Cognition and Evolution

Consciousness and how it got to be that way

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Two Questions I Was Apparently Predestined to Ask

To those who think free will is an illusion: why does it seem like we have free will? More to the point, why do we perceive a special point in time we call "now"?
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2 comments:

  1. dbonfittoOctober 22, 2009 at 6:35 AM

    If there's no free will, we're just a run of collapsing particle dominoes. Why bother to do anything in that case?

    "Now" seems to be a given. That's just reaction to immediate stimulus. In 7th grade, we put a drop of vinegar on a slide of pond water and watched the 'wee beasties' flee.

    What's special is the ability to maintain a memory of "past" and conceive of possible "futures," and then apply that knowledge to modify reactions to "now" stimulus.

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  2. Michael CatonOctober 22, 2009 at 7:27 PM

    But if there's no free will, then the universe and its entire history are just a frozen block of space-time. Why would this not be obvious to an observer that's part of this frozen block? Why would there be a special space passing through this block (like a plane moving through a 3-dimensional block of Flatland spacetime)?

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