> In other words, flies seem to possess the same kind of internal > spontaneity-generation that we possess, and that we associate with our > subjectively-experienced feeling of free will. > > -- Ben G
To clarify further: Suppose you are told to sit still for a while, and then move your hand suddenly at some arbitrary moment. The choice of the moment is a kind of "spontaneous action" on your part -- not determined by external reality in any obvious way. You just suddenly decide to do it, and then do it. This same kind of spontaneous action-choice seems to be made by flies. It's not exactly the same as a reflective, deliberative choice. We humans seem to couple the two together: reflective deliberation and spontaneous choice. But I think they're different things. However, I don't think that this sort of spontaneous choice is necessarily "free" in any profound sense ... rather, Libet's classic work suggests the opposite, as summarized e.g. in http://www.consciousentities.com/experiments.htm#decisions where it says " Libet asked his experimental subjects to move one hand at an arbitrary moment decided by them, and to report when they made the decision (they timed the decision by noticing the position of a dot circling a clock face). At the same time the electrical activity of their brain was monitored. Now it had already been established by much earlier research that consciously-chosen actions are preceded by a pattern of activity known as a Readiness Potential (or RP). The surprising result was that the reported time of each decision was consistently a short period (some tenths of a second)after the RP appeared. This seems to prove that the supposedly conscious decisions had actually been determined unconsciously beforehand. This seems to lend strong experimental support both to the idea that free will is an illusion (at most, it would seem, there is scope for a last-minute veto by the conscious mind - a possibility which has been much debated since) " -- Ben G ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=89416197-1c6823