Posted: Jul 21, 2018 4:19 pm
Cito di Pense wrote: Free will: It's just a stupid question, isn't it? It is, if you reduce it to being answered every time by "it's just chemistry". I hope you put that proviso somewhere in your CV as you recite your accomplishments. "I'm great, but then, I could not have done otherwise." Or: "Hire me! I'll supply great chemistry to your organization!"
It's a bit late to add it to my CV Cito, but maybe a tombstone. "I had great chemistry". But my point remains I am/was lucky to have the chemistry that i had. (Some might argue unlucky). I am pretty sure mybchemistry will decay with time too.
The fact that my chemistry is great or I could not have done otherwise, does not make it false. It only sounds ridiculous to put it on on a CV is, at the moment, most people hold court to contra-causal free will.
David wrote:It may be "just chemistry", but that does not make it pre-determined what you will do or think. The human brain has way to too many neurons and synapses for that.
Of course it is not "just" chemistry as Cito implies … it is the patterns the chemistry makes as the universe "unfolds".
And of course no one is claiming (that I am aware of) that our actions are predetermined. But the alternative that our actions are a result of some cosmological dice shaker seems to upset some. Though I do disagree that complexity alone makes something not predetermined.