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Businessman checking stock market data.

Economics Assumes Human Beings Have Free Will

Every waking moment we humans live out a constant fact underlying all economic science: we act.

“Free will denial is a cornerstone of materialist–determinist ideology,” wrote Dr. Michael Egnor here in February 2024. The deniers say we are “purely physical machines, meat robots.” Dr. Egnor cited well-known people who have prominently denied humans have free will. Dr. Egnor challenged deniers to demonstrate through their own actions that they truly have no free will. They will fail for Dr. Egnor’s stated reasons, plus one more: economics. The science of economics describes the behaviors of individual humans as they pursue their lives. Economics has discovered certainties, such as the Law of Supply and Demand, that describe how people produce, consume, trade, save, invest, and anticipate the future. Economics succeeds because it grasps certain universal truths about free-will, non-material, Read More ›

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Glowing mind image . Mixed media

No, Chatbots Are Not Conscious 

The arguments in favor of computer consciousness remain weak

In the midst of all the chatter surrounding AI and chatbots, one might be led to believe that the concepts of consciousness or even the soul, let alone the afterlife, are simply relics of outdated beliefs. This sentiment is often echoed by some scientists, raising the question: Is this truly the case? And should we readily accept this perspective? In a recent episode of Mindscape, renowned philosopher and cognitive scientist Raphael Millerie, who boasts an Oxford education and is now a fellow at the Center of Science and Society, teamed up with Sean Carroll, a prominent theoretical physicist known for debunking notions of the soul and the afterlife, to delve into the world of chatbots and AI (see episode 230). Read More ›

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Female Artist Works on Abstract Oil Painting, Moving Paint Brush Energetically She Creates Modern Masterpiece. Dark Creative Studio where Large Canvas Stands on Easel Illuminated. Low Angle Close-up

Intelligent Design Is Not What Most People Think It Is

Widespread confusion about Intelligent Design leads us to address the question: What exactly is it?

When I tell people that I do work in Intelligent Design (ID) research, either the person I’m talking to has no idea what Intelligent Design is, or they have quite a faulty idea of what Intelligent Design is. This isn’t their fault — media reports don’t seem to be able to make sense of what we are doing either. Some people have attributed this to malice, and, while I’m sure there’s plenty of that to go around, I think that it is in large part actually the result of Intelligent Design doing something genuinely new, making it difficult for people to shove us into existing boxes. Intelligent Design, at its core, says that agency is a distinct causal category in the world. That Read More ›

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Cat looking to little gerbil mouse on the table. Concept of prey, food, pest.

Can We Find Purpose in a Universe With No Underlying Purpose?

That’s the ambitious goal of a prominent science writer

British science writer Philip Ball offers us a guide to a very interesting project: an attempt to “naturalize” the idea of agency, that is, make the desire to do things—the mouse’s desire to escape the cat— explainable from a fully materialist perspective. That’s much harder than it seems. Rocks don’t desire anything. So we can’t just start from the bottom. It’s also not enough to say that the mouse wants to avoid getting killed. That’s true but it doesn’t really explain anything. For example, a person looks both ways before crossing the street to avoid getting run over. But, by itself, that doesn’t explain why she tries to avoid getting run over. One must factor in her memory, background knowledge, Read More ›

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Pinball chute

How Can Mere Products of Nature Have Free Will?

Materialists don’t like the outcome of their philosophy but twisting logic won’t change it

Although most compatibilists have a more or less materialist view of nature, they find it impossible to shake the conviction that free will is real.

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Man in a maze

Has Neuroscience Disproved Thinking?

A philosopher argues that Nobel Prize-winning research shows that the theory of mind is just another illusion, useful for survival and success
We've all seen this sort of argument before in many other guises. It is commonly called “reductionism.” The reductionist claims that, because an object can be construed as made up of parts, the object is just the parts. It is like saying that because an article like this one is constructed from letters of the alphabet, the article is only rows of letters. Read More ›
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Do Quasars Provide Evidence for Free Will?

Possibly. They certainly rule out experimenter interference.
The universe would seem much neater if everything were determined. One result is that objections to randomness and to free will have become more sophisticated. But have they succeeded? Read More ›