miz1q2w3e on 23 October 2011
| SvennoJ said: It seems impossible to prove free will other then a gut feeling that you are making decisions yourself. You can think about what would have happened had you made a different decision but you can never know for sure you could have actually done it differently. There is a lot of empirical evidence to suggest free will is at the least very limited. Behavior modification therapy, the effect of drugs, alcohol and medication on your decision making process, the effectiveness of advertising, social engineering, criminology, the acceptance of temporary insanity as a legal defense. Of course not having free will is no excuse to leave dangerous people roam free. Society is self regulating to ensure the safety of the group. Whether or not you had a choice to commit a crime doesn't matter in the end, only whether you pose a threat to the group. Jail is very much there as a behavior modification tool. (Although sticking criminals together usually leads to negative reinforcement) Also evolution suggests there is no special free will in humans as opposed to other species. At what point would the evolving brain have come in control of quantum uncertainty to influence the course of physics, or become an amplifier so to speak to let quantum events rule decision making. Consciousness and awareness seem to me tools to focus attention, to take as many factors, past and present, into account before reaching a decision, and to store the results to be part of future decision making processes. The brain is constantly looking for patterns and explanations to help future decisions. At what point does that become free will? I think after unloading mu thoughts my desire to play a video game has now overcome my need to discuss this topic. |
Wow amazing post!
