1957 Geloof en Wetenschap : Orgaan van de Christelijke vereeniging van natuur- en geneeskundigen in Nederland - pagina 33

NEED HUMANCHOICEIMPLYPHYSICALINDETERMINATENESS? 21

As a matter of fact I believe that there may be occasional events in the brain which we should describe as physically indeterminate. To this extent I agree with Sir Arthur Eddington. But I would not associate any such indeterminateness with freedom of choosing; its effects would show up rather in connection with imagination. Spontaneous changes taking place in the brain, independently of its previous physical state, would have the effect of giving a fresh direction to the current train of thought, giving rise to ,a new and unbidden idea', we might say. Of course, I am far from suggesting that all originality derives only from physical indeterminateness. But if any indeterminateness exists, it is to the originality and spontaneity of behaviour that it would contribute. I have been arguing that physical indeterminateness is both necessary and undesirable in the brain-mechanism concerned with the making of a valid choice. There is however one sense in which it could (if it exists) play an important part in such choosing. For in any difficult decision ,— choosing a job or a career for example, — we cannot possibly take into account everything that might have a bearing on our choice. Inevitably, we consider consciously only a selection of the facts we know. If then there were any indeterminateness in the physical brain-process through which some facts receive our attention and others do not, the choice based on these facts would be no less rational, but it would be undetermined by the previous state of our brain. Let me insist again, however, that any ,freedom' conferred in this way upon our choice would not be the same as the ,freedom' we feel in making our choice, I have been suggesting, is something quite show itself only by the arbitrary way in which the relevant facts cropped up in our minds. If anything, it would make us feel less in control, and less responsible for our decision. The ,freedom' we feel in making our choice, I have been suggesting, is something quite different — namely our conscious and demonstrable power to defy all comers to predict that choice for us. THREE CLASSES OF ACTIVITY To summarize, I suggest that there are three logically-conceivable classes of activity of which a human being could be capable — not two, as has classically been supposed. First, there may be actions physically determinate and predictable even to the individual concerned. These I have called ,involuntary'. Second, there may be actions

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