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The Definition of Free Will
I just wrote a short blog post on this topic. Excuse my poor English, I'm not a native speaker. ^_~
www.makushimirian.comI'm sure that a lot of people have already written their thoughts on this topic, but I'd just like to add mine.What are your guys thoughts?
I personally believe that we aren't able to make truly free decisions at any given moment. On a fundamental level the brain has to obey the rules of physics, of which one is that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Same goes for decision making - you can't just suddenly make a decision, it has to root from somewhere in your brain. These roots are predetermined. Predetermined by the biological build of your brain, your genes, the way you got brought up and the situation your in at the exact moment your making your decision. So how can we possibly decide free? If all these roots that lead to our decision are predetermined our perception of free will would just be an illusion.
I just find it a very interesting thought.
Comments
However, as a good friend of mine put it, that's not a terribly practical way to live. We all have the illusion of free will, so it's best to behave as though it actually exists.
I still think it's important to remember that free will is a myth, though. It serves to explain a lot of human behavior, and being able to trace the logical routes behind a person's thoughts leads to a greater understanding of that person and their motivations. Do this enough and you'll figure out that most people actually think pretty much the same way, but wind up coming to different conclusions based on external variables. People are scarily easy to figure out if you just listen closely.
Thought: Given "cogito ergo sum," the only logically valid conclusion is that god exists and we are all it. In other words, we are all the No-God, or rather the No-God is that thing which comes before all of us, that which underlies us and ties our existence together.
Has anyone else been noticing these scientist dudes who say they can "read" a person's thoughts with an MRI machine? . . . or clockwork oranges?
In light of the topic I agree with TheWhaleShark's explanation. As for HungyJoe's topics, if we can predict human behaviour given proper input, we would require information about the nature and nurture of the subject. It could be able to scale to large crowds, but then you'd have to either average all the information into a single entity, the large crowd, and predict its behaviour, or you'd have to predict the behaviour of every person in the crowd.
Another topic, with the 'knowledge' that humans do not have a free will, are robots then human? If we were to make a robot out of flesh, muscle, nerves and program its brain, would it be a robot or a human? If we are able to predict a person's behaviour when having access to all the nature and nurture information of this person, wouldn't we be able to make an exact copy of a person at a specific point in time? Would this clone then be that person?
Watch it. Love it. Learn it.
Like all true Americans, Captain Kirk drank coffee.
Joe. come visit me. We'll marathon the series, and by the end you'll be pine for the awesome that is my bald captain. He's a man's man. Kirk was a trained ape next to Picard. Also, a poor actor.
I love modern Shatner, especially on Boston Legal. But would Shatner be secure enough in his manhood to do this?
Also, "Picard" sounds an awful lot like "retard".
Seriously, though, don't be talkin' 'bout my man. I will cut you 'til you wish I no cut you.
You don't like Firefly, so on the spacey-type TV shows, you get no say.
EDIT: This ends heya!
"Tea. Lipton. Hot." - that's what he might as well be saying. Doesn't sound so high-falutin' now, does it?