Pierz Newton-John
1 min readAug 6, 2024

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I raise quantum mechanics only because one cannot talk about physics being deterministic without qualification. I agree that the role it can play in the brain has to be extremely marginal. Maybe sometimes the activation threshold of a neuron is reached or not because of quantum randomness but the effect would be tiny compared to general thermal noise. In any case it only adds randomness and as I stated this adds nothing to the question of free will. That’s why I coin the term “rando-determinism”: because physics is a mix of randomness and determinism but both are equivalent in terms of the free will argument.
I also agree that we are emotive decision makers. In fact I have written a whole article on human irrationality. The role of emotion is to drive decision making - or behavior to put it more simply.
Nonetheless I can’t agree that it has been “proved” that we are unaware of our actions as you put it. Consciousness plays a role in preparing decisions and the process that we call conscious agency cannot be entirely neglected as if we were pure automata. When we engage in conscious evaluation of our options, those deliberations do influence what we ultimately do, even if our consciousness of choosing lags the actual decision slightly.

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Pierz Newton-John
Pierz Newton-John

Written by Pierz Newton-John

Writer, coder, former psychotherapist, founding member of The School Of Life Melbourne. Essayist for Dumbo Feather magazine, author of Fault Lines (fiction).

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