Discussion of “Freedom and Self-Ownership: An Emergence Theory of Free Will” by William J. Coburn, PhD PsyD

This is a very interesting, rich, and important paper whereby Coburn has articulated an emergence theory of free will and freedom. I have with purpose included both terms “free will” and “freedom” as they capture two separate, but intertwined questions addressed by Coburn in his carefully crafted discourse, one conceptual and one ethical.

The conceptual question emerges from what I consider to be an ontological and experiential given: We humans currently have the capacity to experience and enact freedom of choice. This capacity or power is not up for debate but is an indisputable feature of the complex form of human consciousness that has evolved over the hundreds of thousands of years we have walked the earth. What is up for debate is how to arrive at an explanation of the above capacity that reconciles the free choice of the mind with a deterministic brain. This question has been pondered by numerous philosophers, scientists, and other thinkers over the years going back to the early Greeks. Coburn has done a masterful job in reviewing the above debates, debates that were hampered by the imprisonment of scientific thought within the limiting straitjacket of a reductionistic linear scientific paradigm whereby one is left with the Hobson’s choice of whether the “brain catches up to the mind, or the “mind catches up to the brain.”

Coburn’s solution begins with his shift to a non-linear complexity systems paradigm. His suggested answer to the age-old determinism/free will conundrum constitutes the elegant dimension of the paper where we are witness to a master of the nuances of complexity theory weaving his conceptual loom:

The very interactional and adaptational capacities of the innumerable components (or agents) of a complex system- the over- determining variables that propel our lives in which it may seem, we have no say- also provide the very scaffolding and opportunity for the emergence of individual agency, creativity, and freedom of choice. (Coburn, 2024, 146)

Wit