Kanye West on Alex Jones

[Irreligious Atheist]

There is nothing in physics that refutes free will and nothing in cause and effect that rules out free choices as has been argued by several physicists(John Conway, Simon Kochen, George Ellis,) and the conclusion of Neuroscience experiments on intent have had several interpretations some of which are totally compatible with free will. As Chomsky pointed out.

In the last couple of years ago, there were experiments showing that, when people make decisions, for example when I decide to pick up this cup, milliseconds before I make the decision, there is activity in the brain in the areas where you are going to act, i.e., milliseconds before I make the decision, the motor areas of the brain are already organized to pick the cup up. That evidence was used widely to conclude that this shows that we don’t have free will. But this doesn’t show anything of this sort. This just shows that decisions are unconscious. We all know that, if we think for a minute: of course decisions are unconscious. Some of them reach the level of consciousness, some of them we can’t even act on, but there is a lot there going on unconsciously, probably everything of interest, and we don’t know how to deal with it.

Neuroscience experiments will not solve the issue of free will and physics won't either. We are not rocks we are thinking entities.

Like I've posted in the past, unless you are willing to define your terms and tell me what you mean by free will, then we're not going to be able to truly debate the topic, because I don't even know what your actual stance is. Chomsky agrees that decisions are unconscious, which to me, rules out "free will". Thump and you mean very different things by free will, I imagine. I think Thump has fully bought into the Christian, classical version of free will, but you have confirmed to me in the past that this is not what you mean by free will, but thanks for the names you provided. I will look into what they say on the subject.

Edit- I'm watching a John Conway lecture, and he's saying that even atoms have free will. Somehow, I don't think this is what Thump had in mind when he decided to jump in and talk about free, conscious decisions. I would maybe call myself a soft determinist, because there does appear to be a degree of randomness added in on the quantum level, but that does not help the case for free will. I'll get back to watching the Conway lecture now, and then I'll check out those other names.

And you provided a Hitch quote about free will, but out of the two of the four horsemen who defended Bush and Cheney, Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, while such was a bit outside of Hichens expertise, so I'm not necessarily going to go to Hitchens to get my neuroscience. I love Hitch though and don't like that I'm matched up against him here because Hitch was my guy. RIP Hitch.