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Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal
Free Will Explained by World’s Top Intellectuals
Dec 8, 2023
Top intellectuals discuss the concept of free will and its implications. Topics include the relationship between actions and the world, emergence of individualization in embryos, illusion of free will in cognitive neuroscience, relativity of existence, indeterminacy in classical mechanics, interpretations of quantum mechanics, and the ontological underpinnings of materialistic perspectives.
04:30:15
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Quick takeaways
- Free will is the ability to make choices independent of external forces.
- The dynamics of the mind play a more influential role in behavior than individual neurons.
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The emergence of conscious experience
Consciousness is seen as an emergent phenomenon that arises from the complex dynamics of neural activity. While consciousness may be generated by the actions of neurons, it is also considered to be dual to the neural dynamics. Free will is seen as the ability to make choices that are independent of external forces and are not solely determined by the physical properties and processes of neurons. It is acknowledged that the dynamics of the mind, which include thoughts and mental representations, play a more powerful role in understanding behavior and decision-making than the dynamics of individual neurons. The mind is viewed as an independent dynamical system that can be understood and predicted to some extent, although complete predictability is not possible due to the complex and non-linear nature of the mind's dynamics. It is argued that while determinism may apply to lower levels of physical reality, such as atoms or particles, the dynamics of the mind operate at a higher level and exhibit a form of causal independence, allowing for the existence of free will.
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