Volition and Physical Laws

The term "known laws of physics" is meant to include any of the theoretical machinery used in unified field theory and string theory, even though these subjects are in an unfinished state. This theoretical machinery uses the same basic concepts-space, time, mass, interaction strength-as the present body of physics and does not make any assertions about consciousness. The concept of free will is central to our lives, as we make day-today decisions, and to our culture, in our ethical and legal systems. The very concept implies that what we choose can produce a change in our physical environment, whether by pressing a switch to turn out electric lights or choosing a long-term plan of action which can affect many people. Yet volition is not a part of presently known physical laws, and it is not even known whether it exists-no physics experiments have ever established its presence. (We will use the terms volition and free will synonymously in this article.) The purpose of this article is to make two points: first, that free will cannot be accounted for by presently known physical laws, and second, that if free will exists, any description of its effects in the physical world necessarily would constitute a radical addition to presently known physical laws. The first point can be easily made. Presently known physical laws incorporate only the determinism of classical physics and the randomness of quantum physics, and neither of these are what is meant by free will. So they cannot account for it. One might think that this would end the discussion. However, Scott (1995) has pointed out that because of the complexity of biological systems, the properties of these can seem very different from those of relatively simpler physical systems, and he proposes that similarly, even though consciousness appears to have very different properties than those described by known physical laws, it may in fact entirely derive from these laws. Scott (1995) does not discuss the possibility of volition. However, volition (if it exists) is an aspect of consciousness. So if Scott's proposal is correct, it could be held that volition also derives from presently known physical laws. Scott makes his argument by presenting examples of experimentally determined biological properties which seem incompatible with those predicted by physical laws. However, we will see in the next section (Emergent Phenomena) that the apparent contradictions can be resolved on closer inspection. Therefore, there …