Does Free Will Matter? Agent Causation and Qualia Fusion Emergence

Abstract

In this thesis I consider how agent causation can be reconciled with a broadly physicalistic framework. I suggest that agent causation is a fusion emergent causal power. The theory of fusion emergence due to Humphreys, recently exemplified by phenomena discovered by Aharonov and colleagues in quantum physics, opens up the possibility that phenomenal consciousness is fusion emergent. The irreducible nature of qualia (phenomenal properties) suggests that they might be understood as fusion emergent phenomena. If we consider qualia as fusion emergent phenomena with downward causal power, it seems that we can make room for a genuine physical explanation of free will, able to avoid epiphenomenalism, overdetermination and dualism between the mental and physical realm.