Free Will Is A Learned Skill

This essay introduces my theory on how humans learn to act volitionally. The process involves three overlapping stages: reflex, feeling, and purpose. Each one comprises a necessary factor in the development of free will.

To be as clear and concise as possible, I focus on essential details only. My theory relies on some ideas of evolution and Objectivist epistemology. However, if the reader lacks this knowledge, he should still be able to follow along, assuming he possesses a decent scientific vocabulary.

Reflex

Let us begin by agreeing that healthy humans inherit reflexes. Newborns leave the womb with automatic motor responses to specific sensory stimuli. These reactions are unlearned, innate behaviors found not only in human beings but also in the lower primates from which we evolved.

Primitive reflexes include grabbing, rooting, and sucking. Grabbing causes an infant to grip and hold things that touch his palm, such as mother's hair or clothing. Rooting turns the baby's head to face something that touches his cheek, such as mother's breast. And sucking makes the child drink from mother's teat. Such reflexes enable the newborn to perform involuntary physical actions which help him gain and keep the primary values of mother and milk.

Inherited behaviors also include the Moro reflex, which itself forms a three-part reaction: abduction, adduction, and crying. If a baby senses imbalance, he first spreads out his arms (abduction), then pulls them inward (adduction), before calling out for several seconds (crying). Think of a human (or simian) mother moving around with an infant clinging to her body. Perhaps she supports the child with one arm while doing work with the other. If the baby loses his grip on hair or clothing and tilts backward, the Moro reflex causes him to automatically reach out, regain his hold, and pull himself back to mother's body. But if that effort fails, the subsequent crying should direct mother's attention to her child’s problem.

Alternatively, imagine an infant resting on his back while mother sleeps nearby. The baby might look around and cause his unsupported head to flop backward. Or perhaps he senses a startling noise or uncomfortable change in body temperature. Any one of these sensations (imbalance, loud sound, shocking temperature change) could trigger the Moro reflex, in which case the child's cries alert mother and prompt her to check on the baby.

Reflexes have a dual biological function: value-getting and value-giving. Grabbing, for example, gets ahold of mother, while simultaneously giving her touches which she desires and enjoys. Rooting gets mother's nipple, while giving her nestling rubs on her body. And sucking gets her milk, while giving licks and relief from intramammary pressure. Additionally, abduction and adduction keep mother nearby for comfort and protection, while at the same time providing her with hugs and physical interaction; and crying (calling) keeps mother's attention by offering her vocal interaction and mental stimulation in the form of a problem to solve. In these various ways reflexes help to create a reciprocal, value-based relationship between infant and mother, and thus help to keep the newborn alive and well. For, without a caring mother (or a suitable substitute), the baby would suffer and perish, being too young to care for himself.

As the child acts reflexively, he simultaneously gains perceptual knowledge and produces initial thoughts. By observing his own involuntary actions, he becomes conscious of simple movements and alternatives, such as the symmetrical option of grabbing this or that breast with this or that hand. In this manner the infant learns his basic feeding actions (grabbing, rooting, and sucking) and thereby develops voluntary control of this multi-step behavior. Within months after birth this biological foundation for learning values and acting volitionally is established.

Feeling

In addition to reflexes, humans are also born with feelings. Like other animals, we evolved with a type of consciousness that automatically perceives sensations such as pleasure and pain. Still, even with these feelings, a newborn completely lacks perceptual knowledge of the outside world. He, as yet, has no notion of why he's experiencing pleasure and pain. He has not identified any related objects, not even his mother. She must therefore initiate his reflexive feeding process by holding him and placing him against her breast.

Once the baby experiences his mother's comfortable embrace and the satisfying colostrum from her teat, a feeling of pleasure permeates his awareness--as distinguished from the painful feelings of hunger and discomfort. Such interaction repeats again and again as the mother cares for her child. In time, the baby associates the perceived object, mother, with the attendant feeling, pleasure. This is possible due to the nature of human cognition, which innately identifies temporal relationships. Essentially, the infant learns that mother and pleasure occur together.  

And here my theory posits that during percept-formation the brain automatically combines information from both extrospective and introspective experience. In addition to visual, aural, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory data, it also concomitantly records psychological data, or mood, in the form of a perceptual, electric charge derived from sensory feeling itself. Accordingly, a standard positive charge, or good mood, can be measured as moderate pleasure; while a standard negative charge, or bad mood, can be measured as moderate pain. Recordable moods, however, can vary from a mildly pleasurable tingle (weak positive charge) to an extremely pleasurable ecstasy (strong positive charge); and from a mildly painful ache (weak negative charge) to an extremely painful agony (strong negative charge). Each particular state of consciousness will be qualitatively represented in the percept of its associated object of consciousness. In other words, these charged bits of perceptual knowledge consist of objective and subjective data combined.

In this way, our baby becomes aware of his first object-state, or thing-feeling. For example, let's assume that his brain records mother-pleasure. The next time he's hungry and sees and hears mother, he automatically retrieves perceptual knowledge which includes the related record of pleasure. Thus, seemingly from visual and aural data alone, he experiences a positive, teasing feeling, which actually sprang from his recollection of mood data. This brand-new state of attraction now counteracts the negative state of hunger by shifting the child’s focal awareness from pain to mother-pleasure.

The baby now begins to associate his feeding process with mother-pleasure. In addition to temporal relationships, our cognitive faculty also innately identifies spatial relationships. And so the child learns that his feeding actions and mother-pleasure exist together. Subsequent interactions, therefore, result in perceptual knowledge of these movements in relation to mother-pleasure. This new knowledge also contains a positive charge, and when it's recalled, the baby experiences a state of motivation--a positive, teasing feeling which shifts his focus toward action.

Like reflexes, feelings are involuntary actions. Whereas a reflex moves the body in response to sensory stimuli, a feeling moves the mind in response to perceptual stimuli. The feeling of attraction focuses consciousness on a particular value, and the feeling of motivation focuses consciousness on actions related to gaining that value. (Bad feelings, like repulsion, pertain to disvalues and will be addressed at another time.) Generally, feelings impel the mind to change states in accordance with charged units of perceptual knowledge. And these involuntary mental actions can be identified and learned through introspection, just as involuntary physical actions are identified and learned through extrospection.

Purpose

And so, by observing his own involuntary actions, our child starts gaining limited, voluntary control of both body and mind. He learns how to perform particular bodily movements, despite particular sensations; and he learns how to direct particular mental actions, despite particular perceptions. As he gains experience and conceptual knowledge, he learns to use recollection and imagination. He imitates and innovates. He thinks of things never seen and actions never done. He learns to formulate his own mother-pleasures--his own valuable goals; and he learns to design his own feeding processes--his own plans of action. He finally begins to act on purpose, i.e., with a reason which he produced and selected himself using his rational faculty and choice. His will, his self-power, is released at last from its primitive servitude to sensations and perceptions, reflexes and feelings. Now it works in concert with his conceptions and his reasoned purpose. He has learned perhaps his most important skill: free will.

© 2019 by Sean William Green

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