The majority of people discussing the free will issue are materialists.This would include the majority of people quoted in the New York Times article.Their assumption is that everything that exists can be explained completely in terms of physical matter and the laws that govern physical matter.Consequently the mind does not actually exist any more than a mirage does.All statements regarding mental events are purely human inventions having nothing to do with reality e.g "i love you" has no fundamental basis in reality(you will never actually see "love" observing the brain function).Materialists as a rule do not accept any evidence that there position is wrong.An example of that is how ESP research as been treated in most academic institutions.One problem with materialism is that there is anything but universal agreement on what matter IS.
--- In [email protected], "Yifu" <yifuxero@...> wrote: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/science/05askscience.html >
