The Role of Learning and Memory in "Free Will"
One common definition of “free will” is that a person can decide or choose among multiple alternatives without being forced by physical laws, luck, fate, or divine will. Most of us feel we are in charge of our choices when no outside force requires us to make a particular choice. But it is fashionable these days for scholars to insist that free will is an illusion, a trick the brain plays on us. I will spare you the philosophical knots of specious assumptions and convoluted logic that that scholars tie themselves into. Why do I bring this up? What has the “free will” issue have to do with learning and memory? Everything. Human brains make choices consciously and unconsciously by real-time evaluation of alternatives in terms of what has been learned previously from other situations and of their anticipated usefulness. This learning occurs in the context of the learned sense of self, which begins unconsciously in the womb. The conscious brain is aware that it is aware of choice proce...