Do Fruit Flies Have Free Will?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070516071806.htm

by amichail • 17 years ago

6 9 17 years ago

darkxanthos2• 17 years ago

I'm all for fruit flies having free will (I go back and forth with humans having it fairly often even) but an experiment like this would require that we have absolute control over all inputs into the insect's brain and upon sending a series of data vectors into its brain we would need to be able to surmise whether the output was random or deterministically patternized, and if so how much.

I think an experiment like this would also need to account for the fly's past experience and would need to control that to be exactly like another's.

It also needs to be temperature controlled (since most creatures come equipped with heat sensors) and even things like how quickly the fly flaps its wings can change conditions such as those (especially in such a tiny space).

It would seem as though the scientists were less trying to answer an age old philosophical problem and more trying to answer how predictable a fly is (i.e. how simple its decision process is).

sheriff• 17 years ago

"I go back and forth with humans having it fairly often even"

I'm curious what kind of things tip you back and forth. I've been a staunch "undecided" for quite a while on this one.

dantheman• 17 years ago

Free will is a hard problem; but my response is - I believe in free will, because either I have no choice (no free will) and thus am choosing incorrectly but in reality no choice has been made, or in the case that I do have free will I am correct.

darkxanthos2• 17 years ago

I'm sorry, I basically go back and forth between we don't have free will or I don't know. :)

My line of reasoning is that free will would appear to break causation and I'm not sure what the ramifications of that are in the grand scheme of things (i.e. magic?). I'm more inclined to think we're just an insanely complex chaotic system, but then what is consciousness really?

dan_the_welder• 17 years ago

Humans are meat computers with buggy self learning algorithms.

Will does not apply. Garbage in garbage out.

outcyde• 17 years ago

I don't care if they have free will or not. I just ordered a bunch of fruit fly killer traps a store just 2 hours ago. I can't stand fruit flies and I'm not sure who can. You should kill all fruit flies as well. http://www.fruitflysolutions.com

steve19• 17 years ago

I read the title as "Do Fruit Flies Have Free Wii" and read half the article expecting some connection between Wii sales or AI or programming and fly behavior.

Do Fruit Flies Have Free Will?

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