http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18684016/?GT1=9951
I don't get it. It says that flies movie in accordance with a
non-flat distribution instead of a flat distribution. That has
nothing to do with free will. The writers assume that "non-flat
distribution" = "free will".
You need to read more fully and not get stuck the second you hit a "hot
button" user-defined term like free will . . . .
1. Brembs and his colleagues reasoned that if fruit flies (Drosophila
melanogaster) were simply reactive robots entirely determined by their
environment, in completely featureless rooms they should move completely
randomly.
COMMENT: I would have used the term "IMMEDIATE environment" -- and for the
record, I believe that we *are* deterministic but incalculable so it's most
rational to behave as if we're "free-willed"
2. A plethora of increasingly sophisticated computer analyses revealed that
the way the flies turned back and forth over time was far from random.
3. Instead, there appeared to be "a function in the fly brain which evolved
to generate spontaneous variations in the behavior," Sugihara said -OR -
These strategies in flies appear to arise spontaneously and do not result
from outside cues
4. "If even flies show the capacity for spontaneity, can we really assume
it is missing in humans?" he asked.
5. "The epitomes of indeterministic behavior are humans, who are very
flexible. Flies are somewhere in between the extremes with a large set of
very inflexible and rather predictable behaviors, with spontaneity only
coming to the fore if either you look very closely or provide the animals
with a situation where the spontaneity is easy to study - that is, when you
remove all the stimuli which could trigger a response."
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