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Neuron scans and sci-fi applications
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Neuron scans and sci-fi applications
06/20/2011 3:50 am

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This by Ben Knob today on PIS:
"The most recent experiments in freewill relate to the ability of scientists to predict human behavior by looking at your neurons prior to your action. (Im referring to the more recent libet experiments, they might not be THE most recent)
But at this point it's just a contest to see if the subjects can outsmart the scientists.

Let's say in the future, scientists can scan your brain and figure out exactly what you are going to do in the next minute. And Police use this machine for chasing down cyber-punks. But the criminals figure out how his machine works and install nano-implants in their nerve cells to throw the machine off. Did you have free-will only after installing the implants, or neither before nor after, or both before and after? Are freedom and determinism, perhaps, two organic forces vying for supremacy?

The fact that the possibility of throwing off the determinist machine even exists must mean that freedom is immutable, and it always has been. We can always make modifications, try to change the rules of the game. We can also try to make the rules and control others with wily politics. The fact is there is so much we don't know, and so many angles we haven't covered. And chances are, nobody is every going to have a monopoly on possibility. Nature is a big influence, but it's not the whole story. We are manipulators of the environment. We can have command over the laws of nature and fit them into schemes of our own, including the laws of our own biology."
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