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There’s No Such Thing as Free Will but we’re better off believing in it anyway

2 pointsby kevinskiialmost 9 years ago

2 comments

WalterSearalmost 9 years ago
&gt;Many scientists say that the American physiologist Benjamin Libet demonstrated in the 1980s that we have no free will. It was already known that electrical activity builds up in a person’s brain before she, for example, moves her hand; Libet showed that this buildup occurs before the person consciously makes a decision to move. The conscious experience of deciding to act, which we usually associate with free will, appears to be an add-on, a post hoc reconstruction of events that occurs after the brain has already set the act in motion.<p>He did no such thing. He simply demonstrated that we aren&#x27;t immediately aware of our own volition.<p>Moreover:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;05&#x2F;16&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;consciousness-isnt-a-mystery-its-matter.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;05&#x2F;16&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;consciousness-isnt...</a>
dmfdmfalmost 9 years ago
&gt;...but we&#x27;re better off believing in it anyway.<p>So we have a choice?<p>All attacks on free will are forms of self-contradiction.