In other words, yes, you do believe that there is some agent within us that independently initiates our actions and choices.
“within” is a spatial concept which does not apply to personal activity which transcends time and place. You are responsible for what you did somewhere else ten years ago .
We are held responsible for our actions because they are our actions, no matter what the web of events that caused them.
On the contrary. They would be mitigating circumstances.
The legal system has, in the modern period, been steadily moving away from retributive punishment and further towards rehabilitation. This is at least some recognition of the fact that we are shaped by our environment and experience.
Not that we are
entirely shaped by our environment and experience.
Then you don’t believe it is possible to be rational and responsible unless you are the ultimate instigator of your every thought and action.
It not only unnecessary but impossible for** every **thought and action to be voluntary.
Your brain is an instrument you use.
Then what am I? What, exactly, is this end user to which you refer?
You are an intangible person directly aware of your existence, mental experiences and ability to control your body.
I don’t imagine. I infer from my personal experience that my brain is a physical organ I use to control my body and communicate with others.
Are you aware of using your brain to do such things?
I infer that I am using my brain just as I infer the existence and activity of all physical objects from my perceptions.
Can you consciously detect and shape the way it does them?
I am certainly aware of my power to reason and control myself.
Electrical impulses don’t know what they are doing.Obviously particular combinations of electrical impulses interacting with certain arrangements of matter do manifest as an organism that is capable of knowing what it is doing.
They are associated with such activity but need not be identified with it.
You have yet to explain how anything nonphysical can interact with or influence physical things.
I don’t claim to understand the ultimate nature of reality but there is ample evidence of the power of the mind over the body.
So what, exactly, is a fact, then, that is apparently impervious and undetectable? If I claim it as fact that there’s a tree in my backyard, this can be perceived and verified as fact by anyone who cares to look. What if I cut down the tree and dig out its root system so that there is no longer a tree in my backyard? What happens to the fact then?
The fact that the tree was at a specific time in a specific place will remain indestructible forever. The truth is composed of immutable facts.
Our understanding stems from our intellect and it is also reliant on our subjective experience.
I would not disagree, but I would add that intellect and subjective experience are manifestations of physical phenomena.
That is a physicalist assumption which needs justification.
Mitigating factors presuppose a factor that cannot be mitigated.
The legal system can’t be expected to change overnight - the recognition of mitigating factors is a step in the right direction, however. The system was, after all, founded on the notion of contra-causal free will.
To be precise, transcendent-physical-causal free will! When you drive a car you direct physical causes for a specific purpose. Even a simple living cell introduces directiveness into the world of physics.
Not strictly, although I do believe that subconscious conditioning plays an important part in shaping our thoughts and actions.
And the rest?
They would be entirely beyond your control. You wouldn’t even be entitled to describe them as “yours”. You would be simply a cog turned by your environment…
Entirely beyond my control, you say - even though I, as a physical entity, am a key component in the process of reaching the aforementioned conclusions. Certainly, I could not take full credit, but that does not mean that I am not involved.
An involved component is still no more than a cog that is turned remorselessly.
You imagine an entity that is you, that is somehow not your physical being, and extrapolate from this that if the environment and the biochemical processes of your brain produce your thoughts and actions, that you are somehow not involved in any of this.
I don’t imagine; I have a concept of a person which has existed from time immemorial because human beings have always intuitively grasped the distinction between the mind and the body. Charity begins at home. So does reality!
But my entire point is that you are indistinguishable from your physical being.
If that were the case there would be no “me”, but only a mindless body.
For me to have thoughts and to perform actions obviously involves environmental influence - but it has to involve me also. The cogs - to use your dismissive analogy - are, after all, integral to the functioning of the machine!
The cogs are essential for the functioning of the machine but not for its operator without whom it would have no purpose or direction.
Independent but not unaffected…
How does that work, then? Independence, in the sense of some nonphysical aspect of a person that generates contra-causal free will, would tend to imply a certain imperviousness to causal influence from outside.
The mind is not contra-causal but final-causal. It introduces the rational element into an otherwise purposeless state of affairs. The director of an orchestra ensures that there is not cacophony but beauty and harmony…
