Denying Problems When We Don’t Like the Solutions (perhaps somewhat off-topic)

[OKIsItJustMe]

49. Determinism is akin to “predestination”

Determinism is great! I don’t have to feel guilty about environmental destruction, because I'm not responsible! I have no free will to stop myself! (It’s not my fault! My genes made me do it!)

Sadly, without “free will” it appears I am forced to feel guilty for my actions, but unable to adjust them accordingly. What a lousy design I have!

To me, if we are deterministic, we have no free will, and cannot be said to be intelligent. To which, you respond, “We have the illusion of free will, nothing more. We aren’t intelligent.”

To me this is absurd. If I have no free will, why do I waste time with self-delusion, pretending that I do?

http://now.dartmouth.edu/2013/03/neuroscientist-says-humans-are-wired-for-free-will/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Neuroscientist Says Humans Are Wired for Free Will[/font]

Posted on March 11, 2013 By Bill Platt

[font size=3]Dartmouth’s Peter Tse ’84, an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, says he has identified a neurological basis for free will in the human brain, challenging a majority opinion that has dominated neuroscience for the last 40 years.

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How does this relate to the question of whether we have free will? Traditionally, people have said that either everything is determined before it happens, and you have no choice, says Tse, or everything is simply a matter of chance, which also excludes the possibility of choice.

“This is the bogeyman of the free will argument,” Tse says. “How can we have a middle ground between the two extremes of determinism, where you have no free choice in the sense that things could not have turned out otherwise, and indeterminism or chance, where you didn’t actually decide the outcome?

“The solution is that the brain can set criteria for future mental activity that will be met by future inputs.” This can follow a long period of consideration, or playing things out virtually in one’s mind, before an optimal set of criteria gets wired into synaptic weights so that the system is ready, should the right car comes along.

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