Change is not evidence of choice. If my mind changes, I did not cause the change because there is no agent of choice in the brain. The brain is billions of cells (mostly neurons) existing in a matrix of diverse biochemicals. Its function is to control (automatically! via nerve fiber) all muscles, organs, and glands in the body. (Really, that’s it). Another way of saying this is: There is no I in the brain. The brain functions automatically. Just as all matter functions automatically. We are self-aware state machines capable of experiencing a state change, both within us, and in the world around us. Some people call this consciousness. Fine.
Stars change state, too. They don’t choose to change state. Stars have existed much longer than life has. Now and then a star will go super nova, and there are no ifs, ands or buts (or choice) about it. Study any matter in the universe you’d like, at any level of order or organization. You’ll find it works automatically – that is, to the best of our knowledge, according to the immutable laws of physics. What you won’t find evidence of is a mysterious controller.
So how could it be that the matter between our ears fundamentally works any differently? I’m not saying it’s not Metamathemagical in its function. Hell, if you ask me, the common garden spider in our front yard is Metamathemagical! But it didn’t choose to spin its web today. Any more than I just now raised my arm to reach for a cup of coffee.
Or maybe you believe that the state of the entire universe might have been different – otherwise – at some point in time, merely because it’s unpredictable? Who’s to say what might happen tomorrow! Nobody can predict the future state of the entire universe, right? I mean, c’mon. Hell, you can’t even predict the precise 3-D state of your own body one hundred milliseconds from now! OK, sure, but here’s the thing, the fact of unpredictability doesn’t mean any future state of the universe is undetermined. Even as our present-day knowledge of the laws of physics is incomplete, it’s not like any future state of the universe could be otherwise, any different than exactly how it came to be. Quantum indeterminacy would seem to suggest that, at least at the quantum level, predicting the precise future position and direction of sub-atomic particles is not possible. But still, wherever a particle is, whatever its travel vector is, we’ve no evidence of, and thus no reason to suspect, a ghost-like chaperone particle exists, operating outside the realm of physics. That’s mysticism. If you believe that, I’ll kindly ask you to show your work! And since everything in the universe is part of it, including us, including every time-sliced state of mind, there’s no evidence of a ghost in the machine (brain) either. The organization of atoms and molecules in the brain versus a star is different, for sure, but unless you can show how that organization produces agency (choice), well, I’ll continue to prefer the principle of Occams Razor.
There is nothing in there controlling our states of mind, nothing making undetermined choices from alternatives. There are no alternatives when it comes to the future – there’s only one outcome in reality, the one that occurs. There is memory, and reasoning, and emotion, and a lot of other features of the human brain, but in the end it’s all really just experience. I don’t choose what memories to store; I don’t choose how to solve a puzzle; I don’t choose if and when to cry. I don’t choose my successes, I don’t choose my failures. I don’t choose anything because there is no I in there. I don’t think my own thoughts. None of us does. So far as we can tell, it’s the laws of physics doing all that. We merely experience it.
Or maybe you’re still unconvinced, maybe you think our spider up there might have done otherwise and taken the day off instead?