Thursday 21 July 2016

Harvey McMahon on Neuroscience and Free Will


The latest Cambridge Paper from the Jubilee Centre is available online, this one by Harvey McMahon:


Here is the summary:

‘Free-will is fundamental to our sense of wellbeing, and underwrites our sense of morality, our judicial system and the Judeo-Christian faith. However, science has provided evidence that free-will may be an illusion. In this paper I explore how the brain functions as the seat of our individual free-will and how we are also part of a collective-will expressed by cultural or religious groupings. In both cases free-will is an emergent property where decisions are expressed creatively rather than simply responsively. Yet we may not be as free as we like to think, but within boundaries shaped by our individual histories, our genetics and our environment we can make decisions that determine our character, relationships and future.’

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