It's an argument for materialism and against dualism. It's a physical process that gives rise to consciousness, not a soul like thing that's separate from the material world.
Stepping back though, it's a voyage of inquiry and discovery and subsequent changes in civilization. None of that challenges free will, any more than fMRI does in our world. We have peered into the brain, and seen electrical signals that we don't understand. When we die, these go away, never to return.
(ob not xkcd: stimulus, response, stimulus response. Don't you ever think?)
Stepping back though, it's a voyage of inquiry and discovery and subsequent changes in civilization. None of that challenges free will, any more than fMRI does in our world. We have peered into the brain, and seen electrical signals that we don't understand. When we die, these go away, never to return.
(ob not xkcd: stimulus, response, stimulus response. Don't you ever think?)