The Harvard Atheist Discussion Group (ADG) is an odd collection of people. My connection with them started 4 years ago, when I become entangled in the fracas resulting from the preaching of Pastor Corbin in Harvard Sq. on Saturday nights. Corbin preaches, and the weirdos, punks, and skins of the Pitt screech back. I was amazed. As the years passed, I became less enamored with the spectacle, but came to know the core set of the Corbin critics. This was the ADG. Its members have a wide range of academic credentials, from high school drop out to PhD; though, the two people without formal education are among the brightest.

The group meets once a month. Given that most members are atheists, or at least conversant in atheistic discourse, conversations about the existence of god are quite boring. A favorite topic seems to be that of determinism, objectivism, and free will. ]

Determined to Free-Willey

Consider a story:

Assume a deterministic universe, billions of years ago. Every atom's future is predictable given its characteristics (state, position, speed, polarity, etc.) and the laws of physics.
In this deterministic universe, on a little planet way out on the fringes of a newer galaxy, a molecule of atoms has an interesting behavior. The presence of certain chemicals and the energy of sun light enables the molecule to transform other molecules to match its own structure.
Jump forward millions of years into the future. Through Darwinistic processes, an ancestor of the original molecule has developed a chemical and photo sensitivity. This ability is advantageous to the creation of derived molecules. Consequently, this strain tends to dominate the primordial soup.
The behavior of this somewhat intelligent group of molecules is still predicated on underlying and deterministic physical laws. If you stop receiving photons, squiggle a bit (move) until you start receiving them again.
Jump forward to within 10 million years of where we are today. Evolution has led to the development of amazingly intelligent organisms with the capability to learn. This means that stimulus/response is not the only predicate to behavior. Rather, memory and abstractions upon it regarding the likelihood of a stimulus is possible. Also, analysis with respect to the possible consequences is possible. This creature very often thinks, "Eating pork bad, gives stomach ache." Or sometimes, "Having sex with older brother's mate bad, makes him angry."
Furthermore, this analysis comes to be applied to the very process of learning. When the creature has sex with his younger brother's mate and makes him angry too, the creature thinks, "Stupid me, I did not properly abstract to 'Having sex with any relative's mate is bad.'" In order to save his own offspring such trouble, he tries to communicate such rules to them. These thoughts are memes, and are often represented as morality or religion. These memes often form a symbiotic relationship with their host and can propagate given their ability to advantage the propagation of their host.

This simple story tells of the development of rationality from a deterministic universe through the lens of evolutionary (genetic and memetic) theory. It touches upon two issues which are often central to the debate regarding free will: choice and social norms. This creature (call it man) has developed a facility which seems to conflict with the deterministic universe he lives in, that of consideration. This facility clearly originates from the ability to learn, and to retrospectively apply that learning to the past as well as hypthothetical future scenarios. It is this abstraction that leads us to believe we have free will. Furthermore, this abstraction leads us to communicate our new-found knowledge to others.

However, the results of consideration, regret and morality seem to be at conflict with the deterministic nature of the universe. This is not so. I believe attempts to find answers to the question of free will in physics are foolish. For even if quantum uncertainty did not exist, the creatures which I hypothesized above could.

Free will is an abstraction. An emergent phenomena of a system which seems to be chaotic at the level any creature beyond a god is likely to know, but could be deterministic never-the-less. Even given a deterministic world, the facility of consideration would develop.

How does this understanding then apply to the classical befuddlement of determinism: if the world is deterministic how can I be morally responsible for my own actions? You are responsible only in as far as your ability to propagate your own genes and memes. Hosts which promote behavior counter to the concepts of causality and responsibility -- even if these concepts are fictitious -- are likely to be over-ridden by the emergent phenomena associated with those that do abide by these concepts.