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Comment by _Schizotypy | Hacker News Reader

So after learning not to hurt others, do you have impulses to do so? Before you learned not to hurt others, did you act on those impulses? Do you even remember? information is constantly being checked against previous learned experiences, when your mother told you it was not okay to hit someone this became one of those experiences. it isn't some magical "willpower" or "free will"

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Don't conflate willpower and free will. Willpower is the prefrontal cortex's ability to "resist current urges for future benefit". It's a tested scientific concept. Willpower is absent in people with a damaged prefrontal cortex and is weakened in sleep deprived, stressed, hungry people.

I think what you're trying to refer to is the ability of the prefrontal cortex to send inhibitory signals to the amygdala. This should not be considered "willpower" because that term implies we have control over it, as was discussed in the article. By these definitions free will and willpower are essentially the same non existent phenomena.

"This should not be considered "willpower" because that term implies we have control over it, as was discussed in the article."

I gave the accepted definition of willpower above. The author trying to redefine the term doesn't make it so.

It's like the author trying to say that endurance is the same as free will, because free will can dictate whether or not you train it.

There is the understanding that people are just the result of their genes and environment - this is common sense. Then there is trying to say that willpower doesn't exist at all - it does, and it's medically defined.

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