Category Archives: Conciousness / Being
Consciousness we’ve got, free-will probably not, and neither seem to do a lot
Free-will and consciousness are both strikingly different and curiously similar:
Difference: Its very difficult to demonstrate scientifically that free-will exists, but we certainly know (e.g. from Descartes and others) that consciousness exists.
Similarity: Neither seem to have any purpose; presumably evolution would proceed quite naturally without them.
Its extraordinary that the two capacities we value most as part of being ‘human’ – our consciousness* and our free-will – appear to be unnecessary for evolution, seem extremely difficult to understand and may not even exist (at least in the case of free-will).
* Some might say e.g. ‘love’ is most central to being human, but what would ‘love’ be if we didn’t have the capacity to experience it i.e. consciousness?
Insight Junkie 