Question: Is the Mormon doctrine of "agency" or "free will" false, since all human choices are predetermined by the laws of physics?

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Question

Science demonstrates that all interactions of matter--including all events in the human brain--are sufficiently caused by previous events. If we know enough about the laws that govern these interactions and the current state of the universe, we would be able to exactly predict any future event. Does this mean that the doctrine of "free agency" or "free will" is false, since all human choices are predetermined by the laws of physics?

Answer

Everything we think and feel is probably correlated with some physical changes in the brain. And, really, this shouldn't surprise the LDS, since they do not believe that "mind"/"spirit" and "body" are two totally separate and utterly un-similar things (See Cartesian fallacy):

There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes;

We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter. (D&C 131:7-8)

Thus, in LDS theology there is no spirit/matter dichotomy. Spirit is matter, though less easily detected by mortal eyes. If a spiritual experience or a "thought" from our spirit/mind is to have an effect upon a mortal being, it's not surprising to find detectable physical changes in the gross "non-spiritual" matter which we can study. You won't detect the actor (the 'spirit matter'), necessarily, but you might expect to see the effect of the action (on the 'body matter').

Classical physics (the physics of Newton) is deterministic—by "deterministic" we mean that if you know the starting conditions in enough detail, then everything just happens "inevitably," and the outcome is predetermined in advance.

We might notice that this could create big problems for free will—if God (or someone else) can know the starting conditions of the universe (including us and our brains), then He can predict exactly how things are going to work out. Many thinkers and philosophers accepted this conclusion of classical physics.

However, we now know that classical physics is not the whole story about the physical world, due to the early 20th century revolution in quantum physics.

A great deal of nonsense has been written about quantum physics, and we do not wish to here overstate the case. As one author wrote:

The scientific evidence for quantum mechanics is sometimes said to show that determinism is false. Quantum theory is indeed very well confirmed. However, there is nothing approaching a consensus on how to interpret it, on what it shows us with respect to how things are in the world. Indeterministic as well as deterministic interpretations have been developed, but it is far from clear whether any of the existing interpretations is correct. Perhaps the best that can be said here is that, given the demise of classical mechanics and electromagnetic theory, there is no good evidence that determinism is true.^[1]

In quantum mechanics, at any rate, it is no longer quite so clear that everything is deterministic. Events happen which seem to have 'no cause' at all. Other causes come after the events they caused. It is weird stuff, but suffice it to say that there seems to be enough evidence from the physical world that we can study to say that pure determinism probably isn't the whole story. Or, at least, we are not compelled to accept that things must be deterministic.

This is an active area of debate in philosophy; some LDS and non-LDS resources on the topic are available below.

Endnotes

1. [note]  Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy plato.stanford.edu (revised 17 August 2004), last accessed 23 October 2006). off-site

Further reading

External links

• Wikipedia - the science of free will

Printed material

• Richard N. Williams, "The Human Context of Agency," American Psychologist 47:6 (June 1992): 752-760.