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Fruit Flies Show Spark of Free Will

Posted by samzenpus on from the sorry-about-all-those-bio-labs dept.

Lucas123 writes "A study performed at the Free University Berlin on human free will has produced some unexpected results showing that fruit flies may have a spark of free will in their tiny brains." From the article: "Their behavior seemed to match up with a mathematical algorithm called Levy's distribution ... Future research delving further into free will could lead to more advanced robots, scientists added. The result, joked neurobiologist Björn Brembs from the Free University Berlin, could be "world robot domination."

14 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. Welcome! by Taimat · · Score: 5, Funny

    I for one welcome our new cyborg fruit fly overlords!

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    The above comments are not guaranteed to make sense to anyone other than the author...
    1. Re:Welcome! by nxtr · · Score: 4, Funny

      You're laughing now, but wait until they have us farm for fruit en masse, as I understand it from the summary.

    2. Re:Welcome! by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Funny

      This is all we need. Look out, PETA will soon be describing fly strips as insect murder...

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      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    3. Re:Welcome! by fireman+sam · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wouldn't that be considered insecticide?

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      it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
    4. Re:Welcome! by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

      The Slashdot reflex. Kinda like Pawlow described it.

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      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re:Welcome! by Plunky · · Score: 5, Funny

      If people really have free will, why do they keep automatically making that "I for one welcome our new overlords" joke?
      Its the American Idiot Syndrome. (Over here in Soviet Russia, its the Fruit Flies that welcome the new overlords..)
    6. Re:Welcome! by cp.tar · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's Pavlov.

      Does it ring a bell?

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      Ignore this signature. By order.
  2. Joke? by pipatron · · Score: 4, Funny

    The result, joked neurobiologist Björn Brembs from the Free University Berlin, could be "world robot domination."

    Oh yeah? I bet that in 5 years, he won't consider that a very fun thing to joke about!

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    c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
  3. Neurobiologist... by spune · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...joked. Then hastily looked over his shoulder and shuddered.

  4. then let's get to the real issue by commodoresloat · · Score: 3, Funny

    First, Levy's distribution is a, you know, distribution, not an algorithm
    Great. I think I speak for everyone here, then, when I say that what we really want to know is whether this distribution uses KDE or gnome?
  5. Damnation! by BillGatesLoveChild · · Score: 5, Funny

    > Fruit Flies Show Spark of Free Will

    If they've got free will, does that mean they can go to heaven or hell?

    Not hard to imagine Fruit flies swarming over the Apple in the Garden of Eden, though they would probably have preferred a banana.

    1. Re:Damnation! by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 3, Funny

      My free will can't override my instinctual reaction to kill whoever modded that insightful.

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      Apology to Ubuntu forum.
  6. Free will to choose what they like... by FeebleOldMan · · Score: 3, Funny

    Time flies like an arrow.
    Fruit flies like a banana.

  7. freedom? by dwater · · Score: 4, Funny

    Freedom? In Germany?

    I thought the USA was the only place where there was freedom...

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    Max.