Free Will And The Brain Capacity - 850 Words

I’ve come to understand that there are two kinds of people on this Earth: those who believe in fate, and those who believe that their actions affect their future. When going through a hard time, do you believe you are in that situation because of the choices you made, or do you believe that fate has put you exactly where you need to be? What is free will? As stated in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, free will is â€Å"the ability to choose how to act; the ability to make choices that are not controlled by fate or God.† Are we free? Do we have the brain capacity to exercise free will? This is a widely debated topic by scientists and philosophers alike. The answer is almost always no. There is no way that we are completely free. But why do they think this? Most scientists believe that everything is predetermined. Scientists Hans Helmut Kornhuber and Là ¼der Deecke discovered a phenomenon called â€Å"readiness potential.† They discovered that the brain entrs into a certain state prior to conscious awareness. Basically, your brain knows what it is going to do before your conscious knows. They believed that there is no room in our brain, in our society, to be completely free and to exercise free will. It’s just impossible. Even Charles Darwin, the father of the theory of evolution, said â€Å"everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.† Why don’t we have free will? One theory that we see repeated in history is cosmological determinism. This is the notion that everything happens in aShow MoreRelatedThe Human Body : An Intricate Construct Of Various Systems Working Together1380 Words   |  6 Pagescontrolled by specific divisions of the brain. The movement of the various organs at work for such processes can be observed and recorded with today’s technological advancements. However, the brain, the most influential and powerful organ, remains a mysterious entity within the organism. All the body’s functions are processed and delineated by the brain. The brain is the central control system for the body, directing movement, functions and thoughts. The tasks of the brain are so varied that scientists haveRead MorePhilosophical Exploration of Human Free Will Essay1087 Words   |  5 Pages Most of us consider that we do these choices freely, that we have free will to make these choices. The point that most of us miss is free will is not simple as is it looks like. When one makes choices doesn’t he consider that what would that choices lead him to? Therefore does he make those choices for his benefits or his desires to make those choices? Does the environment push him to make those choices or does he have the free will to ignore his own environment? Philosopher and writes splits aroundRead MoreProgrammed To Be Free: Exploring Andrew Niccols G atacca Essays1235 Words   |  5 PagesProgrammed To Be Free Gatacca by Andrew Niccol tells the story of Vincent, a young man naturally and traditionally engendered in a world where genetic engineering is the followed pattern to have a child. Few minutes after his birth, Vincent’s fate is revealed through a DNA analysis. Two important facts in the analysis will mark Vincent’s life, a fail in his cardio system and his life expectancy, only thirty years. The film shows a world where life is highly determined by genetics, and happinessRead MoreFree Will Essay example1168 Words   |  5 PagesFree Will I want to argue that there is indeed free will. In order to defend the position that free will means that human beings can cause some of what they do on their own; in other words, what they do is not explainable solely by references to factors that have influenced them. My thesis then, is that human beings are able to cause their own actions and they are therefore responsible for what they do. In a basic sense we are all original actors capable of making moves in the world. WeRead MoreThe Effects Of Caffeine On Oxidative Stress1460 Words   |  6 Pageshippocampus and striatum brain areas. Brain tissues are more vulnerable to oxidative stress other than tissues for many reasons such as high oxygen consumption (more than 20% of the total inspired oxygen), the presence of abundant amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids which are susceptible to free radicals attack, low antioxidant levels, high iron content in addition to the non-regenerative nature of neurons (Nehru and Anand, 2005 ; Kim et al., 2015). All these reasons may explain why brain is more susceptibleRead MoreDo Animals Have The Freedom Of Choice? Essay1594 Words   |  7 PagesThe theory of whether we have free will or a predetermined future has caused a substantial amount of discussion for thousands of years. Philosophers, Psychologists, and more recently Neuroscientists have contributed to the good amount of controversy to figure out the truth behind human behavior. The answer, which may or may not ever be discovered to its entirety, could be one of the most considerable discoveries to have ever been found. This would open so many doors to answer an extensive amountRead MoreSocial Psychology And Evolutionary Psychology793 Words   |  4 Pagesoccurred 50,000 and a million years ago. These mutations were important because they increased the size of the brain and cranial capacity. The purpose of these mutations was to give our human team the survival edge; being able to think has distinct evolutionary advantages. The ability to think gave both the individual and the tribe the edge. When things got difficult the thinking brain could figure out ways to find a solution. Our noble cousins the apes and chimpanzees could not do that or atRead More Criminal Accountability and the Essay1262 Words   |  6 Pagesinsanity defense in our legal system is astounding. Cases upon cases site drugs, brain tumors, car accidents involving head injury, blackouts and antisocial behavior as circumstantial evidence of a crime that was committed. These crimes involve murder, rape and robbery. The question of where criminal accountability lies and how we are able to hold someone accountable for an act may boil down to the brain itself. Where in the brain do reason, morality and inhibition lie? If these areas are affected by someRead MoreHow Self Control Is Truly Free Will1143 Words   |  5 Pages In everyday life we have the free will to control every aspect of our lives and actions through our choices and self control, however there are times when this sense of free will is challenged. In Patricia Churchland’s article she covers how self control is truly free will, it can shape our actions, as well as habits. Yet, there are reasons why ones own self control could be diminished, for example, the case of the man who had strangled his own wife in his sleep. Churchland believes that selfRead MoreEvaluate two models of one cognitive process1042 Words   |  5 Pagesinformation-processing approach. According to this model, memory consists of three types of memory stores: sensory stores, short-term store and long term store. Sensory stores consist of the eyes, nose, fingers, tongue, etc and the corresponding area of the brain. The sensory stores constantly receive information but most of this information receives no attention and remains in the sensory stores for a very b rief period. If a person’s attention is focused on one of the sensory stores, then the data is transferred