free will

A collection of 184 posts

compatibilism

I am editor of "Free Will and Determinism" at DMOZ

A friend of mine on facebook, George Ortega, who runs the causalconsciousness website, alerted me to the website categorisation project known as DMOZ. See below for what DMOZ is. I have changed and added a few titles, as well as denying a bunch of rubbish ones suggested by users which

determinism

Free Will: The Achilles Heel of Christianity

An online friend of mine whom has a real interest in the concept of free will, and all the problematic baggage it brings with it. He has a proclivity for producing adverts for newspapers and publications like Free Inquiry that concern themselves with this erroneous philosophical belief. Here is one

Biology

Growing Up Poor, Stressed Impacts Brain Function as Adult

Childhood poverty and chronic stress may lead to problems regulating emotions as an adult, according to research published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

determinism

Kitteridge on Ingersoll on Free Will

In refutation of the argument for "free moral agency," Ingersoll once used the following illustration, -- itself an argument as clear as it is unanswerable: -- "It is insisted that man is free, and is responsible, because he knows right from wrong. But the compass does not navigate the ship; neit

determinism

God Cannot Act Contrary to his own Predictions

Here is a criticism about God’s omniscience and omnipotence based upon a point made by John D. Barrow in Impossibility, drawing on the work of cognitive scientist Donald Mackay. To put it into simple terms, it might be easier to state it as follows:

Alvin Plantinga

Evidential Problem of Evil - A highbrow threesome?

Well, it depends on your definition of highbrow, of course. But please check out the video of myself, Counter Apologist and Justin Schieber from Reasonable Doubts discussing the Evidential Problem of Evil, going through a ton of arguments and interesting points. It was really enjoyable and we hope y

brain

Researcher Controls Colleague's Motions in First Human Brain-To-Brain Interface

University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher.

determinism

Another review for my Free Will? book

As most of you probably already know, my first book was Free Will? An into whether we have free will or whether I was always going to write this book. This has received overwhelmingly good reviews (the only negative one on Amazon.com is from a mental Catholic priest who hadn't read it and who has be

COVID crisis

God Loves Infant Death - How Most Souls in Heaven are Automatons

Some time ago I posted a piece called God Loves Abortion, to which Andy Schueler added a nice piece on conception and the creation of the soul and personhood from a biological perspective. The other day on my Free Will, Heaven and the Problem of Evil video, Honest_John_Law linked this summary by Sco

determinism

Free Will, the Problem of Evil and Heaven

Not sure if I have posted this one before, but needing to do quick and edifying (hopefully) posts, I am posting another of my videos for your delectation... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWA9kx9QsYY&feature=youtu.be   Comments on a postcard (to Cornwall)...

free will

Guest Post by The Thinker - A Short Look At William Lane Craig's "Refutations" Of The B-Theory Of Time

Over at the website Closer To Truth, which is a site about an agnostic who goes around interviewing philosophers and scientists to try to find answers to the biggest and deepest mysteries of the meaning of existence and the universe, there is a profile of William Lane Craig. In it, they summarize hi

causality

Libertarian Free Will Defeats the Kalam Cosmological Argument (#2)

I have a comment to answer on the original blog post Libertarian Free Will Defeats the Kalam Cosmological Argument and I thought I would not lose all the work to a comment forgotten in the annals of blog history. So here is the original post almost in full to remind you: Everything which begins to

Consciousness

The ‘Why I am a Christian’ series – Vincent Torley of Uncommon Descent (Part 3)

After having looked at Randal Rauser's reasons for being a Christian, and having had my reasons and his defences intensely debated on his blog, I have in a previous post offered Dr Vincent Torley's account. Some readers may know Vincent from the Uncommon Descent website which attempts to refute evol

determinism

Genetic Variants Linked to Educational Attainment

A multi-national team of researchers has identified genetic markers that predict educational attainment by pooling data from more than 125,000 individuals in the United States, Australia, and 13 western European countries.

Consciousness

Yet another experiment showing that conscious “decisions” are made unconsciously, and in advance

This is a superb article from Jerry Coyne over at Why Evolution Is True about the work being done building on and improving upon the Benjamin Libet experiments which I have talked about before online and in my book. Thanks you so much to Jerry who has allowed me to repost his article. Please, please

determinism

2 counter-apologetics segments available!

Two episodes of Skepticule have become available with my counter-apologetics segment, called Pearced Off. The first episode (44) features my piece on free will as an incoherent gift from God, which can be found here. My segment starts at 29.10.

causality

Libertarian Free Will and the Principle of Alternate Possibilities

So I am arguing in many different forums at the moment about free will, and in particular, about whether Libertarian Free Will (LFW) is compatible with the Kalam Cosmological Argument. i define LFW here as the ability to choose otherwise. That means I invoke the Principle of Alternate Possibilit

determinism

Libertarian Free Will Defeats the Kalam Cosmological Argument

I was posting on Randal Rauser's blog recently and made a throw away comment about the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) and libertarian free will. It is an argument which have meant to spell out for some time and so I guess this is as good a time as any.

compatibilism

Interview with Tom Clark of the Center For Naturalism

Tom Clark is the Director for the Center for Naturalism (CFN), an organisation which harbours the excellent resource Naturalism.Org. The Mission for CFN is stated as follows: The Center for Naturalism (CFN) is an educational and advocacy organization devoted to increasing public awareness of natu

determinism

Tom Clark's Transcript of Sam Harris' Delusion of Free Will Talk

Tom Clark, or the Center For Naturalism, and someone whom I will shortly be interviewing, has created this transcript of the excellent talk given by Sam Harris at the Dangerous Ideas event in Sydney recently. Tom has kindly allowed me to repost it here. It might not be exact, but

determinism

Bad Decisions Arise from Faulty Information, Not Faulty Brain Circuits

Some research out seems to support an idea that 'bad decisions' that we make are as a result of the quality of the information coming in rather than the quality of the systems working on that information. Of course, this may call into question the quality of the systems actually responsible for coll

free will

Schopenhauer on free will

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. I've always liked this quote from Arthur Schopenhauer, so much so that I thought I'd post it here, though it does have a few forms and is often misquoted, as I have no doubt done.

determinism

Talk on free will is really well received

I was lucky enough to be asked back to the Dorset Humanists, based in Bournemouth, UK, to give a talk on free will. I had previously given them a talk on the Nativity, based on my book, The Nativity: A Critical Examination. They appeared to enjoy it enough to ask me back, and I obliged.

crime

Brain Scans Might Predict Future Criminal Behavior

What is frustrating about this article is the fact that Science Daily produced it and I saw it just as I returned from giving a talk on free will to the Dorset Humanists. Grr. I talked about similar predicitve pieces of research, such as lack of fear conditioning in toddlers and criminal records, as

determinism

New Studies Link Gene to Selfish Behavior in Kids, Find Other Children Natural Givers

Can't believe I missed this one. Interesting, and something I will bring up in my talk tonight on free will at Southampton University to the Atheist Society. Research into prosocial (kind) behaviour is always interesting, and something I have documented here, here and here. there is a mix of genetic