Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe

by Brian Greene

My use of the term “free” to describe behaviors that according to the laws of physics are not freely willed may seem like a linguistic bait and switch. But the point, as the compatibilist school of philosophy has long suggested, is that when it comes to freedom and physics, all is not lost; there is great benefit in considering alternative kinds of freedom that comport with physical law. There are various proposals for how to accomplish this, but it’s as if such theories gloomily deliver the bad news, “When it comes to the traditional sort of free will, you are no different from a rock,” but then, just as you turn away to sulk, they exclaim, “But cheer up! There’s this other variety of freedom, gratifying in its own right, that you have in abundance.”43 In the approach I am advocating, such freedom is found in liberation from a restricted range of behaviors. Personally, I take great comfort in this variety of freedom. As I sit here, typing out my thoughts, I am unfazed by the realization that at the level of fundamental particles everything I’m thinking and everything I’m doing constitutes the unfolding of physical laws that are beyond my control. What matters to me is that unlike my desk and unlike my chair and unlike my mug, my collection of particles is able to execute an enormously diverse set of behaviors. Indeed, my particles just composed this very sentence and I’m pleased they did. Sure, that reaction, too, is nothing but my particle army carrying out their quantum...