Scientists uncover further evidence that the brain may play a role in learning.
Next they will investigate whether learning piano has any association with finger movement.
Scientists uncover further evidence that the brain may play a role in learning.
Next they will investigate whether learning piano has any association with finger movement.
if we add true randomness to an input-based decision, it stops being predetermined, but there’s still a logically conclusive choice you’re going to make, based on the incomplete inputs you have. You cannot ‘freely’ decide to not pick that choice
I think you are contradicting yourself. If you cannot freely choose something else, then your choice is predetermined.
Whereas if a choice stops being predetermined, then there is no “logically conclusive choice” that you are definitely going to make. There is a range of possible choices, one of them is chosen by you, and the others could have been chosen but weren’t.
For example, you choose a tuna salad sandwich for lunch, but you could have chosen a ham sandwich. That choice was quite possibly not determined by logic, considerations of evolutionary fitness, or genetics. If it were, then you would probably always choose tuna salad over a ham sandwich.
I don’t think it’s that simple. Decisions can be based on more than one factor. Nobody doubts that the things around you affect your decision, the question is whether they fully determine your decision.
Which is not to say that free will definitely does or does not exist. But you’ve described all decisions as necessarily predetermined or random. Technically that is correct, since formally a “random” variable is simply one without a fixed value (ie something that is not predetermined and should be described as a range of possible values). Using the formal definition, “randomness” is exactly what you would expect if free will exists.
The more common understanding of “random” is “completely arbitrary” or “outside anyone’s control”, in which case you have presented a false dichotomy. If free will exists, then a decision could be non-arbitrary, within one’s control, yet not predetermined.
Yes, I deleted my comparison to Harvard. Its most relevant peers are Oxford, Cambridge, and a few other schools in the UK. There is even a program for reciprocal granting of degrees.
LOL, fair enough!
And don’t worry. Trinity College, aka the University of Dublin, is the top research university in Ireland. It is the Irish counterpart to Oxford and Cambridge, and it was founded by Queen Elizabeth I, not the church.
I am aware it’s real, but I’m not aware why it specifically applies to Mitchell.
Do you not like his conclusions? Because that would be confirmation bias - on your part.
Confirming what? Neuroscience?
What? Neuroscience has a lot to do with Mitchell’s argument.
Because the vast majority of animals who see the upcoming eclipse will never have seen one before.