On 31 Oct 1994 22:19:12 GMT,
Perry Friedman <pbfriedm at us.oracle.com> wrote:
>Can someone please give me a SCIENTIFIC (ie non-religious) explanation
>of free will.
>>It seems to me that given that thoughts and memories and so on related to
>"the mind" are all entirely physical quantities (again, we are ignoring
>religion here) and therefore, the laws of physics should govern the
>interactions of the particles which make up our brain (and our surrounding
>stimuli) and while due to quantum physics, this may not be predictable or
>predetermined, it is also outside of our control. Just as a tossed coin
>does not have free will as to whether it will land on heads or tails it is
>also not "predetermined".
>>I can not see any scientific backing to the concept of free will. We may
>decide to take some particular action, but that is just because that is
>how the particles in our brain happen to interact, and the particles
>themselves (individually or collectively) can not "change" the laws of
>physics to make themselves or others act other than the way physics dictates.
>>The concept that free will does not exist is disturbing and I don't want
>to get into it here, as this is not really the appropriate place. I am
>just hoping that someone can explain to me a reason why free will COULD or
>SHOULD exist (and please leave "God" and "souls" out of it... unless you
>can come up with a SCIENTIFIC explanation of either of those).
>>Perry
Free will = directed chaos
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Robert M. Caudle "If I had my life to
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Caudle at yoda.nidr.nih.gov
or
Caudle at irp.nidr.nih.gov
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