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Comment by missingrib | Hacker News Reader

That is only true if consciousness is physical and the result of some physics going on in the human brain. We have no idea if that's true.

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Whatever it is that gives rise to consciousness is, by definition, physics. It might not be known physics, but even if it isn't known yet, it's within the purview of physics to find out. If you're going to claim that it could be something that fundamentally can't be found out, then you're admitting to thinking in terms of magic/superstition.

The vast majority of the evidence, as well as logic, supports it so yes we have an idea.

You got downvoted so I gave you an upvote to compensate.

We seem to all be working with conflicting ideas. If we are strict materialists, and everything is physical, then in reality we don't have free will and this whole discussion is just the universe running on automatic.

That may indeed be true, but we are all pretending that it isn't. Some big cognitive dissidence happening here.

This bogus argument has been refuted numerous times--read Dennett's book "Freedom Evolves" for one sort of response. And whether people are "pretending" something is irrelevant (and ad hominem, and not even true). The plain fact remains that all evidence and logic supports physicalism, and even if you entertain dualistic ideas like those of David Chalmers they don't give you free will, they don't counter determinism.

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