Partly free will

Rihoko in a towel on the bathroom scales.

Snacks and students. We apologize for any other temptations that may occur, but hopefully this journal entry will help you get a more realistic perspective on it. (Also, I actually watched the anime where this picture comes from, and she did not drop the towel.)

In my previous post, I argued that our will must in principle be free, or there would be no point in doing anything or assigning meaning to things others do. (In fact, we probably do assign too much meaning, especially to some people. But more about that soon.)

Now, saying that our will is free in principle is very different from saying that we always do what we will. That depends on something much more tricky, namely resolving who “we” are. The general notion that the human mind is like a pearl, made of the same stuff all the way through, is not supported by observation. (OK, there are some people whose mind is like a pearl: Small and simple. I don’t think any of these are reading this.)

As I said in passing: We are not alone in our head. You may certainly think so, but that only leaves you with a concept of self that is either at odds with itself or running from one position to the other constantly. All of these are valid viewpoints, and just as good as saying we are not alone in our head, I think. Possibly better, if the other phrase creeps you out. Then again, a little bit of creep may be a good thing. As it is, we tend to have a terribly naive view of what goes on in the human mind. Bitter fruits follow from this.

One concept I have mentioned from time to time is the difference between “hot” and “cold” states of mind. Cold states of mind (I rather consider them lukewarm) are the ordinary relaxed situation where everything is familiar and in control. (OK, that may not be ordinary to all, but I hope it is fairly common.) In this situation, we tend to think we are in control of our own body and mental faculties, as they say.  Memory, imagination, logic and so on.

The “hot” states of mind are those associated with primal emotions, such as fear, anger, lust and (surprisingly) disgust. In these states of mind, we view the world in a completely different light. While we may still be in control of our body, the “we” that is in control is not the usual “we”. Rather it has entirely different priorities and sees things quite differently.

One famous experiment is to ask people whether they are willing to put a live earthworm in their mouth for a reasonable amount of money. Not enough to live happily ever after, but worth a few hours work perhaps. A pretty large number of people will agree to this when the deal is talked about in a relaxed office setting framed by bookshelves etc. But once the worm is actually wriggling in front of you, only approximately 5% of the population can actually overcome their disgust. (These 5% are probably dangerous people, but that is beside the point today.)

Another interesting scenario that is not used in research for obvious reasons is sexual intercourse. Generally speaking, a sexually inexperienced woman has a hard time voluntarily going through with sexual intercourse under most circumstance. This problem is in our culture usually overcome with alcohol. Conversely, a sexually experienced man has a hard time NOT going through with intercourse if he has first started in that direction, and this causes even much more problems. (Also, alcohol does not help for that, except in extreme quantities!)

Anger and fear are states of mind even children are familiar with. And unfortunately, adults often react in much the same way as children in these situations, despite their very sincere promises to the contrary before the situation arose. The sincerity when in a “cold” state of mind is not faked, but it is also not particularly closely related to what you will actually do once you get into a “hot” state of mind.

One study showed that a complete stranger in the corresponding hot state was better able to predict a person’s behavior than the person themselves had been while in the cool state of mind.

And that only covers the sudden, intense challenges. There is also the creeping temptation challenge, the eroding of willpower through a long period of moderate temptation.

Here again test subjects (read: students) are available. For temptations are usually used snacks, such as chocolate.  Before the experiment, the test subjects and the researchers make an agreement that the test subject will not eat the snacks, usually with some reward being offered for fortitude. However, if the student is left with the snack long enough, the probability of snacking gradually rises toward 100%. It never quite reaches it (since starving students is illegal) but it keeps climbing. It is not possible to know in advance when a particular test subject will cave in, but when you run hundreds of them through the test, you get a curve that repeats nicely with the next large batch of volunteers. Even though each individually has free will, in practice we can predict how many of them won’t use it! Just not who.

Of course, in a manner of speaking the snackers do use their free will: They voluntarily choose to eat the snacks rather than get the reward. But their decision at the time is largely independent on their decision before (or after) the deed.

Having more than one temptation at the same time makes it harder to resist each of them. If the students get to play computer games, it is easier for them to abstain from snacks; if they have games around but aren’t allowed to play, it becomes harder to resist the snacks than if there were no games in sight in the first place.

Willpower can be built over time, luckily. Unfortunately, it can also be eroded over time.

But perhaps the most important thing we can do in this regard is to build habits. Habits are cobwebs at first, chains at last, as the saying goes. It is pretty easy to understand that if you are a couch potato, you cannot just get up one day and run a marathon. But in the same way, there lies a lot of work behind a life where people can resist temptations or the strong impulses of fear, anger, lust or disgust. Beginning with what is doable and sustainable is the key, unless you have some kind of divine intervention (or human companions that can keep guard over you at all times). Just like there are thousands of barely used exercise bikes in the basements and sheds of first-world nations, so there are thousands of discarded New Year’s Resolutions. If each of these had been taken in use slowly, gradually, cautiously, they might have had more success.

Of course, I don’t mean to diss divine intervention. I’m all for that. But unless you have a pretty close relationship with the Divine, you should probably have a Plan B as well. Just saying.