After several years of scandal in which the Catholic Church has faced allegations of financial impropriety, paedophile priests and rumours of plots to kill the Pope, the Vatican is now facing a new €600m-a-year tax bill as Rome seeks to head off European Commission censure over controversial property tax breaks enjoyed by the Church.
Science tells us that our brain “decides” a few milliseconds before we do. (my brain just now sent this post) Does it follow that we have no free will? And just what is free will? With a large grant some philosophers and scientists are going to try to find out.
What does “free will” mean? Several different answers are in circulation both inside and outside the academic world. According to some people, free will is housed only in non-physical souls; it’s a supernatural power. According to others, whether or not souls exist, free will doesn’t depend on them. People in this second group divide into two subgroups. Some will tell you that the ability to make rational, informed, conscious decisions in the absence of undue force – no one holding a gun to your head – is enough for free will. Others say that something important must be added: If you have free will, then alternative decisions are open to you in a deep way that I will say something about. Sometimes, perhaps, you would have made a different decision if things had been a bit different. For example, if you had been in a slightly better mood, you might have decided to buy two boxes of girl scout cookies instead of just one. But this is not enough for the kind of openness at issue. What is needed is that more than one option was open to you, given everything as it actually was at the time – your mood, all your thoughts and feelings, your brain, your environment, and, indeed, the entire universe and its entire history.
Read an interview with “the four million dollar philosopher” here.
See also: The Electronic Brain? Your Mind Vs. a Computer here.
Scientists and, in general, experts have choices about the roles they play in today’s political debates on topics such as global warming, genetically modified foods, and food and drug safety.
The Honest Broker: Scientists and Politics. Roger Pielke Jr | SlowTV | The Monthly
All those in favor of having health insurance providers fund Viagra.
All those in favor of denying health insurance coverage for birth control.
From Neurons to Self-ConsciousnessReview – From Neurons to Self-Consciousness
How the Brain Generates the Mind
by Bernard Korzeniewski
Humanity Books, 2010
Review by Bob Lane, MA
Feb 21st 2012 (Volume 16, Issue 8)
For thousands of years scientists and philosophers have thought about the following question: how can we combine mind and brain – two quite distinct entities? At first, this question might appear meaningless, but trust me: it is a hard one, perhaps one of the biggest problems in science and philosophy today. Although our language is filled with dualistic terminology inherited from Descartes and religion, our science seems to be telling us that everything can be reduced to matter.
For several years now the Institute of Practical Philosophy has hosted symposia to discuss various social issues. Topics have incuded genetic modification of food plants, access to information, capital punishment, assisted suicide, pornography, etc. The format allows for ample time for discussion of the topic after brief presentations by faculty and guests. This year’s topic is Ethical Investments and the spotlight is directly on Canadian companies doing business in third world countries.
The symposium is at VIU on March 10, 2012. Information here.
The Internet Archive site has a large selection of free material: live music, audio, texts; in fact some 3 million+ books to read. You can access the books at the Open Library (always open) here. Interested in Mark Twain? Do a search and you will find a number of his books ready to read on line. Example. You don’t need a tablet reader or a Kindle.
Once upon a time we believed that all swans are white. Then someone discovered the black ones that were hanging out in Australia or some place like that. So, we gave up on the belief that all swans are white when faced with this new evidence. 
