[Wittrs] Re: Is There a Free Will?
- From: "Cayuse" <z.z7@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 12:04:00 -0000
Joseph Polanik wrote:
physicists and mathematicians have taken over from philosophers the
task of deciding whether there is a free will. google "conway kochen
free will theorem" or start your search here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem.
The article hits the nail on the head when it says that "The
definition of "free will" used in the proof of this theorem
is simply that an outcome is "not determined" by prior
conditions, and some philosophers strongly dispute the
equivalence of "not determined" with the existence of free will".
The complement of determinism is not "free will" but Indeterminism
-- the cosmos may be unfolding Indeterministically even in the
absence of free will. The idea of a metaphysically free will builds upon
the idea that "there is activity therefore there is an agent of action",
and the argument falls for the same reason that the argument "there
is experience therefore there is an experiencer" falls. Certainly there
is the *idea* of an agent, but that agent does not appear in the
immediate data of experience. There are many scientific studies that
support the contention that the organism weaves stories around events
such that the idea of self is placed at the centre of those stories -- i.e.
the idea of "self as agent" is a post-hoc fabrication (see the work of
Benjamin Libet, and see Michael Gazzaniga's book "The Mind's Past").
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