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Comment by khafra | Hacker News Reader

For one simple example, I believe there are still serious incompatibilists/philosophical libertarians--even after experiments showing that physical stimulation of the brain and even transcranial magnetic stimulation can alter perceptions, actions, and even cognitive processes. Daniel Dennett is a great example of a philosopher of mind who takes cognitive neuroscience seriously, but I don't think he's in the majority.

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How is that fundamentally different from someone observing 2500 years ago that drinking wine could affect the same processes?

That is the point many in this thread are trying to make. The essence of the question is usually more persistent than it first seems.

That the physical can influence or even determine the mental has been known for at least as long as 3000 years. Those particular experiments you reference don't add much to the philosophical discussion of libertarianism at all.

I'm sure there are still some out there, but I haven't run into any. Most philosophers I know are compatibalists. Though to be fair predictable is not the same thing as determined, and we mostly think that determinism is false.

However, I think the true philosophical problem of free will is deciding what exactly a "will" is and what it means to be "free". You've got to answer that question before you can decide whether free will is compatible or incompatible with determinism.

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