h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

People who don't believe that consciousness/ The Mind is a physical entity could question whether it could be determined by the physical laws mentioned in the entry. This carries over into the nature/nurture argument and boring stuff like that.

Also, how DOES one behave if one believes that free will is an illusion? Far from straightforward question.

Why did Belgium people decide to make their 200 Belgium Francs note yellow?

I read a quote that pretty much sums it up for me:

"If the mind were simple enough for us to understand, we'd be too simple minded to understand it."

- Steve K.

It's the other way around, methinks, Binaryboy... people who think the mid is just a physican entity can reason that free will and super determinism aren't incompmatible, because you *are* a mechanical being by nature...

That's my point of view; the choices I make may or may not be entirely predictable but they're still my choices - if they were random and hence unpredictable, would that make me a somehow more intelligent entity? No... randomness and intelligence are not the same thing; intelligence *should* always make the same choice given the same information.

26199

D'ya know, I was just trying to decide whether to post my view or not... but your post (26199) is *exactly* what I wanted to say!

I could take all the information making up your brain, stick it all in a computer, feed in all the appropriate inputs and see what you would decide in reality. If I made the simulation perfect, then I'd be able to predict what you would do absolutely perfectly.

But that doesn't mean that you didn't have a choice. I have merely re-created your act of choosing. In fact, in some sense, I have re-created *you* and forced 'you' to choose again under the same circumstances!