1957 Geloof en Wetenschap : Orgaan van de Christelijke vereeniging van natuur- en geneeskundigen in Nederland - pagina 29

NEED HUMAN CHOICE IMPLY PHYSICAL INDETERMINATENESS? By DONALD M. MACKAY, B.Sc, Pii.D.

Everyone admits that some human actions mav sometimes be determioed by t i e physical state of the brain. H e convulsion of epilepsv or the tremor of Parkinsons disease axe extreme examples; but most people wotdd admit that some at least of their most ordinar\' acts could probably be traced bac3c, t h r o u ^ a continuous chain mesh of causeand-effect, to the previous state of tieir central nervous svstem. This worries nobody, as long as the actions concerned are not of a kind to "wiiich -we attach moral significanee. But as soon as we consider acts of dioice in which questions of lesponsibilrt}' might arise, we find ourselves in t i e middle of a well-trodden battlefield. On the one hand there are those who bdieve t i a t when I make a morally valid dboics, my brain cianges its state in a way which Jrreaks the chain-mesh of physical cause and effect. Even if a sigier-observer could i a v e access to every detail of my brain ieforehand, lie}- maintain, this information "would not be sufficient to indicate which choice I am about to make. They don't mean i i a t it -would just be too congdicated to work out in practice, though in fact it probably T^^ould be. The)' believe that the information would be insufficient even in "principle: that is, even if l i e observer had unlimited powers of calculation. They imply that if my choice is to be morally vahd, the outcome must in some way falsify- or go beyond l i e pliysical indications which might in principle have been deduced beforehand, from l i e state of my brain. On -die other hand there are those who beheve t i a t even when I make a moral cioice, the corresponding physical changes in mv brain are tigitlv linked to the previous physical state of my nervous system. An accurate description of this previous state, t i e j ' maintain, wotud be sufficient in principle to indicate beforehand -wiich choice I am about to make. Now of course on b o l i sidra there are plenty of vaiiettra of qpinian. Some of the former group would hold that each morally valid dtoice requires a miraculous physical event to take place in l i e brain. Oliers, including the late Sir Arthur Eddington, invoke the uispredictabilit}' of atomic events (Heisenberg's famous 3E*rincg>ie of Indeterminacy), suggesting that ahiough this impredictability is usually negligible in a system as big as the human brain, it could occasionally moant up in

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