Analysis Of The Topic Of Free Will In The Film 50 First Dates
Free will is an extremely popular topic between philosophers about whether it exists or not. There are those that side with the idea of determinism which is the theory that all events, including moral choices, are completely determined by previous existing causes. Alternatively, there are those that side with pure free will which mean that we, the agent, are in complete control of our actions and thoughts. Many philosophers question the idea that purely free will exists and if it does, how does moral responsibility and accountability for your behaviors fit into this theory? I want to compare Holbach and Taylor’s different theories of free will to those with mental handicaps such as traditional mental illness, tumors and brain damage. I will do this by examining the Billy Madison film, 50 First Dates.
In the movie 50 First Dates, Lucy Whitmore has Anterograde amnesia which is a loss of the ability to create new memories after the event that caused amnesia. Lucy does the same thing every day. Is this apart of her own free will? Holbach would argue no because of Lucy’s condition. Lucy's brain is doing exactly what she would've done prior to the accident that caused her amnesia. Due to this, I would apply Holbach’s philosophy that due to the circumstances the agent had to respond a certain way. According to, BLANK Holbach's explanation for what we consider to be “the will” is brain activity, reacting to experience. In effect we are products of our experiences, we remember and act accordingly.
Following this, By Holbach's definition Lucy had no choice and no free will. Apart from this Holbach would also argue that no one has free will, not just those with mental handicaps. During the movie Lucy's father and brother set up her day for her so that its exactly the same as the next. Every day she thinks its October 13th, her father's birthday and the day of the accident. They stay up late every night to change the soap levels in the shower, to repaint the garage white every night and to even have hundreds of copies of the newspaper from the day of the accident. Every night they watch the same movie, sing happy birthday and listen to Lucy say the same comments. I would like to imagine these invisible circumstances Holbach is referring to that lead a person to act, speak and behave in a particular way is represented in this movie by Lucy's family. If they have her watch the same movie, she’s going to have the same reaction as she did the first time. Every day is a first day for Lucy. She has breakfast in the same café and eats the same meal. She is forced to keep reliving the same day over and over again. However, her routine becomes interrupted when she meets Henry Roth who is causing her to sing songs when she wasn’t before and is forcing her to live and spend each day remembering her accident so that the rest of her day can be normal and new, at least for the day.
In an episode of Radiolab (at 7:15) it features a woman suffering from amnesia, whose memory resets every 90 seconds. This is a similar occurrence to a man in the movie referred to as Ten second Tom who Lucy meets in efforts to feel better about her situation. According to the Doctor who treated the woman from the Radio show, everyone becomes a broken record, down to the phrasing of the sentences. It makes the brain seem a little more like a machine. You give the machine exactly the same set of inputs and see if the output ever varies. It doesn't. It seems like the patient has no free will.
In The predictive brain and the “free will” illusion by Dirk De Ridder, Jan Verplaetse, and Sven Vanneste, They say ideally this research will “provide us with an advanced model for a better understanding of more philosophical issues such as the so-called free will problem.” The free will problem is a philosophical battle between compatibilists and incompatibilists. According to compatibilists like Hobbes, Hume, James, and Dennet, free will is not in danger if determinism is true. Free will is perfectly compatible with a deterministic working of our universe and brain. Descartes and assumes that the brain passively absorbs sensory input, processes this information, and reacts with a motor and autonomic response to these passively obtained sensory stimuli (Freeman, 2003). In contrast, a second model of perception, which goes back to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, stresses that the brain actively looks for the information it predicts to be present in the environment, based on an intention or goal (Freeman, 2003). In conclusion of their resesarch they found;
“...Our evolutionary-evolved brain potential to generate multiple action plans is constrained by what is stored in memory and by what is present in the environment. Thus, the feeling of a free will is an illusion, as there is likely no unlimited amount of representations generated, due to the inherent constraints”
The scientists research concluded with the theory that free will is an illusion therefore agreeing with Holbach. According to Colorado. Edu, Holbach believes free will is an illusion as well and he proves this by mentioning a number of scenarios that give the illusion of freedom: 1. When we change our minds: Often, we feel swayed to do one thing, but later, we may change our minds and do the opposite. This demonstrates that we are free. Reply: What is happening here is that first one impulse affects the brain, and then some other impulse affects it. If we looked closely enough, we would always see that changing one’s mind is always accompanied by some new or changing factor that overrides the original impulse or factor.
Furthermore, In the article, Free will and mental disorder: Exploring the relationship by Gerben Meynen he says in efforts to relate mental illness, moral/legal responsibility and free will, He says there are three elements to free will and accountability. The first element is that to act freely, one must be able to act otherwise; one must have alternative possibilities open to one. If people cannot choose between alternatives because they are completely determined to act in a specific way (e.g., because of divine foreknowledge or because of the wiring of people’s brains), they cannot be said to act freely. Second, acting freely can also be understood as acting (or choosing) for a reason. Behavior that is not taking place for an intelligible reason is not considered “freely willed.”
