"I Will Choose a Path That's Clear . . .

. . . I will choose free will."

Or maybe I won't.

Today's New York Times has an interesting article covering the age-old argument about whether or not human beings have free will. Recent developments in fields as diverse as physics and computer science:

suggest that the conscious mind is like a monkey riding a tiger of subconscious decisions and actions in progress, frantically making up stories about being in control.

What might that mean for public discourse at large? Well:

'If people freak at evolution, etc.,' [Michael Silberstein, a science philosopher at Elizabethtown College in Maryland] wrote in an e-mail message, 'how much more will they freak if scientists and philosophers tell them they are nothing more than sophisticated meat machines, and is that conclusion now clearly warranted or is it premature?'

That begs the question - if the same people who freak at evolution would freak at the lack of free will, are they free to choose to ignore that lack?

This sophisticated meat machine and his monkey will have to go away and ponder that for a while.