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Neuroscientist debunks hype about no free will, etc.
| June 3, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Mind, Naturalism, Neuroscience |
A friend writes, “This young German brain researcher publicly condemns exaggerated claims of neuroscientists, “debunking” of free will, so-called dangerous brains, and so forth.”
Talk by Dr. S. (Stephan) Schleim at the 2014 Heymans Symposium ‘Research Worth Spreading’ of the Psychology department of the University of Groningen
and
Understanding the possibilities and limitations of brain imaging (2009)
Interview with Stephan Schleim, researcher at the University Clinics Bonn, Germany, during the bid-workshop ‘brains in dialogue on brain imaging’.
See also: Physicist: Do the defects of real numbers open the door to free will in physics?
and
How can we believe in naturalism if we have no choice?
7 Responses to Neuroscientist debunks hype about no free will, etc.
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Here is his paper:
In the first video that News listed in the OP, Dr. Stephan Schleim mentions the infamous case of Phineas Gage and then Dr. Schleim notes some modern day counter examples to Phineas Gage that contradict the widespread belief in ‘dangerous’, i.e. psychopathic, brains.
What Dr. Schleim did not mention in the video is that the widely cited case of Phineas Gage, i.e. brain damage leading to psychopathy, is now known to be wildly exaggerated folklore.
Will you or won’t you?
I like DrDembski’s idea of “free won’t”. Making the decision to resist or refuse is often the more difficult decision.
http://nonlin.org/free-will
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3. Determinism is self-defeating as lack of Free Will would render all decisions illusory. The Sun, the dead, and the rocks do not decide anything, so why would a determinism proponent decide any more than these entities? And without decisions, ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘worry’, ‘fair’, ‘guilt’, ‘self’, and so on do not make any more sense either. Convincing others that Free Will is not true makes absolutely no sense if Free Will were indeed illusory.
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5. Like a muscle, Free Will (Willpower) gets tired and can be overwhelmed or destroyed by external forces. Free Will appears to decrease when suffering brain trauma, under the influence of chemicals, due to genetic conditions, or when infected with certain parasites. In non-human life forms, Free Will seems weaker than reflexes and instincts. Willpower failures are not evidence against Free Will, just as forces overpowering one’s muscles do not disprove the muscular system’s power. Free Will experiments (Libet and others) have been inconclusive so far.
6. Quantum mechanics indeterminacy invalidates determinism. In the double slit experiment, one can set up a perfectly deterministic setup yet every time the experiment is repeated, it cannot be known (except statistically) where the particle will end up even if the setup is calibrated to the n-th degree. This is totally different than the deterministic systems where the normal distribution of outputs can be narrowed by tightening the inputs / set-up with the theoretical conclusion that perfect inputs / set-up will result in perfect outputs (determinism).
Matthew 26: The Bible provides evidence for no free will
Seversky,
You will continue to be blind then to truth. Because you have no free will.
A parent tells a child she will lie again. Is it due to not having free will? Or being a parent who understands children often lie?
Child, you will lie three times before the weekend is over and deny taking cookies out of the cookie jar.
The child lies to Dad, to Grandmother and to Grandfather.
Did the child lack freewill? Or did the parent know the child better than the child knew herself?
a few Biblical verses on free will…
1 Corinthians 10:13
“No temptation has taken you but such as man can bear. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
Yes, you will be tempted in life by all kinds of people with money, sex, drugs, theft, etc., but you can overcome such temptations.
Galations 5:13-25
13 For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.
14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
15 But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.
17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one other, that you may not do the things that you desire.
18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness,
20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies,
21 envyings, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, shalom, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
24 Those who belong to Messiah have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.
25 If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.
Another words, we have free will to partake of fleshly desires, giving ourselves over to temptations or turn away from them and unto the Lord. It’s a choice.
Joshua 24:15
“If it seem evil to you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amori, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
again, it’s a choice.
Play it Zimmy…
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re going to have to serve somebody…. Serve somebody…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CwHby-YTNo
Your choice.
In a sense the matter is irrelevant, since anyone interested in rational inquiry must assume the existence free will.
If you have no free will, if, instead, the course of ‘your’ reasoning is irresistibly pressed upon you by physical events, which trace back to events and laws of nature well before you were born, and are thus beyond your control, then you cannot vouch for any of your beliefs.