Free Willy!

A recent Oliver Sacks article in The New Yorker inspired me to finally commit some of my recent obsession (a rekindled obsession by the way) with the centuries-old debate on free will. Of course, The New Yorker does not provide the full text of this article anywhere online so I will have to summarize briefly (egads!). In "The Mind’s Eye," Sacks uses adaptation to blindness as a vehicle for questioning the elasticity of the mind-brain organization. Historically, according to the article, scientists have believed that the brain is rigidily divided into components that process specific tasks. Further, our abilities to process information are set in stone from birth. Therefore, a latter-day catastrophic accident, such as sudden blindness occuring late in or after childhood would, "...seem to allow individuals little power of choice, self-determination, let alone adapation." He goes on to extend this query generally, "...to what extent are we--our experiences, our reactions--shaped, pre-determined by our brains, and to what extent do we shape our brains?"

As much as I love that someone is point blank asking this question in this manner in a national publication, I am baffled at why he begins by speaking of free will (essentially) but never attacks that subject. Instead he spends most of the article exploring individual reactions to blindness and what sort of compensating behavioral and brain chemistry changes ensued. But the gist of the article is that given the allegorical evidence, the human brain appears to be malleable. The conclusion of the article answers only the question of whether or not the brain changes but not the question posed above, namely, who's in charge here anyway, me or my brain?

As interesting as queries about the pliability of the brain are, I would like to have seen the article follow its initial foray into the nature of thought. The notion of free will versus fate/pre-determination keeps bubbling to the surface (sometimes in the unlikeliest of places like Law & Order). Maybe it's just me. Or the western world desperately needs to prove that humans have choices so that we can continue to cling to our Judeo-Christian tradition of good and evil, praise and blame, pride and shame. Perhaps this is the central question for all rational, sentient creatures. Whatever the reason for free will's omni-presence, here it is...discuss among yourselves....