Brain Scans, Free Will and So on
I cannot believe I am still interested in this topic as much as I am.
I'm going to give you some quotes I liked most from a recent "news" piece, or some quotes that I think summarize what the point and interest of this is.
There's a growing recognition of the importance of the subconscious in our decision-making. We may not even be aware of the influence that a surrounding smell or noise is having on our choices. And some neuroscientists have even claimed that by examining patterns in the brain, they can predict decisions that we will take six or seven seconds before we ourselves consciously choose to take them.
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All this raises a question for the philosopher - what are the implications of advances in knowledge about human decision-making for our conception of free will? Will scientific progress undermine our sense that we have free will? Will it eventually lead us to conclude that free will is an illusion?
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The emergence of the concept of free will can be dated to about the 4th Century AD, and was an ingenious solution of Christian theologians to the so-called Problem of Evil. If God is all powerful, and God is all good, how come there is evil in the world? The answer, said Saint Augustine, is that man has free will.
According to this article, I am a compatibilist, believing that both free will and providence (of God) need not be split in order to solve the problem of evil.
"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." -(Gen. 50:20)
God didn't merely fix Joseph's brothers' blunder: he ordered it for a purpose larger than anyone saw coming.
via BBC News - What can a brain scan tell us about free will?.