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#freewill

2 posts2 participants0 posts today
WIST Quotations

A quotation from Hannah Arendt

For behind the unwillingness to judge lurks the suspicion that no one is a free agent, and hence the doubt that anyone is responsible or could be expected to answer for what he has done. The moment moral issues are raised, even in passing, he who raises them will be confronted with this frightful lack of self-confidence and hence of pride, and also with a kind of mock-modesty that in saying, Who am I to judge? actually means We’re all alike, equally bad, and those who try, or pretend that they try, to remain halfway decent are either saints or hypocrites, and in either case should leave us alone.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Essay (1964-08), “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship,” The Listener Magazine

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/arendt-hannah/43944/

#quote#quotes#quotation
Björn Brembs

New preprint out!

Beyond picking and choosing: The emerging neurobiology of decision-making

doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16571152

Part of an upcoming special issue with contributors from this conference:

philosophie.univie.ac.at/news-

My talk was recorded:
youtu.be/Yabf5Y1KQ68?si=OyTSx5

as was the kick-off presentation of organizer Anne Sophie Meincke:

youtu.be/AHGRp9q5wv4?si=mx-Gwn

ZenodoBeyond picking and choosing: The emerging neurobiology of decision-makingFor centuries, Western debates about free will have revolved around a familiar riddle: how can freedom exist in a universe governed by cause and effect? Yet this riddle rests on an outdated map of reality. In the hundred years since quantum mechanics redrew the boundaries of the knowable, our understanding of the universe has shifted—from a Newtonian clockwork to a landscape where order and indeterminacy intertwine. Also at the scales that matter for biology and behavior, the world is not rigidly determined, nor is it ruled by pure chance. It is, rather, ‘underdetermined’. Life evolved in this in-between zone. Evolution itself is a dance of randomness and selection; so too are the neural processes that guide behavior. Long before modern neurobiology, Ullmann-Margalit and Morgenbesser in 1977 famously distinguished between different kinds of decisions: picking between identical options and choosing between different ones. Emerging neurobiological evidence suggests that decision-making in nervous systems arises from layered, reciprocal interactions between algorithmic, stimulus-driven mechanisms and nonlinear, internally generated activity. Even in the absence of clear cues, brains do not wait—they initiate. This shift in perspective nudges the free will debate onto biological ground. If our decisions emerge from neural systems shaped by evolution to act in an uncertain world, might that support a new account of agency and moral responsibility? Even biologists understand that the old framing no longer holds. But crafting what comes next—what freedom means today—is a task only philosophy can complete.
#biology#neuroscience#freewill
earthling

The Great Illusion: The Myth of Free Will, Consciousness, and the Self by Paul Singh, 2016

This book presents research that supports the naturalistic stance that the mind is identical to the brain. The author argues that if one were to look at the idea that the mind is the brain then it follows logically that free will must be an illusion, that there can be no consciousness separate from the brain ...

#books
#brain
#mind
#consciousness
#FreeWill

StanceOfMind

The free will vs. determinism debate: Can we truly hold people morally responsible if our actions are predetermined?

P.F. Strawson's 'Freedom and Resentment' offers a powerful shift. He argues our practice of holding people morally responsible is rooted in natural 'reactive attitudes,' not abstract metaphysics. These reactions are fundamental to human social life.

open.substack.com/pub/terraphi
#Philosophy #FreeWill #Determinism #PFStrawson #FreedomAndResentment #Ethics #MoralResponsibility #AcademicMastodon

Terra Philosophica · P.F. Strawson: Free Will, Determinism & Reactive Attitudes ExplainedBy Ronald Raadsen
WilliamLMiller

On Pointing at the Moon: Wisdom, Existence, and Our Shared Horizon

1️⃣ Some lessons can’t be given.
They can only be found.

This is the story of why wisdom needs both conditions and desire—
And why our ability to thrive, grow, and shape the future depends on the same.

Because when the conditions are right…
And when motivation awakens…
Discovery becomes inevitable.

#Concupiscere#Nomodynamy#FreeWill
Jochen Fromm

If somebody is interested in philosophical questions here are two blog posts from myself about #freewill in the series of philosophical blog articles nobody needs 🙂

no 2: The hard problem of free will
blog.cas-group.net/2025/06/the

no 1: Free Will is the prize
blog.cas-group.net/2025/02/fre

blog.cas-group.netCAS-Group Blog » Blog Archive » The hard problem of free will
Diogo Vicente Mendes

Just published something I’ve wrestled with for months:
Neo-Superdeterminism: Understanding Choice in a Causally Closed Universe.

If causality is closed, what becomes of choice, ethics, design?

For those who feel the weight of freedom — and wonder if its collapse might be a kind of liberation.

Read: philpapers.org/archive/MENNUC.

#superdeterminism #freewill #philosophy #ethics #causalclosure
#agency #designethics #systemsthinking #existentialism #writinginpublic

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