"He [ Tononi ]served a multicourse dinner featuring pasta made from scratch, pizzas cooked in the outdoor oven, a well-paired rosé, and absinthe. Midway through the second course, he asked each of his guests a question: whether we believed in free will, and why."
Yes. When thoughts come to mind as go to bed, to the shop, to the garden, laugh or cry, we make decisions. We may do. We may not. Aren't those decisions an expression of free will? Guess that would have been seen as superficial and naive. Is simple. Yet, isn't decision making on that level the exercise of free will?
LOL .. it's all too tough for me, but one thought on reading this
"But if the theory holds up—if Tononi has successfully managed to quantify consciousness—it could deliver these families from uncertainty. It could also change the way we think about animal rights, upend the abortion debate—possibly even revolutionize the way we think about artificial intelligence."
"upend the abortion debate" .. hmm, don't think so .. since the position of the most extreme and influential of the anti-abortion people is that 'penetration of the egg by the sperm' is when a human is formed, and since it is strictly a physical event no question of consciousness, or not, has ever come into it.
No i don't think the 'life at violated egg' pro-life people
"He is currently developing a machine that has the potential to end anesthesia awareness once and for all. Like the BIS monitor, the device would provide a numerical assessment of a patient’s awareness, and would be simple and compact enough to become a regular fixture in operating rooms. Unlike the BIS monitor, it would also be relevant outside the operating room. Whereas the BIS is rooted in data specific to surgery, Tononi has developed a comprehensive theory of consciousness that could, with appropriate technological tweaks, be applied in any number of medical, scientific, or social settings."
would give a flying fuck about anything Tononi and the others are on about.
LOL .. after struggling through yours i don't know if i'll ever understand much more complex levels than the simple fact that the extreme pro-life people don't have a leg, or even a consciousness to stand on.
See also:
"Barack Obama, Pro-Life Hero?" .. excerpt from ..
How I Lost Faith in the “Pro-Life” Movement
[...]
"“We must contest every single inch of ground and delay the baby-murdering, tax-raising socialists at every opportunity,” wrote Peter Morrison, treasurer of the Hardin County Republican Party. “But in due time, the maggots will have eaten every morsel of flesh off of the rotting corpse of the Republic, and therein lies our opportunity.” (To be fair, you can’t judge an entire state by one county political official. Although Bud Kennedy, a columnist for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, pointed out that Morrison had once been chosen to help screen public school textbooks for the State Board of Education.)"
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
