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It's Monday morning, and Mr. P steps out of his house, headed for the trolley that will take him to work. The air is still brisk, but as he strides down the sidewalk, rays of sunshine fall on his face. "How nice and warm!" he thinks, and he decides to walk the entire way to the office, even though it will take 10 minutes longer than the trolley. He makes a right turn and heads downtown.
Before he reaches the next corner, Mr. P has already forgotten the episode. To philosophers, however, such ordinary occurrences involve problems so extraordinary that they have wrestled with them for more than two centuries. Somehow the nerves in Mr. P's skin and the neurons in his brain registered the sun shining on his face as a feeling he experienced as "pleasant," and that sensation prompted him to take a sudden, deliberate action. Everyone knows what this chain of events feels like. But no one knows the exact connection between simple neuron activity, our subjective response to it and the exercise of our free will. Are the neural activity and the sensation of "pleasant" ultimately one and the same, or does the conscious feeling arise as a secondary effect of the nerve activity?
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3 Comments
Add CommentThere is no one who does not feel that he is imprisoned in some way. If this is the result of his own free will he must regard his will as not free, or the circular reasoning in this position would be quite apparent. Free will must lead to freedom. Judgment always imprisons because it separates segments of reality by the unstable scales of desire. Wishes are not facts. To wish is to imply that willing is not sufficient. Yet no one in his right mind believes that what is wished is as real as what is willed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf everything that happens is before is what I am and I am trapped in that ..that simply is preposterous
Morality is man-made and has nothing to do with the Free Will.. Free Will is a total moral acceptance of self-recognition. Morality was needed to be multiply identities in the bel;ief of space and time.
All consciousness is self-awareness, unique and individual. Acceptance of Self includes acceptance of All as the world I find myself. There is no repetition in that. I am the cause and effect, the most fundamental law there is. Thinking and its results are really simultaneous, for cause and effect are never separate.
Many scientists and philosophers are convinced that free will doesnt exist at all. According to these skeptics, everything that happens is determined by what happened beforeour actions are inevitable consequences of the events leading up to the actionand 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 dont have free will, what will the consequences be for moral responsibility?
..whether its define is scientific or philisofical.freewill.is undescribable to those who have it&unattainable for those who discribe it..simple or complex..which ever fits your personality
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo Christina2008,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou asked: "If people come to believe that they dont have free will, what will the consequences be for moral responsibility?"
The answer to that is clear: Even if come to believe it, one cannot act other than their morals, which are a programming that was totally out of our hands. Did you decide what experiences you were going to have right after you were born? Did you decide what genes you would have? There is nobody there to decide. Life just happens. Actions just happen. The mind comes in a nanosecond later and says 'I' did that. I know this is hard for the mind to understand because the mind thinks it is the center of all activity when really the mind comes in immediately after to interpret, claim ownership, etc. 'You' are the knowingness in which all objects/things are known. Life is living itself through all of 'us' my friend, the individuals we think we are is the Divine hypnosis. All is One and that's even one too many.