories. But if it were possible to use brain scans to predict our every action – showing that our choices are determined before we actually make them – would people abandon this belief in droves? Such knowledge would not by itself shake our confidence in our own volition, a new study suggests.

Many neuroscientists have argued that our sense of free will is nothing more than a by-product of the workings of a vast assembly of nerve cells. This is tied to determinism; the idea that every effect is connected by physical laws to a cause. This is why the behaviour of a physical system can be predicted – even the brain, in principle.

For some, such as author Sam Harris, what we know about neuroscience is incompatible with free will. As he puts it: "If determinism is true, the future is set – and this includes all our future states of mind and our subsequent behaviour."

If everyone lost their belief in free will, it could affect how we behave. People who are led to reject free will are more likely to cheat at things, for example, and are also less concerned about punishing other wrongdoers.

Those who see neuroscience and free will as incompatible argue that demonstrating the predictability of our brain should reveal the illusory nature of free will, and lead people to reject it. Experimental philosopher Eddy Nahmias at Georgia State University in Atlanta recently set out to test this idea.

Nahmias and his team told 278 participants a story of a future neuroimaging technology that allows perfect prediction of decisions based on a person's brain activity, recorded by a special skull cap. In this future world, a woman called Jill is fitted with a skull cap that allows scientists to predict everything she'll do with 100 per cent accuracy, including how she'll vote in upcoming elections. Contrary to expectations, 92 per cent of participants said that Jill's voting decision was of her own free will.

In another version of story, the scientists didn't just predict which way Jill would vote – they also manipulated her choice via the skull cap. In that scenario, most participants said that Jill did not vote of her own free will.

It was easy for people to see that being manipulated negated Jill's free will, but even when her behaviour was totally predictable, people still thought she acted on her own conscious reasoning, and so was responsible for her actions (Cognition, doi.org/vvc).

"People don't have detailed metaphysical views about what underlies free will," says Nahmias. What people believe is that their own conscious reasoning makes a difference to their behaviour – and nothing in neuroscience suggests it doesn't, he says.

"This paper breaks new ground," says Joshua Knobe, a philosopher at Yale University. "It suggests that whatever it is that we find threatening to free will, it isn't neuroscience."

This article appeared in print under the headline "A belief in free will is a tough one to shake"

Is Free Will a Magic Trick?

Melissa Burkley, 12/20/13

Watching Apollo Robbins' TED talk is highly entertaining, but it also gives us important glimpses into the nature of the human mind. Apollo is a skilled artist, not because he can steal a watch from under someone's nose but because he is able to direct the attention of his "victim" (and the audience) to exactly where he wants it. Watching his elegant dance of behavior manipulation made me question how much control we really have over our own behavior.

When it comes to this question, most people believe in the human capacity for free will. You are who you are because you chose to be. But as a social psychologist I spend most of my time focusing on the power of the situation. The environment you were raised in and the people that surrounded you had a big impact on the person you are now, in goods ways and bad. Within the last two decades, social psychologists have identified a number of ways that external pressures unconsciously nudge us to make certain choices; much like Apollo nudges his victim. I can make you like someone just by heating up the temperature of a cup of coffee you are holding. I can make you find someone sexually attractive just by adding the color red to their wardrobe. I can make you more likely to cheat just by dimming the lights. As much as we don't like to admit it, we are constantly being pushed by others and our surroundings to behave in ways we otherwise would not.

In light of these findings, many psychologists argue free will is just a magic trick or illusion. In fact, there is evidence that milliseconds before you consciously decide to move your finger, the motor area of the brain becomes active. This suggests that your automatic brain (or what Apollo called "Frank") decided to move your finger and then tricked you into thinking it was your idea. Now personally, I don't believe that all free will is an illusion. I think we all have free will, but we don't have as much as we think. External forces whittle down our choices in unconscious ways; tricking us into thinking we have more free will than we really do. At any point in time you could direct your attention away from where Apollo wants you to look (focus on the hand) and instead look at what his other hand is doing (slipping off his tie), but most of us don't. So although we feel like we have an infinite number of response choices, the Apollo-like "attention managers" in our lives have narrowed our field of vision to just a few.

Nowhere is this narrowing of options more evident than the "pick a card" trick magicians often perform. The magician waives a deck of cards in front of your face and asks you to mentally select any card from the deck. Moments later, the card you picked is in some bizarre location (sticking to ceiling, folded in the magician's wallet). Most of us figure out the card was in that location all along. But what we can't wrap our head around is how the magician knew what card we were going to pick before we picked it! Our sense of free will tells us we could have picked any of the 52 different cards, so the odds the magician would guess right are astronomical, right? But what if they could manipulate our free will so that we "freely choose" the card they wanted us to? Then this trick isn't that difficult. The way this often works is that the magician primes you with the desired card choice just before you make your pick. So the magician may flip through the deck quickly while you are making your choice, stopping ever so slightly on a particular card (e.g., 5 of hearts). Your conscious mind doesn't pick up on it, but your unconscious mind (your Frank) does. Suddenly the 5 of hearts is at the forefront of your mind. So when it comes time to pick a card, you think you selected it out of thin air, but you really picked it from the only card choice currently available in your mind. This is not to say that doing this trick is easy. Magicians spend thousands of hours perfecting their manipulations. And so too do the other pushers in our lives: the advertisers, politicians, media, even our loved ones. We all nudge each other in subtle ways to get what we want.

But what if you don't want to be nudged? Like most things in life, the first step is recognizing the problem. Whenever you feel like your options are limited -- like you just have to buy that new tech gadget or you have to do what your friend is requesting -- stop and take a step back. You probably feel this way because someone or something has narrowed your view to just one choice. But there are usually more options available than we think. Recognizing those moments when we feel our choices are limited truly frees up our free will.

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TEDWeekends will highlight some of today's most intriguing ideas and allow them to develop in real time through your voice! Tweet #TEDWeekends to share your perspective or email tedweekends@huffingtonpost.com to learn about future weekend's ideas to contribute as a writer.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-burkley-phd/is-free-will-a-magic-tric_b_4467625.html?utm_hp_ref=science&ir=Science

The Will Is Caused, Not "Free"

Our belief in free will is mainly self-serving.

John A. Bargh, Ph.D., Psychology Today, 06/23/09

Note: The following is a summary of our side of a recent debate with Roy Baumeister on free will, held at the annual convention of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology last February in Tampa, Florida. It appears in the current issue of Dialogue, the SPSP newsletter, along with a companion piece by Roy and Kathleen Vohs on determinism and causality.  My co-author is Brian Earp, erstwhile ACME lab manager.

We welcome the opportunity to summarize our main points from the SPSP debate; first though we will respond to the additional arguments by Baumeister and Vohs in this issue concerning determinism and causality. We see no problem with the assertions that psychologists need not be strict determinists to practice their science, and that determinism and causality are not the same thing. However, neither of these points is relevant to the basic question of free will. The ‘free' in free will means freedom from causation, either by external forces (in the political sense of the term) or internal ones (in the psychological sense); and in our view it is just as problematic to claim that the will is uncaused as it is to argue it is not determined.

Free will may be defined as an agent's ability to act on the world by its own volition, independently of purely physical (as opposed to metaphysical) causes and prior states of the world. The folk notion of free will is laden with the concept of a soul, a non-physical, unfettered, internal source of choice-making-in other words, an uncaused causer. "The soul" may have gone out of fashion, and "the mind" taken over many of its functions and connotations, but the intuitive notion of free will has stayed much the same: there is something inside each of us that allows us to make "real" choices -- choices that even an omnipotent being, one who knew every environmental influence, and every physical fact leading up to the choice-making event, could not foretell with perfect confidence and accuracy. Determinism, if it were true, would indeed rule out this sort of free will, or shunt it into the realm of total redundancy. But indeterminism (of whatever flavor) isn't any kinder to the notion. Just because some event is not strictly determined by prior physical data doesn't mean it is caused by a free will. It may be simply indeterminately, probabilistically, or (to whatever degree) "randomly" caused by prior physical data. (If one wishes nonetheless to use the existence of error variance as evidence for the existence of free will, we can only point out that our business as scientists is to strive to reduce this unexplained variance by replacing it with explanation. Calling it ‘free will' and walking away satisfied rather misses the point.)

But let us assume that there is a free, internal source of control that guides our behavior and is ultimately responsible for ‘real' choices. To attribute human behavior to this mystical source is to place one's bets on an increasingly shrinking sphere. The project of social psychology, after all, has been to identify

(a) external-to-the-individual causes of judgment, motivation, and behavior, such as situational influences, and

(b) internal-to-the-individual causes, which research has shown increasingly to operate outside of awareness and conscious intention-not "freely chosen" in any sense of the term.

Are there some human behaviors that are possible only if free will exists and is a true causal source of action? There may be. But let's not give up on the search for non-mystical causes just yet.

This brings us to an area of agreement revealed in the debate:

that a belief in free will is important for human strivings.

People cherish their sense of control over the world and their own behavior. In the debate, we noted recent empirical articles by Vohs and by Baumeister showing negative consequences (cheating, aggression) of informing participants that free will does not exist. Our response to these ‘new' articles is that our field revealed the existence of such positive illusions decades ago, and we already know how essential they are to normal functioning. Clearly it is motivating for each of us to believe we are better than average, that bad things happen to other people, not ourselves, and that we have free-agentic control over our own judgments and behavior -- just as it is comforting to believe in a benevolent God and justice for all in an afterlife. But the benefits of believing in free will are irrelevant to the actual existence of free will. A positive illusion, no matter how functional and comforting, is still an illusion.

And we must caution against drawing conclusions from such research findings (implicitly or explicitly) that we should either

(a) not make findings against the existence of free will known to the public or

(b) stop doing such research altogether.

The belief in personal free will is a deeply rooted aspect of human phenomenal experience, and is so powerful that even those who do not subscribe to it intellectually still feel it in their personal lives as much as everyone else. It is not uncommon for one's first-person experience to be at odds with physical reality: 500 years after Copernicus we still see a morning sunrise, not the earth (and ourselves) tilting towards the sun, even though we know better scientifically. As Dan Wegner, Paul Bloom, Dan Dennett, and others have argued, there are strong natural supports for the belief in supernatural entities, just as there are for free will -- and sunrises too, for that matter. And if, as countless recent surveys show, the prodigious evidence in favor of evolutionary theory accumulated over the past 150 years has done little to erode the popular belief in a creator-god, then we can rest assured that the relatively nascent research on unconscious causes of motivation, judgment, and behavior will not result in anarchy or the collapse of social norms and moral behavior.

We should also not forget past social psychological research demonstrating that the belief in personal free will is selective:

people routinely make self-serving attributions about the causes of their behavior.

We take credit for the positive things we do (free will), but not for our misdeeds and failures ( "I had no choice", "I was abused as a child", "I was angry"). This suggests to us that much of the emotion surrounding the issue of free will is not about freedom per se but about self-esteem maintenance. We take personal pride in our ancestors, our blue eyes or rich brown skin, our height or birthday or name (as in the name-letter effect) -- none of which we chose or had any control over. Accordingly, we analyzed hundreds of individuals' spontaneous self-descriptions, and indeed 34% of their first-to-mind completions to the stem "I am _____" were such non-chosen aspects of self. It seems that people do not possess a consistent belief in free will so much as they strongly wish to take credit for the good things they are and do (regardless of whether they caused them), and to distance themselves from the bad things (even if they caused them). Evidently, the belief in free will is not principled, but socially strategic in nature.

So what, then, if one's will is not ‘free' of internal causation? It is still your will and my will and each is unique: a confluence of genetic heritage, early absorption of local cultural norms and values, and particular individual life experiences. After all, one can claim personal ownership of one's will just as much as one claims ownership of one's name, eye color, and birthday, and be as proud of one's will and its products as one is proud of the exploits of great-great-Grandma the pioneer, even though one's ‘free will' played no role in any of these.

John Bargh and ACME Lab at Yale University conduct research on the unconscious causes of our preferences, motivations, and social behavior.  ACME publications are freely available at www.yale.edu/acmelab

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-natural-unconscious/200906/the-will-is-caused-not-free

3.     「因果律」與「自由意志」

「”自由” 意志」與「因果律」的關係已如上述；「『自由』意志」與「因果律」並不衝突。

4.     「因果決定論」與「自由意志」

接受「”自由”意志」(這個概念)的人既然不接受「因果律」的普遍適用性，則他/她們也就不會承認「因果決定論」的普遍適用性。接受「『自由』意志」的人可能承認「因果決定論」通常有某種適用性，但他/她們不會承認「因果決定論」的絕對適用性。因為接受「因果律」普遍適用性的人，並不需要同時接受「因果『律』蘊含因果『一一對應律』。」這個命題。例如，「因緣和合」的觀念說明：一個事情的發生或發展受到種種因素的影響。

引用「因果決定論」來否定「『自由』意志」的論述(Clark 2009)，我認為並無邏輯上的說服力。

5.     「責任」的概念與「自由意志」

我在《淺談「自由意志」》中已對兩者的相關性做了分析；請參考。

6.     「社會建構論」與「自由意志」

我同意「社會建構」過程制約著一個人的觀念和行為模式。由於人沒有選擇自己(幼兒時期)生長環境的機會和能力，「社會建構」可視為一種「外力」。但由於「多樣性」這個因素，我不認為「社會建構」這個過程足以排除人的選擇能力，它也就不足以排除人「自主」的能力。

「多樣性」在這個脈絡下指的是：

一個人在生長過程中會接觸到不同的人，取得不同的資訊，遭遇不同的經歷，學習到不同的教訓等等；這些不同的「刺激」會導致一個人產生不同的「反應」；從而，擴大了一個人在未來「反應」、「應變」、或「選項」的種類與範圍。即使在「人生觀」、「價值觀」、和「性格導向」這些「意識型態」或「行為準則」上，我們也受到種種不同甚至彼此不相容的「建構」。

此外，人欲望的對象、滿足特定欲望的物品或人、滿足特定欲望的方式、以及欲望發生的情境等等，也都具有「多樣性」。商業社會、資訊社會、和(基於兩者所設計的)行銷模式與技術等等，更助長了上述各個面向的「多樣性」。

當一個人有了兩個或兩個以上的「選項」，「選擇」是一個自然或必然發生的行為。

7.     「大腦神經系統運作」與「自由意志」

Melissa Burkley教授引用大腦神經學家的研究，質疑「自由意志」。她說：

In light of these findings, many psychologists argue free will is just a magic trick or illusion. In fact, there is evidence that milliseconds before you consciously decide to move your finger, the motor area of the brain becomes active. This suggests that your automatic brain (or what Apollo called "Frank") decided to move your finger and then tricked you into thinking it was your idea (Burkley 2013).

一般來說，人的決定或選擇並不是「膝蓋被敲-小腿彈起」這類簡單的「反射動作」。人的決定或選擇通常是一系列的動作(決策過程或機制)已如上述。Melissa Burkley教授這段話或其他類似的論點，不免見樹不見林和只知其一不知其二的爭議。

其次：

This suggests that your automatic brain (or what Apollo called "Frank") decided to move your finger and then tricked you into thinking it was your idea.

這段話是「擬人化」思考模式下的一個盲點或謬誤。人腦某一部位只是一堆細胞、細胞連接成的路徑、血液、化學物質等等，在外界刺激(或物理因素如溫度、濕度、壓力的「作用」下)，人腦能但也只能產生電脈波和一連串的物理/化學反應。它沒有做「決定」的能力。

8.     誰(什麼？)是「人」

以上第6、7兩節的討論引出或導致本節的標題。

如果沒有「人」或「我」的概念或類別，則「意志」、「自由」、和「自由意志」這些概念也就沒有意義。如果我們要討論「自由意志」，或許我們需要搞清楚：

「『誰』是『人』？」或「『什麼』是『人』？」

這個問題可以從種種不同的角度來回答。我只從一個唯物論者觀點就本文主題相關的層面來討論。

每一個經驗都造成我們大腦中一個獨特的「大腦神經連接網路」。隨著時間的延伸，我們成長過程中千千萬萬的經驗會使得這些「連接網路」不斷的增強、增加、改變、和消失。當我們(再度)碰到類似的情境(或「刺激-反應」鍊中的「刺激」)時，很可能有好幾個「連接網路」被啟動(「刺激-反應」鍊中的「反應」)。決定那一個「連接網路」被啟動的因素之一，是「決定」或「選擇」的結果。

上面提到人腦沒有做「決定」的能力。做「決定」或「選擇」的前提是「判斷」、「判準」(「決定」或「選擇」的依據)、以及「選項」。「人」因為有記憶細胞得以儲存過去的經驗，才有將它們轉化為「判準」和「選項」。「轉化」的動作則包括比較、分類、綜合等等。那一個獨特的「連接網路」最終被啟動和執行，是一連串和重覆的「比較」、「判斷」、「取捨」等動作的結果。

這就是俗話說的「深思熟慮」或「決策過程」。當兩個或兩個以上的人聚集在一起做決定時，就是俗話說的「集思廣益」。我們之所以有各種選項以及能有不同考量的物理基礎在此。上述「多樣性」的物理基礎在此。人有「『自由』意志」的物理基礎也在此。

回答本節的標題，我認為：

「人」是身體器官(包括大腦)以及(一個人)生活經驗的總和。從而，「我」是(我)身體器官(包括大腦)以及(我)生活經驗的總和。我的生活經驗額包括我所做的決定和我採取的行動。

本文的另一個基本假設和本節所表達的另一個結論是：「人(通常)是一個『理性行動者』」；「理性」一詞在此指「工具理性」。這個命題不在本文範圍，略而不論。

9.     結論

9.1    「『自由』意志」的「有」、「無」是個either/or的命題，不是「『有』的程度」是「高」或「低」，「大」或「小」的命題。

9.2    以「選擇空間」、「選項集合」、與「選擇能力」來代替「自由意志」可能會使相關議題的討論能夠更清楚的界定和分析。

參考文章：

* Bargh, J. A. 2009, The Will Is Caused, Not "Free", http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-natural-unconscious/200906/the-will-is-caused-not-free

請見本欄貼文《意志有其原因並不”自由”》。

* Baumeister, R. F. 2013, Do You Really Have Free Will? http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/09/free_will_debate_what_does_free_will_mean_and_how_did_it_evolve.single.html

請見【研究學問的盲點與歧路】一欄貼文《人真的有自由意志嗎?當然有》，https://city.udn.com/2976/5014522?tpno=0&cate_no=52524

* Burkley, M. 2013, Is Free Will a Magic Trick?, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-burkley-phd/is-free-will-a-magic-tric_b_4467625.html?utm_hp_ref=science&ir=Science，請見本欄貼文《自由意志是個錯覺?》。

* Clark, T. M. 2009, Fully Caused: Coming to Terms with Determinism, http://www.naturalism.org/determinism.htm

* New World Encyclopedia, Free Will, http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Free_Will

* O’Connor, T. 2010, Free Will, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

* 胡卜凱 2013，《淺談「自由意志」》，https://city.udn.com/2976/5014522?tpno=0&cate_no=52524