McFadden's view of free will is deterministic. Neurons generate patterns in the EM field, which in turn modulate the firing of particular neurons. There is only conscious agency in the sense that the field or its download to neurons is conscious, but the processes of the brain themselves are driven by deterministic electromagnetic interactions. The feel of subjective experience or qualia corresponds to a particular configuration of the cemi field.
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The argument, to be clear, is not about whether a machine can be conscious, but about whether it (or anything else for that matter) can be shown to be conscious. It is plain that any other method of probing the occupant of a Chinese room has the same difficulties in principle as exchanging questions and answers in Chinese. It is simply not possible to divine whether a conscious agency or some clever simulation inhabits the room. Searle argues that this is only true for an observer outside of the room.
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The Iranian and Nicaraguan Revolutions of 1979, the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines and the 1989 Autumn of Nations in Europe saw multi-class coalitions topple seemingly powerful regimes amidst popular demonstrations and mass strikes in nonviolent revolutions. Defining revolutions as mostly European violent state versus people and class struggles conflicts was no longer sufficient. The study of revolutions thus evolved in three directions, firstly, some researchers were applying previous or updated structuralist theories of revolutions to events beyond the previously analyzed, mostly European conflicts. Secondly, scholars called for greater attention to conscious agency in the form of ideology and culture in shaping revolutionary mobilization and objectives.
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Another retrospective review, posted on the genre fiction blog Pornokitsch, describes The Man of Gold as "a curiously unadventurous adventure", noting Harsan's "naive but reckless" personality and his tendency to drift from one encounter to another without conscious agency. While the story and its characters are bland, the world of Tékumel is awe-inspiring. Rather than "a stand-alone piece of entertainment," The Man of Gold should be approached "as a part of an educational process," offering an accessible introduction to Barker's fictional universe and inviting the reader to dream Tékumelani adventures of his or her own.Jared: The Man of Gold by M.A.R. Barker.
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Garry Runciman, sociologist at Trinity College, Cambridge, asked "Are we hardwired for God?" > The diverse beliefs which Boyer cites extend from Apollo and Athena, to > shamanism among the Panamanian Cuna, to aliens from remote galaxies > allegedly landing in New Mexico. But his central agenda is the particular > set of unobservable causal agencies cited in his subtitle, and his primary > concern is with the question of how we are to account for beliefs that > involve the attribution of conscious agency to beings other than humans and > animals of the normal and familiar kind. Such beliefs are, as Boyer says, > remarkably widespread, and for all their variant forms the variation is > neither limitless nor random.
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Connelly's first book, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era, examines the international diplomacy of Algerian independence. It is a revisionist account that analyzes the transnational networks through which Algerian statesman struggled for liberation, rather than adopting a traditional focus on the national aspects of the movement. Foreign Affairs magazine observes that "Connelly weaves into his story the changing roles of the United States, Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia; the ebb and flow of FLN relations with the soviet bloc; and much more". A Diplomatic Revolution is notable in locating fundamental shifts in international society as occurring during the Algerian independence movement, arguing that "population growth, environmental scarcities, international institutions, new media, and, not least, the conscious agency of colonized peoples were already combining to cause radical change— of a recognizably new kind— when some might assume the international system was frozen into an ideological contest between East and West".
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