There's a lot of research that indicates that what you think is a conscious decision is actually an unconscious one with after-the-fact justification by your conscious mind. BTW, this whole discussion seems to be philosophy rather than math or science. Without an objective measure of consciousness it's just fun. --ms On 2013-08-05 16:10, David Makin wrote:
On 5 Aug 2013, at 18:27, meekerdb wrote:
Sure. Daniel Dennett makes that point when challenged to explain how a computer could have free will. He says it's very simple, first you program the computer to make intelligent decisions. And then you program it so that when it's asked how it arrived at a decision it says, "I have no idea. It's just what I wanted to do."
Brent
To me what that gives is the difference between a "conscious" decision and an unconscious one - one can describe at least in some way reasons why one came to a conscious decision or perform a conscious action but not for an unconscious one - for instance I decided to write this to add to the thread, but I can't tell you how I keep my heart beating...or even how I can control my hand so easily to type this....
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