Running fast requires strong morals.

I'll get to the running connection eventually. It's an interesting road...

I recently read two interesting pieces on free will. One from the New York Times and the other from a book by Michael Brooks called "13 things that don't make sense." One of the things that doesn't make sense, according to Brooks, is free will. The thing is, as Galen Strawson, author of the Times opinion, puts it, "current science gives us no more reason to think that determinism is false than that determinism is true." So are we really free to choose?

Strawson's analysis says no. Or at least, he connects the lack of free will to a lack of responsibility. He puts forth a "Basic Argument" as follows:

"(1) You do what you do — in the circumstances in which you find yourself—because of the way you then are.

(2) So if you’re going to be ultimately responsible for what you do, you’re going to have to be ultimately responsible for the way you are — at least in certain mental respects.

(3) But you can’t be ultimately responsible for the way you are in any respect at all.

(4) So you can’t be ultimately responsible for what you do."

Point three rests on the idea that whatever side of the nature or nurture debate you fall on, it's not your own free will that makes you the way you are. Every act we commit (or do not commit) is derivative.de novo from ourselves. This is kind of sad, or scary, depending on how you look at it. Whether it is derivative from our genes, or from the way our parents taught us to be, no act springs

The thing is, for all practical purposes ("practico-pratique, là," as my bar school teacher would say) it doesn't matter. Because unless you are super self-aware, and have an intimate and expert knowledge of genetics, our actions are pretty hard to specifically predict every time. So even if our path in life is already determined, at least it will still be a surprise.

But when you get right down to the nuclear core of everything, the quantum core, if you will, the randomness of the universe is what drives our actions, and being random, our universe is not determined. So maybe our actions are determined, but not by us. Are the random spinnings of sub-atomic particles enough to say that we have "free will"? I don't think so. Or is it? Brooks gets at this when he describes a process by which a subject's actions (physical actions, not moral actions) can be controlled by manipulating his brain chemistry with a magnetic field. What he further describes is slightly eerie: in monitoring brain activity, it has been discovered that the brain gears up to do its thing (whatever it is) before the person is consciously aware that he or she is going to do that thing. We are talking hundreds of milliseconds of difference here, which, depending on what industry you are in may or may not be a lot. I'd say for brain chemistry, that's a lot.

The real significance of this question is what it allows us to say about responsibility. It's a pretty easy out to suggest that our actions are determined, therefore we have no responsibility for them. Would such a defense ever stand-up in court? Not likely. The attempt to allow in the testimony of a Dr. Galen (State v. Sikora (1965) N.J. S.C.) to say that "unconscious influences" drove the accused's crime was not successful. Perhaps now that we have a deeper understanding of brain science, a better argument could be made than Galen's "inner tensions" but what would be the impact on society? Not good, I'd say.

The fact remains, regardless of whether our actions are determined or not, we are still responsible for them. Probably your attitude towards how much responsibility you have has already been shaped, but it can be shaped again, reshaped, and remade.

So to get to the running philosophy, let's say all your accumulated knowledge and tendencies are like training. All that training is going to determine how you are going to race. Of course, you can still influence the outcome of your race a little bit, but basically, the training gives you a range. The more aware you are, the more focused, the more confident, that is, the more responsible you are, the higher in the range you can be.

The moral of the story: Running fast requires strong moral fibre!