Who's in charge? Gazzaniga in search of free will

[turoldus]

Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga has a new book out on the subject of free will and responsability in the light of neurosciences. The New Scientist's Graham Lawton is not altogether convinced:

So what of free will? The problem is a familiar one. We live in a deterministic universe. Given enough information about its present state, we could extrapolate to any past or future state with 100 per cent accuracy. Everything that has or will happen was determined at the big bang - and given that our brains are part of the physical universe, free will does not exist. Depressingly, neuroscience itself offers little comfort that this isn't the case.


Gazzaniga's solution is also a familiar one. Post-Newtonian physics has retreated from strict determinism in the form of quantum mechanics, chaos theory and emergence. Perhaps neuroscience can use them to rescue free will? Gazzaniga throws all of these at the problem but ultimately they bounce off, leaving determinism's hard and unforgiving core intact.


There is a great book waiting to be written on free will. This isn't it, but it's worth reading all the same.

[himself]

Nov 25, 2011 11:29:06 GMT turoldus said:

Graham Lawton:
Everything that has or will happen was determined at the big bang - and given that our brains are part of the physical universe, free will does not exist.

A nice kerygma of his faith, stated as if it were a fact! Never have so many devoted so much effort of mind to proving that they do not have one. Why take the outputs occasioned by inputs impacting a brain any more seriously than the sounds made by the wind whistling through the branches of trees?

But since
a) one cannot want what one does not know; and
b) one does not know everything .
c) one's will is not perfectly determined toward any one thing.

Exceptions are things like 2+2=4, to which a properly informed mind cannot withhold consent. But even here, to one who does not know arithmetic, consent of the will is not compelled.