Hand it to the author of Dilbert to put everything in perspective. Scott recently wrote a piece on free will which I read. Oh man! Talk about enlightening! Remind me via email or aim and I’ll link it here later, right now I’m at a bar. The gist of the essay was that we have no more free will than the average robot. We do what we do because of the sensory inputs we receive. These inputs are variables in equations that have been written into our genes over billions of years. The result of each calculation is our action. I had honestly never considered free will in a really logical sense before. Suddenly everything made sense, my actions, the actions of others, they’re all going to happen. The past and future now share the property that they both have happened, one just has yet to be experienced. Free will has just (in my mind) entered the realm of religion (or lack thereof). I now realize that free will is an illusion. This IN NO WAY means that we should not act with a conscience at all times. It only means that our "conscience" is just another variable in the equation of every day life.
EDIT:
During the transition to WordPress, I lost my comments. I needed to save the chain on this post though, here it is:
Re: Thanks Scott Adams!
There are no variables, Brandon. Not only that, but note that each person has different filters for the sensory input. And I don’t just mean things like being color-blind, One of those filters is PAST EXPERIENCE. Each human-bot makes different decisions with the same input.
2006/11/29 by JASON! • wwwRe: Thanks Scott Adams!
Jason – Would not those filters be seen as variables as well? A rose by any other name… But I would have to say I disagree with my namesake. Freewill does exist, because no man, woman, or child makes all motions without thinking.
-RearKick
2006/11/29 by -RearKickRe: Thanks Scott Adams!
The original post by Scott
I think it should be noted that the thinking is part of the physical brain, which is governed by physics. You might have some random influence from quantum indeterminism, but it’s just that… random. Your thinking is just the process by which your computer evaluates the variables. Given any base state, with identical inputs, you will come to an identical conclusion. No free will, just physics.
2006/11/29 by RedKrieg