Science vs. Free Will. And the Winner is...

PUBLISHER:

redshirt

Shaun Johnston:
In modern times we've made two revolutionary discoveries. One is, how changes in physical matter can be accounted for in terms of physical laws that can predict precisely what will happen next. Having given rise to science (how this can be studied) and industry (how it can be applied) this revolution is well under way.

The second revolution is, how emergence of species of living creatures can be accounted for in terms of them evolving from one another. This revolution, despite its promise of how much it could tell us about ourselves, remains stillborn through the mistaken application to it of principles coming out of the first revolution--reductive physicalism.

For this second revolution to advance it should be taken from under the wing of science and studied on its own terms. Tip: one recent product of evolution is creatures with minds. Minds are better studied through methods of the humanities than through those of science. Tell me, does this interest you?

Details: Written by Shaun Johnston Shaun Johnston; Published: November 23, 2011 November 23, 2011; Hits: 3199 3199

"If science is right about free will, then there's no contest--what we call free will would defy physics, according to science, so it can't exist. And if it can't exist, then it doesn't exist. Science wins."

Thus begins an essay you'll find HERE. I give science's arguments for the non-existence of free will, then I turn those arguments around to prove free will can exist, then that it does. Finally I engage a hypothetical scientist in a conversation in which I bring him to admit he values free will over science. The winner, I conclude, is free will.

Contrived? Speak to Socrates about that.