tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60456842011-08-01T19:45:31.162-04:00Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comBlogger261100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-54598953850668658082010-05-04T04:15:00.000-04:002010-04-25T17:18:38.933-04:00

Nancey Murphy is a Christian theologian and philosopher at Fuller Theological Seminary. Psychologist Warren S. Brown is director of the Lee Edward Travis Research Institute there. He spent 11 years as a research scientist at the UCLA Brain Research Institute. As their background might suggest, their book, takes as key interests the physicalism of science and the room it leaves for the existence

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-53836150109284533102009-02-17T04:15:00.000-05:002009-02-17T04:15:00.597-05:00

David Hodgson: A Plain Person's Free WillDavid Hodgson is "a Judge of Appeal of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Australia" who is "also deeply interested in philosophy." He has published books through Oxford University Press (Consequences of Utilitarianism and The Mind Matters ), as wells as articles on consciousness, probability and plausible reasoning.Here is an abstract of his "plain

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1121804732618049172005-07-18T16:24:00.006-04:002009-02-22T20:03:38.360-05:00

Benjamin Libet's Personal View of Free Will."If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was travelling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings,

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1121441218203132822005-07-14T11:25:00.001-04:002009-02-22T20:26:25.724-05:00

Paul Weiss: Common Sense & BeyondI found an old book of papers presented before the New York Institute of Philosophy on the issue of human freedom (or non-freedom, if you prefer). Edited by Sidney Hook, the papers reflect a broad diversity of opinion. In reading them, I could only conclude that philosophers today are no less divided on the issue than they were then, in the mid-1950s. One piece

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1113614054027656532005-04-14T21:13:00.002-04:002009-02-22T20:01:07.827-05:00

Free Will & Consciousness Research: W. Grey Walter, Benjamin Libet, Hans Kornhuber, Lüder Deeke, & Risto Näätäen.Benjamin Libet is most frequently associated with the Readiness Potential and its implications for free will, but W. Grey Walter (1910-1977), did pioneering work that brought early attention to the phenomenon in Britain and America, although similar findings had been made in Germany

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1120244134225869412004-06-29T14:54:00.002-04:002009-02-24T14:19:15.249-05:00

There was a young man who said "Damn!"It grieves me to think that I amPredestined to moveIn a circumscribed groove:In fact, not a bus, but a tram."One fear of determinism is a gaping existential anxiety: that deep down we are not in control of our own choices. All our brooding and agonizing over the right thing to do is pointless, it would seem, because everything has already been preordained by

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-108949747777302532004-06-12T18:10:00.001-04:002009-02-22T20:12:43.365-05:00

Mindfulness Affects Brain Matter: Jeffrey Schwartz, The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force.Mind over matter, anyone? The question would be rejected by those who endorse the modern view of consciousness, which appeals to hard-liners in cognitive science, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, or behavioral genetics, all of whom would support some material explanation

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089497393421512062004-06-07T18:08:00.001-04:002009-02-22T20:18:19.794-05:00

Freedom of Will & The Myth of The Third Alternative.We each believe that we possess an Ego, Self, or Final Center of Control, from which we choose what we shall do at every fork in the road of time. To be sure, we sometimes have the sense of being dragged along despite ourselves, by internal processes which, though they come from within our minds, nevertheless seem to work against our wishes. But

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089497294649104972004-05-24T18:07:00.005-04:002009-04-07T23:42:18.761-04:00

Thinking Without Thinking: Marvin Minsky, The Dalai Lama, & Artificial Intelligence.Some people think that consciousness and computers are a contradiction in terms. That is, they believe that computers can never qualify as conscious, which is a uniquely human quality.Marvin Minsky believes that conscious artificial intelligence is not at all out of the question, which is in keeping with his

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089497191599200012004-04-26T18:05:00.002-04:002009-02-03T15:23:53.475-05:00

Home______Notes on Time & Choice: Daniel Dennett, Benjamin Libet, Roger Penrose, John Wheeler, & AdvaitaEverything humanity thinks and believes about itself is predicated upon two concepts. One is free will; the other is self. Look wherever you will, whatever society you find, and all cultures contain a belief in some kind of will, and self. Civilizations, economies, legal systems, art, religion,

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1120307286749184132004-04-11T08:27:00.001-04:002009-02-22T20:24:55.696-05:00

,: Antonio Damasio, Somatic Markers, As-If Loops, & Moral Decision-MakingIn my 12 March 2004 article, Evolutionary Psychology & Moral Dilemmas, 12 March 2004 I discussed the relationship of morality to emotions. I presented evidence of evolutionary psychology and brain research, which suggest that morality is often based on what feels good rather than on what is right. Moral judgements tend to be

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089497045021062892004-04-04T18:03:00.001-04:002010-01-21T17:18:18.127-05:00

When you ride a bicycle, do you decide to balance? Or, so to speak, does balancing balance? When you drive a car, do you decide to drive, or does the act of driving take over? When you come to a fork in the road, do you decide to take the right fork as distinct from the left? Or do you find yourself having gone one direction rather than the other?British psychologist Guy Claxton has a different

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089496989450841622004-04-02T18:02:00.001-05:002010-01-21T17:20:18.285-05:00

In Learned Optimism, cognitive psychologist Martin Seligman recounts an experience he had as a graduate student at University of Pennsylvania. When he first entered the lab of Richard Solomon, he met a fellow graduate student who explained that a behavioral study was in trouble."It's the dogs," Seligman was told. "The dogs won't do anything. Something's wrong with them. So nobody can do

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089496917645133122004-03-17T18:00:00.001-05:002010-01-21T17:24:50.365-05:00

The Terrorist, He WatchesThe bomb will go off in the bar at one twenty p.m.Now it's only one sixteen p.m.Some will still have time to get in,some to get out.The terrorist has already crossed to the other side of the street.The distance protects him from any danger,and what a sight for sore eyes:A woman in a yellow jacket, she goes in.A man in dark glasses, he comes out.Guys in jeans, they are

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089496699113293752004-03-10T17:57:00.001-05:002010-01-21T19:50:47.686-05:00

Former general manager of the Bank of India in Bombay, Ramesh Balsekar studied under Nisargadatta, often translating as Nisargadatta's native language was Marathi. After the sage's death in 1981, Balsekar held speaking enagements in countries such as Germany, the United States and India. The author of many books, he is retired in Bombay, recently still meeting with visitors almost each morning

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089496516224914812004-02-12T17:54:00.001-05:002010-01-21T19:52:54.047-05:00

In my 1 February article I make this comment: "So Consciousness may indeed be all, and I have no doubt it is. But I don't regard this situation as leaving Eastern thinkers with an I-told-you-so smugness. They have wrapped their teachings in doctrine, dogma, and ignorance, and have remained satisfied with ancient explanations for the enlightenment experience. They project an aura of beatitude over

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089496401173704142004-01-23T17:52:00.001-05:002010-01-21T19:54:35.934-05:00

Our everyday world of classical physics makes sense. If we drop a pebble in a pond it causes waves and sinks to the bottom. At the quantum level the pebble itself would not only initiate the action, but would become a wave. What happens at the borderland between classical physics and quantum physics? Why can we not connect the two in our understanding? On the one hand, we have a ball going where

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089496329221163762004-01-17T17:51:00.001-05:002010-01-21T20:19:11.233-05:00

I am these words you read. Or, if you want, these words are you. They radiate from this screen, involving you in their shapes, in their meanings, in the very mystery that they can communicate at all. We don't know one another and will never meet. Yet you read these words, each of them composed of letters, which shape representations. Representations of what?Ah, there's the rub. Of what? What is

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089496162528416902004-01-11T17:48:00.001-05:002010-01-21T20:08:57.377-05:00

If you aren't confused by quantum physics, you really haven't understood it. (Neils Bohr)To explain very puzzling quantum phenomena Neils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg provided our world with the 1927 Copenhagen Interpretation of the double slit experiment (see Schrödinger's Cat, 2 January). The Interpretation still stands. It regards as meaningless questions like, Where was the particle before I

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089496060155310602004-01-09T17:46:00.000-05:002005-07-02T10:25:18.106-04:00

Home______Two Sages & a Taoist Excerpts from a couple of What Is Enlightenment magazine interviews*, one with sage Ramesh Balsekar, the other with sage Swami Dayananda.Ramesh Balsekar interview:Q: [To Balsekar regarding his assertion that he and all of us are fated, not determined, and have no choices in what we do.**] On the other hand, though, if one believed that one does have control over [

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089495969785259792004-01-08T17:44:00.000-05:002005-07-02T10:28:13.656-04:00

Home______Daniel Dennett & Choice MachinesIn his book Freedom Evolves, Daniel Dennett says we have more freedom if determinism is true. A determined world has less randomness, less unpredictability. It allows us to make informed judgements on reliably future events. If you are about to cross an open field in a deterministic lightning storm you can plan when lightning will next strike by

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089495781144127452004-01-01T17:42:00.000-05:002005-07-02T10:38:21.606-04:00

Home______Winnie The Pooh on Free Will "If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings,” said the Tralfamadorian, “I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by free will. I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.” (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse–Five)"There's a very large question

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089432883600544322003-12-12T00:12:00.000-05:002005-07-02T10:53:29.966-04:00

Home______John Horgan, Scientific American writer, on Daniel Wegner & free will"When I woke this morning, I stared at the ceiling above my bed and wondered: to what extent will my rising really be an exercise of my free will? Let's say I got up right . . . now. Would my subjective decision be the cause? Or would computations unfolding in a subconscious neural netherworld actually set off the

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089432627178867662003-12-09T00:09:00.000-05:002005-07-02T10:56:51.260-04:00

Home______Losing ControlControl is the central issue in all religions. Loss of control delivers the adherent into God's grace, the bliss of nirvana, or satori. Thy will be done, whatever phrase it takes, is common to them.Religious doctrines hold that the individual cannot choose this deliverance, but must depend on God's grace, or the happenstance of enlightenment. Man can do nothing to

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1120188215733049702003-12-04T23:23:00.000-05:002005-07-02T09:12:28.050-04:00

Home_____ Albert Einstein on free will & Ramana Maharshi on freedom & destiny"If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6045684.post-1089432329854439792003-11-09T00:02:00.000-05:002005-07-02T10:59:39.776-04:00

Home______Looking for Reality: Billiard Balls, Einstein, & NisargadattaA billiard ball strikes another and moves it across the table. The proximity of the one effected a change in the second. Right?Einstein said so. He, of course, took it further and asserted that the speed of light is an absolute, a constant, that determines physical effects, none of which can be transmitted faster than its

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17961469575666435993noreply@blogger.com