Summary The big idea: could you have made different choices in life? | Philosophy books | The Guardian www.theguardian.com
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The Guardian offers philosophy books and news content to help people learn from the past and make better decisions in the future.
Key Points
- Guardian News & Media Limited offers original reporting and analysis on a range of topics.
- Neuroscientific experiments don’t prove that our actions are predictable from brain activity before we are conscious of making a decision.
- Free will is not found by asking if we could have chosen differently; instead, it is found in the neurobiology of volition.
- The Guardian offers philosophy books, as well as other lifestyle, culture, sport, opinion and news content.
- The Guardian also offers a range of digital services including a content licensing site, puzzles app, digital archive and more.
- Support the Guardian and their content to help fund independent journalism.
Summaries
148 word summary
We can't change the past, but we can learn to make better decisions in the future. The Guardian offers philosophy books, as well as other lifestyle, culture, sport, opinion and news content, such as Money, Travel, Family, Health & Fitness, Home & Garden, Love & Sex, Recipes, Food, Fashion and more. We often wonder if we could have acted differently in the past or if we can change the future. However, free will is not found by asking if we could have chosen differently. The point of having free will is to learn from our actions and reset our volitional circuitry. Guardian News & Media Limited offers original reporting and analysis every morning and have no paywall. They also offer books such as "The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings, from Animals to Aliens" from guardianbookshop.com. This mental leap is both empowering and liberating.
471 word summary
Guardian News & Media Limited offers original reporting and analysis every morning on topics such as lifestyle, culture, sports, opinion, news, money, travel, family, health & fitness, home & garden, love & sex, recipes, food, fashion, and more. They have no paywall and regularly ask readers to chip in to support their independent journalism. In 2033, Elon Musk is no longer one of the richest people in the world and Donald Trump is still threatening to run for president. To support the Guardian and Observer readers can purchase books such as "The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings, from Animals to Aliens" from guardianbookshop.com. The mental leap to this perspective is both empowering and liberating. We all have the power to make choices and progress in life, despite determinism. Neuroscientific experiments don't prove that our actions are predictable from brain activity before we are conscious of making a decision. Rather, they show that in complex systems like the brain, causal power is not only from the bottom up.
As Daniel Dennett says, we ask the question "Could I have done otherwise?" because we want to know what conclusions to draw from our actions and to make better choices in the future. Anil Seth adds that the point of having what we call free will is not to do anything differently in the moment but to learn from our actions and reset our volitional circuitry. Finally, Dennett notes that minds are designed to mine the present for clues and turn them into anticipations of the future. We often wonder if we could have acted differently in the past or if we can change the future. However, our minds are capable of imagining alternative worlds that may or may not correspond to reality. The real locus of discussions about free will and moral responsibility is the neurobiology of volition. The future cannot be changed by definition, as it is simply what happens. A determinist may not be able to predict the future, even if they can make some good predictions. Asking if you could have chosen differently is not a yes or no question, and is actually meaningless. If free will exists, it is not found by asking if we could have chosen differently. We can't change the past, but we can learn to make better decisions in the future. The big idea is that different choices could have been made in life. The Guardian offers philosophy books, as well as other lifestyle, culture, sport, opinion and news content, such as Money, Travel, Family, Health & Fitness, Home & Garden, Love & Sex, Recipes, Food, Fashion and more. The Guardian also offers a range of digital services including a content licensing site, puzzles app, digital archive and more. Support the Guardian and their content for everyone, funded by readers.