Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
genetically, which results in our genes controlling our actions, we also
seem to be choosing the particular genes that do the controlling. This
correlates with Wilson's position, noted above, that while sometimes
genes hold culture on a leash, interestingly enough, culture also holds
the genes on a leash. How human freedom would fit here is quite unclear,
for a leash, is still a leash, and in this perspective it sets clear limits.
Wilson goes on to specify the nature of freedom: “To the extent that
the future of objects can be foretold by an intelligence which itself has
a material basis, they are determined—but only within the conceptual
world of the observing intelligence. And insofar as they can make deci-
sions of their own accord—whether or not they are determined—they
possess free will.”
21
He uses the example of a bee. If we were to know
all the properties of small animals—for instance, the bee's nervous
system, its behavioral characteristics, and its personal history—and if this
information could be put into a computer program, we could predict the
bee's flight. To the circle of human observers watching the computer
readout, the future of the bee is determined to some extent. But in the
bee's own “mind,” the bee, who is isolated permanently from such
human knowledge, will always have free will.
22
The same is true for
humans, insofar as their behavior can be specified. Yet because of the
complexity of human behavior, technical limitations, and perhaps, the
capacity of intelligence in general, such specification and prediction of
human behavior is practically impossible. Wilson concludes: “Thus
because of mathematical indeterminacy and the uncertainty principle, it
may be a law of nature that no nervous system is capable of acquiring
enough knowledge to significantly predict the future of any other
intelligent system in detail. Nor can intelligent minds gain enough self-
knowledge to know their own future, capture fate, and in this sense
eliminate free will.”
23
For Wilson, free will is either indeterminacy or unpredictability, and
it is a function of a technical inability either to know all the variables
or—should they be known—to program them in a meaningful way.
Dawkins also contends that there is no clear relation between a
particular trait's being under genetic control and the possibility of its
modification. While this argues against a particular kind of genetic
determinism and lack of freedom, the question of how such modifica-
tion occurs still remains. Dawkins states as well, especially in
The Selfish
