Free will is an illusion because we are rational being

[Bahman]

Why not!? Even planets must be rational; how could they be orbiting around the sun otherwise? They need a reason to be orbiting like that all the time! Don’t they?

You don’t make any sense.

You forget things very easily, Bahman! Don’t you remember that sometimes you are not able to prioritize your options and then you are subject to random processes? Instead of this, other persons make free decisions instead of the “techniques” you use. However, I don’t see it impossible that some individuals -like you, I guess-, do not have any experience of free will. It is comprehensible that you don’t know what it is, and that you have to rely on deficient “definitions” to formulate your “arguments”. It won’t be possible for you to understand freedom, as you can’t see.

I already provide three steps to show how we make a decision rationally. Do you have any explanation on how do you make a decision using free will?

Sure! Actually, Tombstone has proposed a good example above. It is an interesting one. Especially considering that we are supposed to be social beings. Paying taxes is a social duty, but I guess nobody is naturally inclined to pay them. People would prefer to use their whole income buying what they need; but authorities have added some weight to the option “paying taxes” sending you to jail if you don’t. That way it becomes easier for you to decide; but as Tombstone says, you are more or less forced to do it.

To me his example shows how we act based on rationality instead of free will.

 

[Bahman]

Reason and intellect are different. The role of intellect is to perceive the truth, by a reasoning process or perceived immediately as intuition. Reason, however, is a process, where intellect is possession. We make a decision to choosing between what is charitable, or uncharitable, to resist or not resist passions that are inordinate, to willfully remain in ignorance of the moral character of an act or omission.

I don’t understand how your comment is related to our discussion.

 

[Vico]

I don’t understand how your comment is related to our discussion.

Bahman:

Decision is defined as ability to choose in a situation. Situation is defined as a set of available options. We as rational being prioritize options and define situation. We then decide.

Free will is defined as ability to decide freely in a situation. As you can see there is no room left for free will when our decisions are rational. One can argue that we can make irrational decision to show that we are free but this just change our privatization hence we are still making a rational decision again.

The statement made is about rational being and will. A person is a composite substance of corruptible body and eternal rational soul, and the rational soul has the faculties of will and intelligence. The rational soul has more available to use than mere logic, there is also conscience, intuition. The conscience informs us with what is right, which though our will, can be chosen, or it can be opposed and what is immoral can be chosen.

 

[Bahman]

The statement made is about rational being and will. A person is a composite substance of corruptible body and eternal rational soul, and the rational soul has the faculties of will and intelligence. The rational soul has more available to use than mere logic, there is also conscience, intuition. The conscience informs us with what is right, which though our will, can be chosen, or it can be opposed and what is immoral can be chosen.

The fact that we have conscience dose not show that free will is not an illusion.

 

[Vico]

The fact that we have conscience dose not show that free will is not an illusion.

You are saying that free will is an illusion. Your explanation is that it is because we are rational. I am explaining that we are not strictly rational, although we have a rational soul. So now you would need to cover the case of intuition, given by God.

 

[Tomdstone]

I read that Benjamin Libet performed an experiment showing that humans lacked free will.

 

[davidv]

I read that Benjamin Libet performed an experiment showing that humans lacked free will.

Why should we accept his experiment and its results as valid?

Was it peer reviewed?
Was it replicated by more than one independent?

 

[Bahman]

I read that Benjamin Libet performed an experiment showing that humans lacked free will.

I think that his experiment shows epiphenomenalism rather than absence of free will.

 

[Aloysium]

I read that Benjamin Libet performed an experiment showing that humans lacked free will.

Do you believe that what you read is valid?
It actually has a lot of problems with it.

These guys at least got an Ig Nobel Prize for their work:
sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945214000288
I’m not sure why people find the paper funny; it is very interesting.
We see what we expect to see and understand things the way we expect them to be.

 

[Tomdstone]

I think that his experiment shows epiphenomenalism rather than absence of free will.

I thought that Libet’s experiments showed that unconscious processes in the brain are the true initiator of “volitional” acts, not free will?

 

[Bahman]

I thought that Libet’s experiments showed that unconscious processes in the brain are the true initiator of “volitional” acts, not free will?

I agree with the bold part.

 

[Aloysium]

I thought that Libet’s experiments showed that unconscious processes in the brain are the true initiator of “volitional” acts, not free will?

That was his interpretation, which a review of the methods he employed reveals, are fatally flawed. I don’t have the excessive amount of time required for a decent response. You may wish to read some of the critiques. Or not, since he seems to agree with your beliefs.

 

[Bahman]

You are saying that free will is an illusion. Your explanation is that it is because we are rational. I am explaining that we are not strictly rational, although we have a rational soul. So now you would need to cover the case of intuition, given by God.

Do you always pick up the best options in a situational? What intuition has to do with free will?

 

[Vico]

Do you always pick up the best options in a situational? What intuition has to do with free will?

Wisdom and will are of the rational immaterial soul. We choose with our will informed by our conscience, which power we receive from God. Psalm 4:6 “The light of your countenance, O Lord, is stamped upon us.”

Material things are understood by abstraction from matter and from material images (called phantasms). Aristotle, De Anima III, 8, said “that a stone is not in the soul, but only the likeness of the stone”. Therefore, the soul knows external things by means of intelligible species.

 

[Lucretius]

Reason and intellect are different. The role of intellect is to perceive the truth, by a reasoning process or perceived immediately as intuition. Reason, however, is a process, where intellect is possession. We make a decision to choosing between what is charitable, or uncharitable, to resist or not resist passions that are inordinate, to willfully remain in ignorance of the moral character of an act or omission.

I don’t like the term intuition, because academics use it to describe we think are real but aren’t. I prefer to use the term insight.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[Lucretius]

Do you always pick up the best options in a situational? What intuition has to do with free will?

According to St. Thomas, we are free precisely because we are rational. The will is the intellectual appetite, which means it is the thing which desires the universals in the intellect. However, the will is free to choice this or that particular good. We necessariky desire peace, but due to our ignorance, and the many different possible ways to achieve peace, we are free to judge between these particular things.

The will is not free to choose the end, but is free to choose the means.

Source: aquinasonline.com/Topics/freewill.html

Christi pax,

Lucretius

 

[Vico]

I don’t like the term intuition, because academics use it to describe we think are real but aren’t. I prefer to use the term insight.

Christi pax,

Lucretius

I see that insight is a word used in Psychology whereas intuition is a word used in Philosophy, but in general they are given as synonyms.

 

[Bahman]

According to St. Thomas, we are free precisely because we are rational. The will is the intellectual appetite, which means it is the thing which desires the universals in the intellect. However, the will is free to choice this or that particular good. We necessariky desire peace, but due to our ignorance, and the many different possible ways to achieve peace, we are free to judge between these particular things.

The will is not free to choose the end, but is free to choose the means.

Source: aquinasonline.com/Topics/freewill.html

Christi pax,

Lucretius

Lets have a couple of options. Fist you make a priority list of the options then you choose the top options. Where is free will?

 

[Bahman]

I thought that Libet’s experiments showed that unconscious processes in the brain are the true initiator of “volitional” acts, not free will?

You are correct. But that is half of story. If free will is real then we chose first and then act.

 

[Bahman]

Wisdom and will are of the rational immaterial soul. We choose with our will informed by our conscience, which power we receive from God. Psalm 4:6 “The light of your countenance, O Lord, is stamped upon us.”

Material things are understood by abstraction from matter and from material images (called phantasms). Aristotle, De Anima III, 8, said “that a stone is not in the soul, but only the likeness of the stone”. Therefore, the soul knows external things by means of intelligible species.

You don’t answer my question so I repeat it again: Do you always pick up the best options in a situational?

Moreover wisdom is a property of brain.

If you want to see difference between stone and human, you need to look at anatomy of human to see how much they are different and complex.