The other night, the championship game for my rec basketball league got fairly heated, and during a play late in the game I reacted in a less than ideal way. One of the more talkative players on the other team and I were both chasing down a loose ball, and as I grabbed it his …
A friend recently shared The Brain on Trial, an article by David Eagleman, and I found it to raise some interesting questions in the domains of criminal sentencing and agency. Eagleman also wades into the realm of “free will”, but the treatment seems to be only surface-level (at least from a philosophical standpoint) and not …
It’s interesting how difficult it can be to go on a diet. One can be fully set on the idea, ready to eat less and watch the pounds come off, and yet still fail to avoid that second helping of dinner or the ice cream for dessert. What happens in these situations when we fail …
In “The Absurdity of Free Will”, Hugo argues that we do not have free will, as conventionally understood. The basic premise is as follows: The universe is either deterministic (can be calculated) or indeterministic (random) If the universe is deterministic, then there’s no room for us to influence it If the universe is indeterministic, then …
Free will sits among the most explored philosophical topics (among other giants like Ethics and Rationality), and for good reason, as it has seemingly direct consequences for the way we (choose to?) live our lives. The question has existed since ancient times, but recent scientific advances have added structure to the question, as we’ve discovered …