Free-will - metaphysics? or bad grammar?

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Jonesboy

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The problem of free-will is quickly solved. It is not a matter of metaphysics. It is simply a matter of bad grammar.

For how can a person, how can anything, be affected by a thing if it is that thing?

If I am my brain and my thoughts, how can I be affected or influenced by them? To be affected is to be moved or influenced by another thing. But there are no “other things” in this case.
 
Excellent Thoughts and very easy to understand! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
 
Jonesboy said:
The problem of free-will is quickly solved. It is not a matter of metaphysics. It is simply a matter of bad grammar.

For how can a person, how can anything, be affected by a thing if it is that thing?

If I am my brain and my thoughts, how can I be affected or influenced by them? To be affected is to be moved or influenced by another thing. But there are no “other things” in this case.
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Consider that your conscious self is moved and influenced by your unconscious. In Freudian terminology, your self (the ego) is moved and influenced by the id and superego, which are largely unconscious. We are not alone in these bodies!
 
Jonesboy said:
The problem of free-will is quickly solved. It is not a matter of metaphysics. It is simply a matter of bad grammar.

For how can a person, how can anything, be affected by a thing if it is that thing?

If I am my brain and my thoughts, how can I be affected or influenced by them? To be affected is to be moved or influenced by another thing. But there are no “other things” in this case.
Click to expand...
Jonesboy:

Good points. But, aren’t you also your body, your pains, your pleasures, and your connection to your other somatics? If one is sitting around a campfire and accidentally sits on a hot ember, one can move left, or right, or backward, or forward: actually nearly an infinity of directions and distances, which are the “choices.” Or, one can sit there and endure!

Now, one might say, "Well, it was a ‘something’ that actually affected the otherwise intractable need to move. But, here, I think we are interested in the “choosing,” not the impetus for the choosing.

God bless,
jd
 
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