The freedom to try to do what you want: randomness, organismal agency, and free will

Abstract

Abstract The world is likely to be indeterministic. As a consequence, agents can never definitely settle anything, because there is always a chance that a random event can interfere with their actions. Yet organisms are able to exploit random processes in order to increase the probability of bringing about certain preferred outcomes. This happens at various scales, from subcellular nanomachines to complex nervous systems. I suggest that free will consists in the capacity of cognitively sophisticated biological agents to bias their own behaviours in ways that better align them with their reflectively endorsed preferences. Thus we are neither fully determined by causes outside of our control, nor entirely at the mercy of randomness; rather, we are among the causes of our own behaviour. In an indeterministic universe, we have the freedom to try to do what we want.