“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills”*…
… Or so Schopenhauer argues.
Neuroscientists from Charité –Universitätsmedizin Berlin have run an experiment, using a “duel” game between human and brain-computer interface (BCI), to find out “Do we have free will?”
* Arthur Schopenhauer
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As we act as though we do, we might send thoughtful birthday greetings to Paul Karl Feyerabend; he was born on this date in 1924. A student of Karl Popper, Feyerabend became a philosopher, largely concerned (as was his mentor) with the practice and communication of science. He came to be a opponent of rigid understandings of “the scientific method” and a critic of rules that might, in their arbitrariness and constraint, both alienate scientists from the people (general humanity) the are meant to serve and impede scientific progress. For this, he was often accused of having an anarchistic view of science; in any case, he seems clearly to have believed in a scientist’s free will.
