| miz1q2w3e said: When someone thinks about their actions before doing them, their brain makes decisions based its own compostition and chemistry, as well as on past experiences and prior knowledge. This means that your actions aren't your choice at all, but the consequence of all of your past experiences being run through your brain and judged. Your computer argument may be true for simple computer programs and applications, but a computer program that is sophisticated enough could emulate what humans do with great accuracy, it could reprogram itself based on its experience...etc (see neural networks in computers). Does that mean a computer like that has free will? Not to mention animals are also capable of this to a certain degree. Say you put an animal's favorite food behind an electricuted fence, after a few tries the animal will give up on trying to get the food even though its instincts tell that "food is good". The animal chooses not to try again based on its past experiences of pain. |
Well, the animal will keep trying (and if smart enough, will figure out a way past the fence) if there is no other food available and the only other option is starvation. Animals are capable of learning, and some higher animals can learn a great deal, but it's all based on the instinctive imperative to survive. They are not capable of real introspection, though.
As for the theoretical self-programming computer, yes, it would have free will. Didn't you play Mass Effect 3?
