Seriously. How can a choice a person makes possibly be "a free [choice] unconstrained by external agencies" (Google search for "define:free will")? Name one single thing we do which is unconstrained by external agencies.

"Free will," in my opinion, is nonsense.

I do this....I write a lot of notes or play witrh my phone to an extend during meetings.

I find that catching bits and pieces forces me to try harder to put things together and understand them, and so I end up understanding things better.

Also, if I try too hard to pay attention, I worry about paying attention more than what I am supposed to be paying attention to. When I do other things, it puts my mind at ease, and I can relaxedly listen.

That, I think, is the problem: people do not want to progress (which is why we would focus on usefulness)--they just want their "truth." People these days just want their happy little families and to sit on their asses, watching their TVs. We no longer care about progression, and we are happy with our middle-class lives. The religious types put their hope in their god, others, like many on this site, put it in the future. There is less of the latter. To me, putting hope in a god seems like a solution to keeping the masses happy and dumb.

Perhaps after the shock, whenever one of the mice tries to recall the old memory, the memory of the shock is returned instead of the old memory? Since (AFAIK) memory-recall is based on weight, the new one (shock) may be more easily accessible than the old.

What do you people think about this idea?