Did anyone catch this program last night? I thought Horizon had gone down hill the last couple of years but last nights program was very interesting. They were using empirical evidence to try to find a better understanding of what consciousness was and how this impacts on the idea of ‘self’. By the end of the program I felt they had delivered a heavy blow to any sort of dualistic view in which the body and mind are two separate entities.

For anyone who didn’t watch it, they basically used a series of experiments to show how the brain behaves when we make ‘conscious’ decisions. To sum it up briefly the evidence suggests that our sense of self awareness comes from sensory information received by the brain and that consciousness is simply a sum of all the various nerve cells in our brain communicating. To put it simply, consciousness and self are all aspects of biology.

The show concluded with an experiment that provided a little controversy to the idea of free will. Again to sum up, the scientists found that they could predict a seemingly random choice made by a volunteer, 6 seconds before he made the conscious choice himself, by monitoring his brain patterns.

I tried to be careful with my wording so as not to suggest anything was ‘proven’ but it’s very interesting to see that we now have testable hypothesis regarding our sense of self and consciousness and that the evidence would seem to suggest that it is all related to biological activity (as opposed to any sort of metaphysical influence whether you call that a mind or a soul). The last part wasn’t too surprising as it seems logical that as a consequence of a purely biological consciousness that free will as many people understand it is incompatible. Which I guess means I had no choice in posting this!

I don't understand what this is trying to prove... Is this saying that consciousness exists? Is this saying that people don't have free will?

The question of whether our consciousness or 'mind', as some people refer to it, is a product of biology (and hence evolution I suppose) or whether it is seperate or greater than our physical body has been philosopically and religiously debated for centuries. Over the past decade or so we are finally at a stage where we can put our ideas about consciousness to the test (albeit still in fairly simple experiments).

This is a huge step in helping to understand evolutionary biology in terms of being able to explain how humans (and higher apes) have this self awareness where as other animals do not without having to resort to any sort of metaphysical or religious grounds. As for the free will part, it has been my opinion for a while that humans don't have free will as it is commonly understood and this seems to provide some evidence of this being the case.

One day science will prove everything and show that there is no god or deity of any kind.

The soul (conciousness and free will) is thought to exist by many religions, but this evidence suggests that what people think of as a 'soul' is actually entirely biological and predictable.

OK, I understand now. Thanks for clearing that up.

What makes you think that people don't have free will? And if free will doesn't exist how can you possible hold anyone responsible for their actions? By that way of thinking, murderers murder and thieves steal because they don't have a choice...

I'm sorry to say this, but that will never happen. There's always a way to get around science with a religious argument.

For example, me and my buddy were debating about the existence of god the other day (me being the atheist). When I asked him about evolution, he said that like an intelligent designer may upgrade and improve his creation over time, god created evolution to make us automatically improve overtime. When I asked about the Big Bang, he said that god could've caused it for all we know.

See, god will always be pushed back in the chain by intelligent believers (people who don't deny science). Unintelligent believers will tell you that science is BS... These intelligent believers have a way of making religion evolve. For instance, the chain could've been like this at first

GOD --> we are on this planet

Then:

GOD --> earth and evolution --> we are on this planet

Then:

GOD --> big bang --> earth and evolution --> we are on this planet

It depends on how you view free will. I don't think we are controlled by any external forces but I do think we are constrained by our selves into always making a particular choice in a given set of circumstances. If our consciousness and therefore our decision making is all just a factor of purely biological processes driven by the brain then the choices we make are governed entirely by our biology. Therefore when you make a choice under a specific set of circumstances your brain makes a judgement controlled by biology (which in the case of the brain is governed by DNA and passed experiences). If those circumstances were identically repeated you would always make the same judgement and therefore you don't have the 'free will' to choose differently.

An unfortunate consequence of this is, as you point out, that people are therefore not truly responsible for their actions. That said, they should still be punished as punishment acts as a detterent and would be factored in to your decision making process even though you perhaps have no real control on its outcome.

Hope that makes some sort of sense!

This is why I like BBC iPlayer. I'm going to watch it now.

I think I kind of understand what you're trying to say... But what if, say two twins at an early age, with identical past experiences were faced with a decision, would the two always choose the same option? Twins are, after all, biologically very similar...