The vast majority of people think we have free will and are the authors of our own life stories. But if neuroscientists were one day able to predict our every action based on brain scans, would people abandon this belief in droves? A new study concludes that such knowledge would not by itself be enough to shake our confidence in our own volition.
Many neuroscientists, such as the late Francis Crick, have argued that our sense of free will is no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells. This is tied to the idea of determinism, which has it that every effect is preceded by a cause, with cause and effect connected by physical laws. This is why the behaviour of physical systems can be predicted – even the brain, in principle.
As author Sam Harris puts it: “If determinism is true, the future is set – and this includes all our future states of mind and our subsequent behaviour”. (1)
Atheists BELIEVE we do not have free will.
Contrary to all empirical data. (yes, they too feel that they have free will!)
The power of belief is great.
And I have said it 1000 times and I am willing to repeat it here (since articles like this keep on coming): We should stop believing things. We should start being scientists! And the empirical data a scientist would trust show that there is a Cause for the existence of the universe, that we have Free Will, that we have a spirit since a set of matter can never become “alive” and experience the “I” we all do.
Religion has become science.
Science has become religion.
Welcome to the 21st century!
