I grapple with this one. I definitely believe that free will as we have defined it for centuries is incorrect and deterministic processes are really at work. Determinism lead me to reconsider how our criminal justice and healthcare systems deal with many problems. Both need major changes to reflect determinism and the impact on blame and accountability that can reasonably be expected.
At the same time, we know that repetitive exposure to stimuli can lead to neuroplastic changes that fortify input parameters. Is this learning or is it really more akin to neural net programming (hint -yes)? If its programming then inputs or routines that lead to the creation of negative reality models that can be very hard to unseat. Such negative models (speech) could be equated to human malware. if so, what's to be done? I don't have an answer but I think it's something we need to start talking about.
I grapple with this one. I definitely believe that free will as we have defined it for centuries is incorrect and deterministic processes are really at work. Determinism lead me to reconsider how our criminal justice and healthcare systems deal with many problems. Both need major changes to reflect determinism and the impact on blame and accountability that can reasonably be expected.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, we know that repetitive exposure to stimuli can lead to neuroplastic changes that fortify input parameters. Is this learning or is it really more akin to neural net programming (hint -yes)? If its programming then inputs or routines that lead to the creation of negative reality models that can be very hard to unseat. Such negative models (speech) could be equated to human malware. if so, what's to be done? I don't have an answer but I think it's something we need to start talking about.