“The most important thing is not to live but to have a reason to live.” –Chloe, Detroit: Become Human

Earlier this year, the video game Detroit: Become Human was released.  The cinematic, story-driven game tackled the questions of AI, morality, and free will.  In the game, the androids the player controls must make choices that affects the entire story, however because they are androids (and by nature of a video game), choices are limited.  Their programming can be altered or reset which presents the questions of whether the androids really do feel deep, complex emotions and whether their decisions are really their own.  As I was going through the readings this week from Thinking Fast and Slow and the decision experiment, the game became a little more true-to-life.  What if people are just like androids programmed for survival, programmed to believe, programmed to make quick, “best” decisions, and programmed to think we are in control of ourselves?  I’m not P.K. Dick, and to call into question the reality of free will causes discomfort in me.  After all, free will and consciousness is a God-given thing; that was the whole point of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden, was it not?

In the excerpts from Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Khaneman explains the difference between our brains’ System 1 and System 2.  System 1 is responsible for the immediate decisions: quick responses much like a computer interprets 1’s and 0’s or the way animals act on instinct.  System 2, is the “slow” System in that it is responsible for concentrated choices and complex decision making.  Khaneman states that because System 1 is innate in all human beings, it is difficult to change.  However, System 2 has the ability to override and rewrite System 1 through habit-building or some form of conditioning: making changes to the brain’s code.  Furthermore, in the unconscious decision experiment, researchers found that “our actions are initiated by [our] unconsciousness … long before we become aware.”  Both studies insinuate that people are actually much like the androids from Detroit: Become Human: programmed with the ability to reprogram ourselves.  One might ask, “Are we even ourselves then? Or are humans simply programmed to react and conditioned to adapt to their environments?”  This behaviorist view is something I agree with in part.  When I said that System 1 is like the brain’s factory settings, I mean to say System 1 is the part of us we have no control over.  No one has control over whether they are born into a poor family or a wealthy family, nor can they choose which school district they are assigned to, nor can they decide whether they would like to grow up in Dallas or middle-of-nowhere Georgetown.  In part, our environment makes us: our biases, our likes and dislikes, our perceptions.  People have a natural state; for some people it just isn’t their nature to be outgoing or sociable and vice versa.  They may say they grew up that way or that “it is what it is”.  But regardless, we can still decide on whether we would like to change or not.  For example, when one receives a new laptop, they can choose whether to keep the defaults that came with the system or turn certain settings on or off.  The same goes for the mind.  Though System 1 is programmed to be gullible and just believe “what you see is all there is”, but “System 2 is in charge of doubting and unbelieving”. Thus, people are able to change.

I don’t believe the excerpts of the book or the results from the experiment disprove the existence of free will.  People are, in fact, not built like computers; computers are built like people.  The brain is a complex thing, wonderfully and intricately made by a detail-orientated God. Of course there is brain activity before conscious decisions are made; if people had no subconscious/System 1 and instead were required to think through and carefully consider things as System 2 does, how lost we would be!  Likewise, without our capability to think on a higher level, we are no different than the animals that embody the “what you see is all there is” mentality.

Part of being human is the way we make our choices: the way we choose to have purpose.  We are more than just programming, more than just a result of environment and circumstance.  We are shaped by ourselves, and just because we experience change and are capable of making new connections and formulating new perspectives does not mean that we turn into something that is no longer ourselves.

You are yourself, shaped by the choices you’ve made for yourself.  God should be the ultimate guide, but at the end of the day, it’s all your call.  That’s the beauty of free will.

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” –Psalm 139:14