07.27.10
Free will and consciousness
New York Times to readers: of course you have free will.
In yesterday’s New York Times, William Egginton, a professor of humanities at Johns Hopkins, was exercised by recent research showing that when monkeys make a “decision,” their neurons register it before they’re conscious of it. (This finding has been duplicated in humans.) That implies that the “decision” isn’t really a conscious one—that is, it doesn’t conform to our notion of free will.
This kind of situation proves nothing: in Kantian transcendental idealism there are several approaches or models to consider such issues.
But the assumpition that the act of free will is purely temporal may be false.
More generally these issues assume an understanding of consciousness, but that misses the point.
Free will issue, and Times article said,
July 28, 2010 at 1:44 pm
[...] http://darwiniana.com/2010/07/27/free-will-and-consciousness/ [...]
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