tagged w/ Free Will
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The experiment helped to change John-Dylan Haynes's outlook on life. In 2007, Haynes, a neuroscientist at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, put people into a brain scanner in which a display screen flashed a succession of random letters1. He told them to press a button with either their right or left index fingers whenever they felt the urge, and to remember the letter that was showing on the screen when they made the decision. The experiment used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to reveal brain activity in real time as the volunteers chose to use their right or left hands. The results were quite a surprise.... http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/your-details/43008-neuroscience-vs-philosophyThe experiment helped to change John-Dylan Haynes's outlook on life. In 2007,... more
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worrg
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9 months ago
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180 in 180 on victimless crimes, state gambling, cell phone tapping, and the new house speaker.... with a closing final thought.
http://www.peacefreedomprosperity.com/?p=3870180 in 180 on victimless crimes, state gambling, cell phone tapping, and the new house... more
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BK Myth
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ctv
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1 year ago
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These things will always go round n round n round n round.......
Since the time of fire, man has had arguments – rare or well done? Of course, arguments depend on your point of view, or in the case of husbands and wives, what the wife thinks. Some arguments are never-ending. Over the centuries, there have been some doozies that have kept philosophy students and teachers debating.
To be included on this list of Arguments That Can’t Be Won, the argument must have no clear answer that cannot be countered with another opposing view.
Disclaimer: TopTenz.net is in no way trying to lead you to think in one way or another. We are only trying to present the arguments in a meaningful context.
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-arguments-that-can%E2%80%99t-be-won.php
http://my.spill.com/photo/ying-yang-crouching-tigerThese things will always go round n round n round n round.......
Since the time of... more
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The case for determinism appears to be sound at first glance; it seems that we can’t even envision a world where determinism isn’t true.
Determinism: every event is casually determined.
Meaning every event has a cause, in the physical sense.
We can run a thought experiment on determinism. Imagine x, a person who’s brought up in a poor neighborhood, orphaned young, never had an education, no living relatives, etc. Now imagine another person y, who had a cheerful childhood, terrific education, brought up in a decent neighborhood, etc. If one of their friends would suddenly propose a robbery for whatever reason (money, just for fun, as a mean to get killed therefore doesn’t have to live life, etc. use your imagination), then chances are, person y would have no reason to commit the act, while person x will have several. Now we can also change this into statistics in order to avoid single case scenarios. I’m fairly sure that out of 1000 cases, x-person type would agree more to the act than y-person type. Most sensible people would agree with me.
What is the basis of our conclusion?
Well, it seems that our upbringing (aka the environment we’re in) have such a strong effect on us that almost everything we do may said to be a result of such.
But wait, there are indeed outlier cases where y-person type commit terrible crimes, what would the reason be for that?
The most obvious answer is biology. There are numerous cases where the y-person type is genetically predisposed toward anger, aggression, or sudden mood change. An intro to psychopathology would show as much. There are even cases where seemingly nice persons go on murder rampages due to things growing in their brain.
Is biology the only determining factor? (Determining: height, strength, eyesight, etc.)
*There is much more to this fascinating article to check out.The case for determinism appears to be sound at first glance; it seems that we... more
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"Free will, or at least the place where we decide to act, is sited in a part of the brain called the parietal cortex, new research suggests.
When a neurosurgeon electrically jolted this region in patients undergoing surgery, they felt a desire to, say, wiggle their finger, roll their tongue or move a limb. Stronger electrical pulses convinced patients they had actually performed these movements, although their bodies remained motionless.
"What it tells us is there are specific brain regions that are involved in the consciousness of your movement," says Angela Sirigu (pdf format), a neuroscientist at the CNRS Cognitive Neuroscience Centre in Bron, France, who led the study.
Patrick Haggard, a neuroscientist at University College London, says the experiment breaks ground because it pinpoints volition to a specific part of the brain, allowing scientists to experimentally control it.
"That's extremely interesting, because up to now it has been very difficult for neuroscientists to deal with the idea of intentions or wishes or will," he says.
However, Haggard says no one should be surprised that the experience of volition can be liked to specific brain areas. "I can't think of any way you can have conscious experience other than as a result of neurons in your brain firing."""Free will, or at least the place where we decide to act, is sited in a part of... more
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"Many scientists and philosophers are convinced that free will doesn’t exist at all. According to these skeptics, everything that happens is determined by what happened before—our actions are inevitable consequences of the events leading up to the action—and this fact makes it impossible for anyone to do anything that is truly free. This kind of anti-free will stance stretches back to 18th century philosophy, but the idea has recently been getting much more exposure through popular science books and magazine articles. Should we worry? If people come to believe that they don’t have free will, what will the consequences be for moral responsibility?
In a clever new study, psychologists Kathleen Vohs at the University of Minnesota and Jonathan Schooler at the University of California at Santa Barbara tested this question by giving participants passages from The Astonishing Hypothesis, a popular science book by Francis Crick, a biochemist and Nobel laureate (as co-discoverer, with James Watson, of the DNA double helix). Half of the participants got a passage saying that there is no such thing as free will. The passage begins as follows: “‘You,’ your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. Who you are is nothing but a pack of neurons.”
The passage then goes on to talk about the neural basis of decisions and claims that “…although we appear to have free will, in fact, our choices have already been predetermined for us and we cannot change that.” The other participants got a passage that was similarly scientific-sounding, but it was about the importance of studying consciousness, with no mention of free will.
After reading the passages, all participants completed a survey on their belief in free will. Then comes the inspired part of the experiment. Participants were told to complete 20 arithmetic problems that would appear on the computer screen. But they were also told that when the question appeared, they needed to press the space bar, otherwise a computer glitch would make the answer appear on the screen, too. The participants were told that no one would know whether they pushed the space bar, but they were asked not to cheat.
The results were clear: those who read the anti-free will text cheated more often! (That is, they pressed the space bar less often than the other participants.) Moreover, the researchers found that the amount a participant cheated correlated with the extent to which they rejected free will in their survey responses."
More at link (sciam articles are usually long!)- Enjoy and discuss!
"Many scientists and philosophers are convinced that free will doesn’t... more
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Fishing in the stream of consciousness, researchers now can detect our intentions and predict our choices before we are aware of them ourselves. The brain, they have found, appears to make up its mind 10 seconds before we become conscious of a decision -- an eternity at the speed of thought.Fishing in the stream of consciousness, researchers now can detect our intentions and... more
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bshipp
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3 years ago
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"The Place of Agency and Norms in Psychoanalysis." The present role of agency, free will, norms and values in psychoanalysis is the topic of this Philoctetes Center Roundtable Discussion, with Jorge Ahumada, Akeel Bilgrami, Arnold M. Cooper, Garrett Deckel, Peter Kramer, and Bernard Reginster.
The video of the roundtable discussion is included."The Place of Agency and Norms in Psychoanalysis." The present role of... more
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To access the video, scroll down on the page and click on the link for "Corporations" clip is 2 minutes and 9 seconds. (Couldn't figure out how to embed the video sorry.)
Watch this video from Ramtha the Enlightened one, a spirit being channeled by JZ Knight. This clip is from a video called "Where Angels Fear To Tread". The video is available on Ramtha's website for $10. It is extremely well done and produced and directed by one of the directors of the hit movie "What The Bleep Do We Know" Mark Vicente.
"What is government but the incorporated fending for their own. We need to empower the individual; we need an army of remarkable individuals in this war on ignorance, poverty, and despair. One human being at a time we are embarking on a wondrous journey of self discovery and empowerment. We all have the power to change reality; we need you, the world is waiting."
JubalTo access the video, scroll down on the page and click on the link for... more
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jubal
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4 years ago
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Writing in the early 1960s, Heinlein accurately predicted the existence of enormous Evangelical/Fundamentalist megachurches as corporate entities controlling their own television networks and other businesses, similar to the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and other historical entities.
I highly suggest everybody should read this book. Or download it from Audible.
Stranger in a Strange LandWriting in the early 1960s, Heinlein accurately predicted the existence of enormous... more
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jubal
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4 years ago
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I just came from seeing the movie that has got many in the Catholic and Evangelical Christian Communities in an uproar. The film is about a totalitarian government that has control of both the political and religious institutions. It is called the Magesterium. According to Mrs. Coulter, the part played by Nicole Kidman, the job of the Magesterium is to tell people what to do and what to think for their own good. However, disobedience is dealt with swiftly and painfully.
The story tells us that their are many parallel universes with their own unique realities. However the Magesterium wishes to be able to cross over from one universe to the other so that they can eventually control all the universes; all of them. This is megalomania to the extreme and on steroids.
I can see why Religions like the Catholics and the Evangelicals are afraid of this movie. One of the witches in the movie says that "a war is coming, you may not think that it is your war but it is your war, you just don't know it yet." Sam Elliot who plays a character named Lee Scorsby asks the witch, "what is this here quarrel all about?" And she responds, "Nothing less than your free will."
Catholic and Evangelical religion is about taking away your free will and bringing it under the authority of the church. That is why this story hits home because the Magesterium is very much like their own authority.
The Alethiometer is a device that helps you to find out the truth. In my view the Alethiometer is an allegory for our own conscience, when it is properly tuned to the source of all life, it acts as an internal compass to guide us and to protect us from lies.I just came from seeing the movie that has got many in the Catholic and Evangelical... more
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jubal
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4 years ago
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