Although I should note that I believe there to be phenomena that qualify to be defined as 'free will'. Specifically endogenous processes generating behavioral variability and thus non-linearity. Especially if you can show that the complexity of transformation by which a system shapes the outside environment, in which it is embedded, does trump the specific effectiveness of the environmental influence on the defined system. In other words, mind over matter. You are able to shape reality more effectively and goal-oriented and thus, in a way, overcome its crude influence it exerts on you. For example, children and some mentally handicapped people are not responsible in same the way as healthy adults. They can not give consent or enter into legally binding contracts. One of the reasons for this is that they lack control, are easily influenced by others. Healthy humans exert a higher control than children and handicapped people. You experience, or possess a greater extent of freedom proportional to the amount of influence and effectiveness of control you exert over the environment versus the environment over you. Though this definition of free will only works once you arbitrarily define a system to be an entity within an environment contrary to being the environment. Thus the neural activity, being either consciously aware and controlled by the system itself, or not, is no valid argument within this framework. Of course, in a strong philosophical sense this definition fails to address the nature of free will as we can do what we want but not chose what we want. But I think it might after all be a useful definition when it comes to science, psychology and law. It might also very well address our public understanding of being free agents.
I should have checked the lesswrong wiki before posting this. And of course read the mentioned posts here on lesswrong.com.
One of the easiest hard questions, as millennia-old philosophical dilemmas go. Though this impossible question is fully and completely dissolved on Less Wrong...
Anyway, for those who care or are wondering what I have been talking about I thought I should provide some background information. My above drivel is loosely based on work by Björn Brembs et al.
..."Our results address the middle ground between simple determinism and ran
A monthly thread for posting rationality-related quotes you've seen recently (or had stored in your quotesfile for ages).
ETA: It would seem that rationality quotes are no longer desired. After several days this thread stands voted into the negatives. Wolud whoever chose to to downvote this below 0 would care to express their disapproval of the regular quotes tradition more explicitly? Or perhaps they may like to browse around for some alternative posts that they could downvote instead of this one? Or, since we're in the business of quotation, they could "come on if they think they're hard enough!"