The next version of free will that Alfred Mele suggests is a bit peculiar. At least, I think it is peculiar. It suggests that the extra element free will possesses beyond what determinism suggests, is akin to randomness. That is to say, after all information has been accounted for leading up to a particular person’s exercising of their free will, a probability matrix is established regarding the likelihood of that person making specific choices. To continue my example in the ice cream shop, perhaps I am likely to select chocolate, but there is a lesser probability that I might choose vanilla. Perhaps it could be described as a 75% chance of me selecting chocolate, and a 25% chance of selecting vanilla. Given the circumstances, my final decision may not be predicable in an exact sense, but there is a better chance I will be selecting chocolate than vanilla.
This sort of reasoning seems supported by scientific studies of the very small: Quantum Physics. The current models of the atom suggest not that the electron is orbiting the nucleus, as the moon orbits the Earth, or the Earth orbits the sun. Instead, it is suggested that where the electron could be found at any given moment is a function of probability, with certain energy levels being much more likely for the electron to be found. I admit, my understanding of Quantum Physics is in its infancy, so here is an article to better describe this theory.
In other words, when the time comes for a choice to be made, while we will be unable to know what decision will be made, we can at least have an idea of the likelihood of certain decisions being made. As Mele suggests, if after the decision is made, we were able to rewind time and allow the decision to be made again, the same sort of probabilistic process happens again, allowing another possible outcome to occur. If we were to repeat the event over and over, theoretically, we should observe that about 75% of the time, I would have chosen chocolate, while about 25% of the time I would have chosen vanilla.
Of course we don’t have the ability to rewind time to witness events repeatedly occurring, and so we are unable to confirm this sort of process. As far as we know, time only moves in one direction. However, there is another variation on this idea that has become quite popular recently, especially in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: the idea that ALL choices are made simultaneously, with each choice producing its own unique timeline or universe as a result.
This would be to suggest that when faced with the choice of ice cream I would like to get, I actually chose both chocolate and vanilla. In this timeline or universe, I happened to pick chocolate, but there is another extremely similar universe out there where I had chosen vanilla. The timelines are identical in every way up to this event, but after the event, two timelines emerged. This is very humorously presented in the television series Community, in the episode entitled “Remedial Chaos Theory.” Each possible outcome from rolling a six sided die produces its own unique timeline, where each of the characters becomes an independent entity from the version in the “canonical timeline.”
A theory of free will like this, while possibly accurate, produces an extremely uncomfortable side-effect. With each passing moment of each day, hundreds, thousands, even millions of individuals exercise their free will in making decisions, choosing from often more than simply two possible outcomes. In this theory of free will, multitudes of parallel universes would be produced every moment, and the production of these branching timelines would be exponential, as each independent timeline would itself produce a multitude of additional timelines. The multiverse would be well populated in mere moments, and at this time, one should expect there to be a virtually infinite number of them. There would be billions upon billions of slightly different versions of me passing time in the countless universes that exist.
A way to deal with this insanity might be to suggest that we don’t exercise our free will each and every time a choice must be made. Perhaps we only actually exercise free will occasionally, even rarely, for very important events. The rest of the time, simply following the deterministic chains of cause and effect as we go about our everyday lives. It is this idea that I think Marvel has decided to follow in their latest television series Loki.
In Loki, it is suggested that there is a “sacred timeline,” a timeline or universe that is considered to be the main or proper universe. Occasionally, certain special events occur, referred to as “nexus events,” where suddenly another timeline begins to branch off of this main timeline. If this new branched timeline is left unchecked for long enough, it will become its own independent timeline. In order to prevent this from happening, the Time Variance Authority (TVA) uses their advanced technology to go to the event, shortly after it has occurred, specifically to the branched timeline, in order to “prune” it back. By pruning, the story suggests that the TVA arrests the culprit of the nexus event (the individual who has exercised their free will, but made the choice the TVA considers to be inappropriate), and then somehow eliminates the branched timeline. This whole process is a logistical nightmare when considered at length, as I will of course do.
Firstly, the individual who exercised their free will is the same in both timelines, simply that the one in the branch happened to be on the wrong side of probability. To select the individual who happened to be on the wrong side of a decision seems a bit biased; that is, whomever has decided what constitutes the “sacred timeline,” does so arbitrarily, and so punishing individuals from alternate universes seems incredibly unethical. Furthermore, why would one abduct the individual from the alternative timeline before eliminating any traces of that branched timeline. All other individuals who are not removed from the new timeline before it is eliminated are themselves eliminated. To put this another way, the individual who has now been abducted for some unspecified crime of being a part of a now none-existent timeline would have had no way to produce further problems had they been eliminated with the rogue timeline. Abducting them, it seems to me, simply provides further opportunity for such a criminal to perpetrate further crimes.
Furthermore, as the character Loki himself suggests in the first episode, it seems like the TVA is selectively removing free will in the process they are following. That is, when an individual exercises free will, the TVA removes all other possible outcomes/choices from the menu, leaving the “correct” choice which is for the individual to have done precisely what the TVA deemed the correct action. This all amounts to a strong desire to remove free will entirely, at least from those within the “sacred timeline.”
Loki is a very interesting series, which some very thought provoking themes and ideas, so I do recommend watching it when you have a chance. However, the point that I think is most interesting is the idea that only these infrequent “nexus events” will produce the branching timelines. It seems to suggest that free will, on the whole, is not exercised that much, if at all. That is, considering there are nearly nine billion humans on Earth at this time, and considering that each of those humans has a free will, and then considering that in the Marvel Cinematic Universe there are billions of other worlds like Earth, each with their own billions of beings who themselves also have a free will, it seems incredibly strange that these “nexus events” don’t occur much, much more frequently. During the course of the series, it seems like the TVA is spending most of their time waiting for these events to occur. The largest surge of such events that causes the TVA to have to send virtually all of its agents away to “repair” the “sacred timeline” is actually orchestrated by one single individual, not by a group or larger number of individuals. I will not go into any further detail regarding this, for fear of generating more spoilers than I have already done.
Ultimately, what I’m suggesting by this observation is that in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, what is likely being suggested is that either: there are a whole lot of beings with free will in the universe, but free will is not exercised except in extremely rare circumstances; or that beings that actually have free will is itself extremely rare. I have not finished watching the series, as it is still airing, but I am beginning to think they may be suggesting that Loki is unique in the universe as one of the very rare beings with an actual free will. Alternatively, perhaps the entire TVA was created exclusively for him, and the “sacred timeline” is simple the best possible timeline to “harvest” as many free will Lokis as one might like, in order to create a community of beings with free wills. Suggestion for the Big Bang anyone?
I hope all this discussion has made one thing very clear regarding this version of free will: it seems unlikely to be how it works. While I have no solid evidence to make such a claim, as we just don’t have sufficient technology nor scientific knowledge to test such things, were this to be how free will worked, the consequences and outcomes produced would be exponentially nauseating. Perhaps this is the source of Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the universe? But it might also be unsatisfying to think that our free will is simply a random chance as well.
In my next post, I will discuss a third option for how free will might be viewed. It is by far the hardest to grasp, but is also the version I believe most people have in mind when they utter the term “free will.”