2/27(Sat.) Does Free Will Really Exist? (Host: Michael)

[Michael-liu]

Dear All,

We all are convinced that we have "free will" to make decisions in life. However, some scientists believe human beings don't really have "free will", while some philosophers argue we do.

Let's debate!

Session 1

You can turn on the English caption for this video
There's No Such Thing as Free Will
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... l/480750/

哲學家與科學家的共同參戰：自由意志只是幻覺？
https://www.thestandnews.com/philosophy ... E5%97%8E/

人類到底有沒有自由意志？科學還沒有答案
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thenew ... cle/91985

Questions:

1. After watching the video and reading the articles, do you understand why scientists believe human beings don't have free will?

2. Do you tend to believe that free will exists or not? Which side are you at? Why?

3. "Decoy Effect" is mentioned in the video. When I buy drinks at a convenient store, I always buy two because the second one is NT10 only. Are you usually affected by this "decoy effect"? Can you think of other decoy effect examples?

Session 2

You can either continue to discuss free will or change to a light-hearted topic, which is "life sharing".

Everyone shares one thing happened in your life. It can be a book, a movie, a trouble in life, a happy thing in life, a place you visited, what you did during Chinese New Year,.....etc.

[Michael-liu]

Bring it to the top

[Rock]

Philosophy! Great topic, now we can talk about whatever we believe. Wait, is it free will that allows us to say whatever we believe?

[Laura]

Bring this posting to the top

[Luis Ko]

if normal people have no free will, what makes them have the question about "free will" in the first place and, the answers later??

if a decision made by your brain or genes was not your decision then, whose decision should it be?? is your brain not yours? or your genes are not yours?? or they are simply not "you"??

then again, what's the definition of "free will"??

[Kooper]

Free will is a topic that deserves more than one meeting to talk about given its depth, complexity, and the number of references our lovely and diligent host has provided.

I started with the Atlantic article but is still in it after 30 minutes of reading. There are a lot of information and ideas that require further reflection. It's going to take me a few more times of reading to get my head around the big ideas in it. This hasn't taken into account yet the expected efforts and time to watch the video clip and the rest articles.

Don't get me wrong. I go for the topic and really appreciate what Michael has prepared for us.

After years of hosting, many of our senior members are no longer satisfied with simple topics or ones with limited scope and started taking a crack at tougher ones. Moments like this might be a good opportunity to hold meetings in a brain-new way: making it a two or three meetings’ discussion and focusing on one aspect of the topic a time. The host might become more of an instructor than a moderator, helping participants delve into a complex subject one step a time.

[Michael-liu]

This is a serious topic, but let's discuss it for fun!! There is no absolute answer. ^·^

[Kooper]

Attendees(13): Ken, Julian, Stephen, Amy, Ramesh, Rock, Luis, Julia, Laura, Howard, David, Kooper, Michael(host)

Speaker: Julian, Ramesh, Rock, Julia, Laura, Howard, Kooper