Re:Unconscious brain activity predicts decisions 11 seconds ...
by emmanuel_1234 on Sunday March 10, 2019 @08:36PM
(#19355779)
Additionally, an individual's next "move" (whatever that may be) being unpredictable doesn't make it "free will".
Universal predictability would definitely disprove free-will, but disproving universal predictability tells us nothing about free-will.
Re:Unconscious brain activity predicts decisions 11 seconds ...
by root_axis on Sunday March 10, 2019 @10:12PM
(#19356178)
Without predictability there is no distinction between "free" and "random".
Re:Unconscious brain activity predicts decisions 11 seconds ...
by laughingman2 on Monday March 11, 2019 @01:29PM
(#19360852)
Exactly, which makes "free will" a semantic nonsense term. Understanding that neither determinism nor in-determinism of the universe show anything about popular conception of free will (libertarian sense) allows one to exit a semantic misconception.
Re:Unconscious brain activity predicts decisions 11 seconds ...
by cthalupa on Monday March 11, 2019 @10:14PM
(#19364771)
I'm not sure I follow.
If determinism is correct, then given enough storage and computational power (or intelligence capable of doing this within their mind), an outside observer would be able to figure out every single action I would ever take before I took it.
If how my brain works is deterministic, and all of my encounters are able to be pre-determined, and those all deterministically shape my decisions and actions, then... how I can I possess libertarian free will?
Maybe. Determinism isn't dead, by any means. Depending on what model of quantum mechanics turns out to actually be correct, full determinism might be just fine. But even if one of the models that would invalidate full on determinism is correct, 'adequate determinism', similar to what Stephen Hawking believed in, might apply - the idea that the level any quantum fluctuations occur at makes it unlikely to result in any difference at the level that human thought, etc., operates at.