You and others are right in that Brembs was perhaps confused about the difference between spontaneity and free will.
But perhaps the experiment, in demonstrating spontaneity, does weigh against the idea of the fly being programmed? Robert: 1. Brembs and his colleagues reasoned that if fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) were simply reactive robots entirely determined by their environment, in completely featureless rooms they should move completely randomly. Yes, but no one has ever argued that a flier is a stateless machine. It seems like their argument ignores the concept of internal state. If they went through all this trouble just to prove that the brain of the flies has an internal state, it seems they wasted a lot of time on something trivial. I cannot see how the concept of "free will" has got anything to do with this. ----- 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=89427143-c33acd