/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9739942
>There is no free will. There is no consciousness.
Saying there is no free will due to determinism is one thing, claiming you don't have an experience as a human being is quite another. Even if you claim it is an illusion of some sort, that's not enough for anything else in science - you still have to explain what causes that illusion.

>>9742214
Begs the question as to which part of you actually makes that particular conscious decision (not that the subconscious would be any less subject to causality than the conscious, so that's neither here nor there). I suspect it's a process that works both ways however. Similar to how, for instance, upon unexpectedly finding a large and overdue bill, the heart rate raises, even though the subconscious and hindbrain involved in that process couldn't possibly perceive the threat, while the conscious part that does has no direct control over the pulmonary response.

There's machines that can tell which of a set of objects you're thinking of, whether you've been in a partic;ar room before, and similar mind reading, and we can predictably create specific sensations, tastes, and sounds, by stimulating parts of the brain, but, so far as I know, it's the first instance of something that can tell you what action you are going to take before you're aware of it - essentially, read a thought before you have it. It's a primitive step, though, it's also a fairly old machine - as are all those others. I suppose it's only a matter of time before we have mind reaching machines used in court, hopefully with more science behind them than polygraphs.

>facetious webm unrelated, maybe

>>9319701
Partly the same reason your camera does not have both microscopic and super zoom - cuz it's hard to focus a single lense for both super near and super far vision. More importantly, however, your camera's survival does not depend on what it is focused on.

Predators are almost universally far sighted, while herbivores very often near sighted, often with a grander color range. Herbivores don't have to sneak up on their food, they only have to identify its suitability when close up. Predators don't give much care as to the state of their food, prioritizing instead on catching it.

It's also the reason you, as a primate, don't have 200x zoom letting you see bacteria. Being so narrowly focused would be counter-productive to your general survival as a scavenger. You can see well enough close up to manipulate fine objects with your hands and identify fruits, and far enough to spot predators, but you have neither the microscopic vision nor telescopic vision, as either focus is all but useless in our natural environment.

And, finally, yes, evolution isn't always the most optimal - just whatever gives you a slight edge and doesn't hamper your potential to breed, so each animal tends to have a focus field well suited to its survival, rather than universally perfect vision.

>>8735822
I'll just leave this here.