I just came up with a very interesting, but difficult to execute experiment - which might be able to help us see if fruit flies have free will.
This will only yield any useful results if it’s run perfectly - but if it does run perfectly, it might help us prove/disprove free will in fruit flies. I suggest using fruit flies since they only have like 8 genes and it’ll be easier to find two perfect copies.
Take like 120 eggs from a fruit fly, and make 60 clones out of them - store these 60 clones in a way that makes each of them experience the EXACT same conditions
altitude, angle, temperature, pressure, gravity (add mass under flies to “fix”), magnetism (place magnets strategically to cancel out differences in earth’s magnetism in different points of space), air concentration (start out with a vacuum and mix in O2, N2, etc… very carefully), humidity (count molecules of water going in), etc… EVERY condition needs to be the EXACT SAME for each fly - surround all clones with two foot thick walls of lead so that radiation can’t mutate any cells. Feed each of them the EXACT same food, with the exact same quantites - count molecules if you have to (electron microscope). Make EACH fruit fly exposed to nearly an equal amount of light (I suggest a laser and a perfect quartz sphere to refract light) MAKE SURE EACH FLY EXPERIENCES THE SAME THINGS AT THE SAME TIMES
Read each clone’s DNA and find two flies with the exact same DNA (same alleles for every gene) - also make sure both flies are anatomically the same - compare each of their atoms if you have to
When the two exact copies are found, kill the rest; and wait for the two of them to grow - KEEPING ALL CONDITIONS THE SAME FOR BOTH FLIES AT ALL TIMES
When the flies are ready to fly - use a highspeed camera to record both fly’s trajectories
IF the experiment was executed perfectly (which would be very, very hard to do - but I believe it’s possible):
Possible results:
both fruit flys have the same flight pattern, the EXACT same flight pattern:
then they probably don’t have free will
+1 points to determinism
both fruit flys have a different flight pattern:
maybe:
a) they have free will / neurons CAN fire randomly
b) God has a higher likelihood of existing; and maybe He intervened
c) cosmic rays affect our decisions
d) there’s a mysterious field that affects decisions
e) something happens quantumly to affect decisions
f) something else
Maybe not right now, but maybe in a couple of decades - with a few million dollars funding this… Could this actually work? Can we prove that fruit flies do/don’t have free will?
Um, fruit flies have in the tens of thousands of genes, like people do. If you’re going to clone, you could use any animal.
Practical problem: this is a pipe dream. Even if you could count molecules with electron microscopes. You don’t even know which variables to control for, or to what degree - practical science is all about tolerances, not exactitude. So let’s consider it a thought experiment, rather than a practical proposal.
So… you want to spend billions on an experiment that gives either a “probably” or a “don’t know”, on a matter that most people don’t find very important? Good luck with the funding applications
Start with a coherent hypothesis. Find a way to falsify it experimentally. Perform the experiment. That’s how science works.
The approach you take doesn’t have a coherent hypothesis (as you yourself don’t know what you’re really testing for - God, mysterious fields, ‘something else’), the experiment you suggest wouldn’t give any clarity on the situation anyway, and it’s practically unworkable.
I concur with mr Humean, not only is it not possible right now to do that, it’s actually not even theoretically possible to ensure they they experience the exact same conditions, due in large part to the Uncertainty Principle.
Wouldn’t work conclusively. Simply because no object can occupy the exact same locations in space and time as another. You would never be able to say “they experienced the exact same conditions as each other.” Not in this universe anyway.
