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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968

Posted 4/19/2008 10:24 AM (GMT -6)

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/414/3

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 4/19/2008 10:46 AM (GMT -6)

Thanks, Jeff. Good stuff!

I'd love to hear some feedback on this...

Whoever knows and recognizes how near God’s Kingdom is to him may say with Jacob, “God is in this place, and I knew it not.”
Meister Eckhart, "The Nearness of the Kingdom"

Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the Kingdom of God is within you.

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 4/19/2008 10:57:08 AM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 4/19/2008 11:02 AM (GMT -6)

Let me get this straight. I’m given two buttons to push, one with my left hand and one with my right. I am to push one at a time and I freely choose to push either that I want. Off I go.

I consciously think through each choice and consciously register my choice by actually executing it, that is, by either tapping the left or right button.

The fMRI picks up brain waves indicative of a choice a full ten seconds prior to my actually tapping a button, indicating that for each choice my mind was really made up and the choice determined a full ten seconds before I consciously made the choice, suggesting that free-will is an illusion. Other things—not our conscious selves, determine our choices. What we think is a conscious choice is actually an effect of merely neurological impulses in the brain.

I’m assuming that they can distinguish brain waves relative to the choice for a ‘left’ tap over a ‘right’ tap. Is that true? Or would the brain waves for right and left be the ‘same’ pattern?

The debate will center around the interpretation of the data. It's not quite as simple as determining the temperature at which water boils at sea level.

Truth Aficionado
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Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544

Posted 4/19/2008 11:15 AM (GMT -6)

So does this mean that I already made the choice to answer the phone ten seconds before it rang? hmmm

This helps explain how my wife knows my mind even before I do. yeah

Post Edited (Truth Aficionado) : 4/19/2008 11:23:04 AM (GMT-5)

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 4/19/2008 12:17 PM (GMT -6)

I guess the brain can work faster when it has to! ;o)

T

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 4/19/2008 1:18 PM (GMT -6)

I'll paraphrase Greg's response to me on this. I have to remove all the profanity! He's got this thing about calling me names...

...just kidding.

Anyhow, I don't think Greg would mind my sharing his thought on this one:

Is free-will over? The research implies no such thing. As Dick Passingham said in the report, "This activity that occurs earlier is ... not just general preparation, it really is a proper decision ." In other words, this research shows that our free will is exercised mostly at a subconscious level. Our conscious choice MANIFESTS free will but doesn't always CONSTITUTE free will. I've always believed that. It's why the Pslamist can say God knows what we're going to ask before we ask it.

That's the jist of it.

Tom

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 4/19/2008 1:22 PM (GMT -6)

Hmmm...sounds like Greg.

Ask Greg about UNCONSCIOUS motivations that would circumscribe those subconscious decisions.

He should know about that from TNT.

Whoever knows and recognizes how near God’s Kingdom is to him may say with Jacob, “God is in this place, and I knew it not.”
Meister Eckhart, "The Nearness of the Kingdom"

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 4/19/2008 2:08 PM (GMT -6)

Sure, there can be unconscious motivations that determine choice too. But are ALL our choices so determined? All we want to say is that there are significant choices that are not so 'determined'. Do you dispute such freedom per se?

T

Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968

Posted 4/19/2008 2:21 PM (GMT -6)

I haven't even read the article yet, myself. I read a short review of it. But it sounds just like the kind of arguments I was waylaid with when arguing against an anti-ID fellow. I got him to concede that this is a "bit" shy of proving people aren't free. I really am not sure just how I make such "choices." It almost seems like free-association, which is the other end of the spectrum from making a bona-fide moral choice that requires such discipline that it results in drops of sweat "as blood." When people tell me they have no free-will, I can only assume that conspicuous moral choices that require internal struggle are not made by them.

Makes me wonder how long it will be before legislators and judges publicly disavow any link between volition and legal accountability. Only a small minority ever has, thus far. The extent to which some people will go to render evolutionary theory completely naturalistic can and has lead many an otherwise rational person to step right off the epistemological cliff.

Post Edited (Similtude) : 4/19/2008 2:26:10 PM (GMT-5)

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 4/19/2008 3:58 PM (GMT -6)

Yep. Right off the cliff.

T

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