THE SIMPLIFIER
A Conversation with John A. Bargh
"They say that in science there are complicators and there are simplifiers," says John Bargh, Yale social psychologist known for his early work on the topic of automaticity, and more recently for bringing experimental methodology to the philosophical question of free will.
people were, essentially, mindless a lot of the time in their social interactions
maybe all this conscious reasoning is not so necessary to produce complex higher mental processes and sophisticated behavior in adults.
All organisms are purposive and have reasons for what they do. We certainly have that of course. So it's not that will doesn't exist; it's that the free part is problematic — a lot of people see free will and say, "Well, you're showing there's no free will; therefore, people have no intentions or will." No.
There is will, and will can be shaped by a host of factors
A lot of recent research on unconscious effects is showing that it's culture
clipped from: www.edge.org 