Free Will and Jerry Coyne (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, August 15, 2015, 00:06 (3389 days ago) @ romansh

Rom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca7i-D4ddaw#t=373-Having watched a good portion of his talk I am a compatibilist. I really have never tried to define myself in someone's classification. I just know how I feel. Coyne's reliance on fMRI and electrical brain studies falls into the usual trap. fMRI simply tells us which area of the brain is active for the task, not how the brain does it in the detail of how neurons are interacting, changing synapse levels, etc. the so called intention spike whish precedes the event is also not identified in any exact way. It is not clear exactly what it represents, thought, intention, gearing up, for the simple reason that we are not observing a hard-wired computer. It takes micro-seconds for the biochemical reactions to produce ions which send messages. These problems are discussed in detail by neuroscientists who work I have published here. We are unfortunately once or twice removed from exactly what is going on.