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• wiredfool 10y ago
  It's an argument for materialism and against dualism. It's a physical process that gives rise to consciousness, not a soul like thing that's separate from the material world. Stepping back though, it's a voyage of inquiry and discovery and subsequent changes in civilization. None of that challenges free will, any more than fMRI does in our world. We have peered into the brain, and seen electrical signals that we don't understand. When we die, these go away, never to return. (ob not xkcd: stimulus, response, stimulus response. Don't you ever think?)
• kbenson 10y ago
  Well, does it matter if you actually have free will, or does just feeling like you do suffice? If it does matter, what if the state machine is so complex that the future can't be known? If you can't determine the difference between free will and the alternative, and nobody and nothing else can, what's the difference? To me, lack of free will isn't a problem as long as there aren't entities that can (or will) take advantage of that. It feels like worrying about the heat-death of the universe (appropriately enough).