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The Forum > Article Comments > Its coming: The most ground-breaking revolution in social history > Comments

Its coming: The most ground-breaking revolution in social history : Comments

By Brian Holden, published 4/11/2011

The myth of free-will.

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Hmmm lots of people think Brian is wrong but nobody provides any alternative theory about how our brains do work or why some of us are stupid and useless.

Hasbeen, you write "A great deal of our lives & futures are controlled by forces that we have absolutely no control over." I think you mean 'luck', and that certainly is a critical part of the equation that Brian didn't talk about. But Brian was not saying that everything you did in your life was coded into that first cell. He was saying that the single cell that grew into you, contained all the information required to grow your brain and your body a certain way.

We all know that some kids are shy (weak-willed?) and others outgoing (strong-willed). This difference is explained by the fact that they started with different genes. Each child will make different choices and these choices they make are based on the way their brain is configured.

Neither the shy child nor the outgoing child is 'free' to make choices about what they will do because both children are being influenced by their brain but neither child is aware of what their brain is telling them to do.

Both children can be changed to some extent to be more like the other by providing them with an understanding of themselves and by teaching them to behave differently. That is what a good parent does and that is the way to develop a degree of free will.

But why do we insist that all of us should be outgoing, strong and competitive? Shouldn't we value the shy and gentle? Jesus did. And in our original state, when we first became human, we lived in small family groups, and a variety of people, both weak and strong, would have been needed for the group to be successful and survive.

LOL Hasbeen, you "met some navy types studding at the same uni." Those navy types do fancy themselves eh? My typos are always boring and stupid, not as funny as this one.
Posted by Mollydukes, Saturday, 5 November 2011 10:40:10 AM
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Molly, they were probably just getting ready for the modern practice of mixed crews on our navy ships.

Of course we would never have been so stupid as to put girls & boys on a ship together for long periods at sea, back in those more enlightened days.
Posted by Hasbeen, Saturday, 5 November 2011 12:21:52 PM
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Mollydukes:"He was saying that the single cell that grew into you, contained all the information required to grow your brain and your body a certain way."

If he was, then this was where he really goes wrong. There are strong interactions with the environment, even before you born, starting with what your mother ate and how much exercise she may have had or what sort of stress she was under. Genetic predispositions do not dictate behaviour. They influence some choices certainly, but they do not dictate them.

"Each child will make different choices and these choices they make are based on the way their brain is configured." Yes, but only to a point, in fact the choices that a child makes can also reconfigure how their brain is wired. The interaction with environment is a strong one. But it doesn't even stop there.

Geneticists have found that even with highly inbred laboratory animals, that there is a degree of variability within a strain in response to a number of treatments or stimuli, however only a very small percentage of this variability can be attributed to genetics, but rather it may be due to epigenetics.

Look at twins, some identical twins are so different from each other and yet they came from that same 'single cell'. Twin studies show the weakness in the idea of 'genetic determinism'.
Posted by Bugsy, Saturday, 5 November 2011 12:49:45 PM
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The myth of free-will is of course not a myth.
I have had a drug addiction for over 30 years I have been clean for over 2 years and now attend university, this has all been through my own choice and free-will. None of my choices have been hard wired, nor come from my biology.
Mr Holden please use your free will to think again!
Posted by maturestudent, Saturday, 5 November 2011 3:08:22 PM
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Brian Holden,

Where does ‘free will’ go when your place is invaded by an hostile army?
Posted by skeptic, Saturday, 5 November 2011 6:07:25 PM
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*Look at twins, some identical twins are so different from each other and yet they came from that same 'single cell'. Twin studies show the weakness in the idea of 'genetic determinism'*

Ah Bugsy, there are of course two sides to that coin. Twin studies
also showed the importance of genetics and blew the old tabula
razza theory, clean out of the water.

Fact is, both genetics and environment matter. How much each matters
is still hotly contested, but around 50/50 is often quoted.

What does not change is that genes influence our every decision,
so the will is not so free at all, but is highly influenced, even
if we are not aware of it.
Posted by Yabby, Saturday, 5 November 2011 8:42:53 PM
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