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I've added the following text to "Determinism versus Agency: There is no Free Will" by Vexen Crabtree (1999): The facts of determinism - that external factors that form our development, such as experiences, and internal factors such as biochemistry, predestine us to our fates - are noted as mentioned by neurologists, physicists and philosophers. Above these, these facts are proclaimed also by none other than Albert Einstein: “I do not at all believe in human freedom in the philosophical sense. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner neccessity.” - Albert Einstein (reference on www.humantruth.info/free_will.html) I'm reading a collection of Einstein's writings called " Ideas and Opinions" and well chuffed to come across this two-line chestnut! (Nothing feels better than reducing one of the world's greatest minds to little quotations!) Tags: agency, destiny, determinism, einstein, fate, free will
Current Location: Germany
Listening To: "If I could..." by Resurrection Eve
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Added this to the first bits of my page on Free Will (www.humantruth.info/free_will.html):
“Nisbett and Wilson (1977) go so far as to claim that all psychological activities (including social behaviour) are governed by processes of which we are unaware. [...] Emotions can occur with rapid onset, through automatic appraisal, with little awareness and with involuntary changes in expression and physiology; indeed, we often experience emotions as happening to us rather than chosen by us. [...]
Apart from Freud [...] probably the most outspoken person advocate of the view that the person is not free is Skinner. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971) he argues that behavioural freedom is an illusion. Just as Freud believed that freedom is an illusion to the extent that we are unaware of the unconscious causes of our feelings and behaviours, so Skinner claimed that it is only because the causes of human behaviour are often hidden from us in the environment that the myth or illusion of free will survives.”
"Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour" by Richard Gross, p75, 121 & 875
It follows commentary by other scientists on free will... I'm reading Dawkins' new book at the moment, and he makes some great comments on free will, so when I've finished The God Delusion I will be adding some more to this page again. Tags: determinism, free will, freud, psychology, skinner
Current Location: Germany
Listening To: "Driven like the snow" by the Sisters of Mercy
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