Agency as Evolved Biological Capacity for Self-Control

Key Quotes

"The contrast between him as the player where he seemed to be acting really for his interests you know he had goals in the game he was pursuing those goals he was making decisions given the scenario that the game presented to him and so on and then these other people that he would encounter these non player characters like the bartender where you know you go and you you ask them something and then the bartender as which is just pieces of code really responds somehow right and but it seems like they're also characters they're also entities these non player characters and the concern is that you know what you you have this sort of intuition that there's a difference right that you say well i'm doing things because i want to for my own reasons and they're just playing out their programming and then the concern is like well okay but what if i'm just playing out my programming"

Neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell uses the video game metaphor to illustrate the core concern about free will: the distinction between a player acting with agency and a non-player character (NPC) merely executing programmed responses. Mitchell highlights the existential anxiety that arises if humans, like NPCs, are simply "playing out their programming" without genuine choice, suggesting this is a central tension in the free will debate.

"The argument is that that's an illusion exactly that you're not really free when the intent just ops into your mind and then you carry it out right that would be the argument now i'm going to jump ahead and say i just don't buy that argument there's lots of evidence that the intent doesn't just pop into your mind that in fact you're actively involved in making the decision about what to do that the intent is the endpoint of that product sorry of that process that you are actively engaged in right it doesn't just appear most of the time i mean in some cases it's true but not you know one of the key things here is you shouldn't extrapolate from what happens in in one kind of scenario to every kind of scenario and i think that's a mistake that people have made across this literature generally"

Kevin Mitchell challenges the deterministic view that intentions simply "pop into" our minds, arguing that this perspective is an oversimplification. Mitchell asserts that humans are actively involved in the decision-making process, and the emergence of intent is not a passive event but the culmination of an engaged process. He cautions against generalizing findings from specific experimental scenarios to all decision-making contexts.

"The argument is that if those laws are fully deterministic then everything that happened from the big bang till now was already predetermined and so the so it's cooked in it's cooked in so let me just explain what that means for something for the laws to be deterministic what it means is that if you have the state of the universe at at a given time point and you can it's fully defined fully precisely defined at at some time point then you just apply those numbers to the laws of whether it's you know it could be newton's laws it could be the schrodinger equation when it comes to you know quantum fields and and things like that and whatever the level at which you're doing the calculation and then there's just an outcome that's inevitable as you as you go along right that's the that's the argument"

Kevin Mitchell explains the concept of determinism as derived from physics, where a precisely defined state of the universe at one point, combined with immutable laws, dictates all future outcomes. This "iron block" universe, as described by Laplace's demon, implies that every event, from the Big Bang onward, is predetermined and inevitable, leaving no room for genuine choice or possibility.

"The argument is that the fact that the future is open that the when you have some indeterminacy at the low levels and that comes from not just from quantum stuff there's other arguments for why there must be some indefiniteness to the future the future is really open if that's true then what it means is many things could happen right it's just not the case that the current state of the universe says only one thing could happen you know we start at time t the the current state then at time t plus one it's actually a bit indefinite multiple things could happen and then the question is what other kinds of factors could constrain what happens right and there you get the possibility that actually the way that a system is organized could do some work to constrain the trajectories that are possible the possibility space that emerges"

Kevin Mitchell posits that the future is not fixed, even considering physical indeterminacy. He argues that if multiple outcomes are possible at any given moment, then the organization of a system itself can play a role in constraining these possibilities. This suggests that macroscopic organization, rather than just low-level physical events, can influence the emergent trajectory of events.

"We tend to think of habits as bad things but really they are tremendously useful shortcuts that enable animals including us to navigate familiar settings and scenarios in adaptive ways with a minimum of cognitive effort and time expended on deliberation we've done all the hard work of thinking about this already so why do it again our brains know how things are going to turn out broadly speaking if we behave and try to do true ways in most of our everyday contexts but in reality what happens is precisely the opposite our past selves are giving advice to our present self all the time to ensure it has the best possible future"

Kevin Mitchell reframes habits not as limitations but as efficient shortcuts that allow organisms to navigate familiar situations with reduced cognitive load. He emphasizes that habits represent the accumulated wisdom of our past selves, actively guiding our present actions to secure a better future, rather than being mere automatic responses.

"Life is not a state it is a process you are not just alive you are living that is an activity you're doing each of your cells is doing you are more than the pattern of physical matter that makes up your body right now you are that pattern persisting through time the individual atoms and molecules and cells that make up the pattern are being turned over at exchange with the outside world all the time but the pattern remains life is thus like a storm or tornado or a flame none of these things is made of the physical atoms or molecules contained in it at any moment those elements will be replaced in the next moment the storm is the ongoing process that is organized or orchestrating all those molecules into a higher order pattern it's the physical relations between all the elements that has been maintained the difference is that storms or flames fairly quickly blow or burn themselves out but life does not life goes on"

Kevin Mitchell defines life not as a static state but as a dynamic process of persistence through time, analogous to a storm or flame that maintains its pattern despite constant turnover of its constituent elements. Mitchell argues that living beings are this ongoing, organized pattern, distinct from the individual components at any given moment, and that life's unique characteristic is its sustained continuation.