Quote:
Originally Posted by onemoretimes
I've always believed in determinism. Now that my wife is in medical school and learning more about the brain she's becoming a believer in it.
I like to say... "Do you tell your brain what to do, or does your brain tell you". People think.. well I can choose blue over green. For some reason they can't grasp that you only chose blue because that's what the cells told you to choose. ABSOLUTELY EVERY thing you feel or think is just an output from the reactions of the cells in your brain. Every "choice" you make is because your brain told you too.
The universe is all just a mathematical equation.
As Einstein said "God doesn't play with dice"
If you are right you are right for the wrong reason. The fact we only choose blue over green because that's the output from out brain at that time, does not imply we don't have any choice about colour preference.
In fact you dont need to have done any experiments to know it's highly unlikely that the conscious thinking part of the brain is used when we make decisions. Rather it's used when we train the net i.e. when we think about (rationalise) what we did.
As always the question simply comes down to whether consciousness is some special thing. Or, can a computer feel pain?