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"Will"
It’s been a fun week to be a free-will-is-a-myth nerd.
Suddenly everyone’s weighing in on determinism. Massimo, Sean, Jerry, and now PZ.
Here’s the short summary: Massimo made some noise, Sean and Jerry chimed in, PZ followed up just to be part of the fun.*
As I mentioned previously, often [...]
I’ve gotten behind on my promise to comment on any new “free will” activity. There have been several interesting offerings of late, which I will post about soon.
First, my excuse: I’m learning.
In some recent draft posts I realized I was expressing extremely vehement opinions about things I don’t actually know much about. Not [...]
Massimo Pigliucci, who moderated the panel I went to last week, has posted his own recap of the event, and his own feelings about the topic.
If you follow this blog, you will notice that Massimo and I do not agree on various points. I will continue to voice my opinion—dat’s what da [...]
Björn Brembs really really wants to believe in contra-causal free will. So much so that he sees those of us who don’t as being akin to deluded theists. At least I think that’s what he’s implying with his post title What Does Determinism Have In Common With Gods, The Flying Spaghetti Monster And Pink, [...]
For ages, as human knowledge has continued to grow, rationalists everywhere have watched in astonishment as the God of the Gaps argument keeps getting trotted out, despite those gaps getting smaller and smaller. Even Theopedia calls it a “discredited and outmoded approach.”
It’s an understandable crutch: you believe in something, you are confronted [...]
I recently attended this panel and found it fascinating and encouraging: there was real depth, and ramifications were not ignored (as they sometimes are in discussions of will).
From the Center for Inquiry NYC:
I guess the more accurate phrase is I know what I did but I don’t know why it worked.
In conversations about addiction, it’s common to hear things like “here’s what you gotta do,” or “You gotta go cold turkey. It’s the only way.” And the implication is that there exists a solution, one silver bullet [...]
Continuing the tradition of non-expert complaining™ about philosophy in the NYTimes, I have a bone to pick with Gary Gutting’s latest piece, What Makes Free Will Free?
He is responding to the latest neuroscientific experiments that seem to demonstrate our “decisions” are made well before our conscious selves are involved. (Previously [...]
Scientists vs. Philosophers. They get at each other’s throats sometimes. It’s like that Daniel Day-Lewis movie, Free Will Be Blood. Ha comma ha.
For a few decades now, within these two camps of inquiry, there has been quite a bit of advancement on the question of free will. That’s really saying [...]
(Diving Board asks questions but does not provide answers.)
Okeedoke, try this.
Read the following numbers out loud: 36, 18, 5, 19, 46, 50.
Yerp, got it.
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