Information and free will (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, October 03, 2011, 15:01 (4800 days ago) @ dhw

We are once more discussing the extent to which the will and the identity are dependent on our physical body.-> DAVID: A T-junction, no. That is dead-heading into a stop sign. A Y-junction, perhaps, so one can choose the best reason as to why there is a universe at all. Or as Yogi Berra said, "If you come to a fork in the road, take it."
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> A wonderful quote! T-junction, fork in the road ... I shan't quarrel with you over images. In both cases, either you travel faithfully along one of the roads, or you stop indefinitely at the junction, enjoying both prospects and ignoring the hoots from behind you.-Without replying to your each and every example of how our brains can do different things, and even lose capacities, it is simple enough to note that brain reasoning capacity and knowledge capacities are reasonably measured by IQ tests, and those tests give a bell-shaped curve. Brains are different in every person. Thre are as different as height, body conformation, hair color, complexion, etc. Brains are plastic and can have IQ raised by maternal input in very early childhood. We are what our brains can do for us and we can enhance that capacity by exercising the brain. We are what our bodies can do for us: at 5' 8", my current height, I don't do as well in a pick-up game of basketball as the fellow who is 6'8". -None of this changes my concept that free will is free. I can go as far as my brain can take me at the Y in the road. So can everyone else.