free will - A Tippling Philosopher (Page 8)

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free will

A collection of 184 posts

Free Will!

Language - who's choosing my words?

I find this amazing. Language. I can have a 45 minute conversation with a friend. Neither of us consciously think up individual words. Our word choices (even as I am typing this) are non-consciously chosen. At 150 words a minute, that's a lot of words decided upon non-consciously. I generally appear

Gregg Caruso's "Free Will and Consciousness" Reviewed

I recently came across Gregg Caruso's book Free Will and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free Will. Gregg dropped me a line after coming across my blog and we got chatting. I have not read this book yet, but it seems to ally itself pretty strongly with my first book, Free Wi

My last talk is now a podcast: "Free Will?"

My last talk is now a podcast: "Free Will?"

My last public talk which I gave, on free will, has now been made into a podcast which can be heard here. The talk, given to Portsmouth Skeptics in a Pub on 14th June 2012, was a nice informal gathering of about 50-odd people of varying skeptical persuasions. I have not listened to it yet, but the Q

Free Will: “We are influenced, but not determined” – the 80-20% approach as nonsense

One of the most common defences of Libertarian Free Will (or contra-causal free will) is what I sometimes term the 80-20% approach. Most people, to some degree or another, accept that our lives are at least somewhat, and in most cases, a good deal influenced. This may be by genetic, biological or en

Time, Free Will and the Block Universe

So I came across this site on my internet travels (actually, through a naturalism group on facebook) and it provides a really good introduction to a number of difficult topics within the realms of physics and cosmology. In this piece, physicist Andrew Thomas elucidates on the topic of the reality

Free Will Is Un-Natural

As you've probably guessed, I am interested in all things free will. Recently, I was reading a chapter from "Are We Free?" entitled Free Will Is Un-Natural by John A. Bargh. Bargh sets out the obvious issues: The psychological issue of whether free will exists thus

'Psychopaths' have an impaired sense of smell - a slight bouquet of determinism

ScienceDaily (Sep. 20, 2012) — A new study suggests that a poor sense of smell may be a marker for psychopathic traits. People with psychopathic tendencies have an impaired sense of smell, which points to inefficient processing in the front part of the brain. These findings by Mehmet Mahmut and Richard

Life Without Free Will

Sam Harris, author of Free Will (obviously not as good as my book Free Will? which has a question mark and then a subtitle, so it must be better...;)), has written this great little essay. I'll let him do the talking: One of the most common objections to