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In reply to the discussion: Have It Your Way [View all]struggle4progress
(118,275 posts)34. It is clearly true that we do not control everything about ourselves:
most of us do not have willful control of matters such as heartbeat; habit can sometimes produce surprisingly automatic results; and the fact, that unconscious influences can play a role in our behavior, has been known for a century or more
All of that is interesting and useful to know; but none of it demolishes "free will," unless one is an ideologue who is incapable of understanding that our ideas are always approximations with rough edges or that everyone lives subject to various constraints
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I suppose Sammy's view is that he wrote the book because elementary physical laws
struggle4progress
Aug 2012
#17
Over various years I took several neuro-chemistry and neuro-anatomy courses,
struggle4progress
Aug 2012
#22
It is clearly true that we do not control everything about ourselves:
struggle4progress
Aug 2012
#34
Well the problem is that currently attempts to measure what we consciously control
Warren Stupidity
Aug 2012
#40
... Given his other books, one would expect science to drive Harris’s conclusions, but here
struggle4progress
Aug 2012
#35
Wait, wait, wait! If we are going to do the negative Socratic dialectic thingie, I think that
struggle4progress
Aug 2012
#37
If there is no such a thing as free will, then what sense can I possibly make
struggle4progress
Aug 2012
#39