Posted by Eddie Sylvano on July 3, 2003, at 10:14:14
Of all Internet forums, this should be one where the users can appreciate the concept of control. Have you ever felt that you didn't have at least full control over your thoughts and actions? It's a common experience, to varying degrees. If you're not controlling yourself, what is? Maybe nothing.
A guy named Libet performed a series of experiments in 1983 that demonstrated the relationships between the brain's activity preceeding a willed event and the subject's awareness of the event. (see http://www.blutner.de/philom/consc/consc.html ). The reults showed that when you will something to happen (the experiments invovled moving a finger), the electrical activity necessary for you to do so begins *before* you decide to do it, and you then claim ownership of the intent as it's happening. How can events occur before you will them? Maybe you're not the one in control, but simply *feel* that you are because that's more functional that not knowing what you're going to do. Free will is then a useful facade for a complex system of experiences that's trying to navigate the world and reproduce. It runs counter to our everyday experience, so the idea never gets much consideration, but I think there's the seed of understanding ourselves in it.
poster:Eddie Sylvano
thread:238945
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030626/msgs/238945.html