Abstract

This paper explores the possibility that chaos theory might be helpful in explaining free will. I will argue that chaos has little to offer if we construe its role as to resolve the apparent conflict between determinism and freedom. However, I contend that the fundamental problem of freedom is to find a way to preserve intuitions about rational action in a physical brain. New work on dynamic computation provides a framework for viewing free choice as a process that is sensitive and unpredictable, while at the same time organized and intelligent. I conclude that this vision of a chaotic brain may make a modest contribution to an intuitively acceptable physicalist account of free will.