The definition of free will

[tonyrey]

Being the cause of one’s actions does not entail contra-causality but transcendence of physical causes by directing them.

It is also unclear how we are conscious or how things exist.

Very often we know that a person has no reason for his or her action.

How can we know this? By the person’s own admission?

Law courts have their criteria.

But the person in question may have reasons for concealing his/her reasons or intent. What then?

I specified “very often”.

The conscience is not immutable.

Don’t recall saying that it was. What I asked is who is responsible for shaping it? We ourselves, alone, or other influences in our world?

A combination of factors but the individual has the casting vote.

I didn’t pose a dilemma - I merely rephrased, with an illustrative example, the question of who is responsible for the formation and shaping of conscience.

You asked:

Who or what is responsible for this false conscience? Is it the ‘self’, the ‘I’? Or is it some other influence in the development of the agent in question?

Why not both?

Ignorance is an inadequate reason for being capable of self-determination.

And that’s an inadequate reading of what I wrote. The fact that we are subjectively ignorant of much of our brain’s processing capacity is what makes the concepts of consciousness and free will notoriously difficult to approach. We may think we know what the answers are - “I” feel like I make decisions, therefore I do - but we project the idea of a homunculus indwelling our physical being, directing all its actions.

Materialists project the idea of a **cog **in a machine.

As Dennett has said, and I have quoted in a previous post, if you make yourself small enough, you can externalise everything - even, I would add, the very causes and processes of our own behaviour.

Reductivism is clearly false. You can imagine you are a collection of atoms…

Complexity is an inadequate reason for being capable of self-determination.

Why? Certainly it doesn’t actually provide explanations for our manifold capabilities as organisms, but it does open the way for very interesting possibilities.

Only to those who have faith.

Free will is not randomly enacted.

But they seem to be the only available choices. No-one has yet identified a location small enough and independent enough to be the seat of the “self” posited by many philosophers and religionists alike.

You are presupposing that everything has a physical location. Where is truth located?

Rationality is a fantasy if it is attributed to an irrational odyssey!

Why? What do you think rationality actually is?

I have already stated that rationality entails creativity as well as mechanical activity, intuition as well as intelligence, induction as well as deduction, synthesis as well as analysis, insight as well as hindsight and foresight, and lateral thinking as well as logical thinking.

 

[Sair]

It is also unclear how we are conscious or how things exist.

So you just add some new, inexplicable phenomenon to the increasingly explicable realities of our world?

Law courts have their criteria.

And we know those are often inadequate and erroneous.

A combination of factors but the individual has the casting vote.

Do they? In what sense? What, precisely, is the individual?

Why not both?

You want free will to be up to the individual - that means no outside influences can interfere, right? Otherwise there are different shades of responsibility to consider, blame to apportion, and all that - and that’s assuming that the individual can even exist as an entity functionally independent of substance and environment. All of this muddies the waters of the notion of free will.

Materialists project the idea of a **cog **in a machine.

Actually, materialist philosophers tend more towards considering the individual as an entity resulting from the manifold interactions of the substances and forces that comprise it. It is only those who want to consider the self as a being apart from physical reality who would imagine that it is merely a cog - rather than the whole machine.

Reductivism is clearly false. You can imagine you are a collection of atoms…

Atoms, molecules, magnetism, electrical impulses, empty space - I am all of these things, and I would not exist without them.

Only to those who have faith.

Actually, no - the potential of complexity should be a fairly simple matter of arithmetic, even for a mathematical numpty like me; the more entities there are, the greater the possibilities for interaction and cooperation.

You are presupposing that everything has a physical location. Where is truth located?

In the brains of sentient, self-aware beings, stored as information about the correspondence of our perceptions to the physical reality we experience. You are presupposing anything can exist without at least a physical substrate.

I have already stated that rationality entails creativity as well as mechanical activity, intuition as well as intelligence, induction as well as deduction, synthesis as well as analysis, insight as well as hindsight and foresight, and lateral thinking as well as logical thinking.

None of which are possible without the physical elements that build these concepts. You can’t think without the necessary hardware, or the content about which to think.

 

[tonyrey]

It is also unclear how we are conscious or how things exist.
So you just add some new, inexplicable phenomenon to the increasingly explicable realities of our world?

Free will is neither new nor inexplicable in the context of the universal belief in independent minds. What are the “explicable realities of our world”?

Law courts have their criteria.

And we know those are often inadequate and erroneous.

Do you reject them all?

A combination of factors but the individual has the casting vote.

Do they? In what sense? What, precisely, is the individual?

A rational being - if you are referring to a person. If you cannot control your thoughts or decisions you are irrational.

Why not both?

You want free will to be up to the individual - that means no outside influences can interfere, right? Otherwise there are different shades of responsibility to consider, blame to apportion, and all that - and that’s assuming that the individual can even exist as an entity functionally independent of substance and environment. All of this muddies the waters of the notion of free will.

Only if free will is considered to be absolute. Mitigating circumstances presuppose a modicum of free will.

Materialists project the idea of a cog in a machine.

Actually, materialist philosophers tend more towards considering the individual as an entity resulting from the manifold interactions of the substances and forces that comprise it.

Precisely! A determined result rather than an autonomous agent.

It is only those who want to consider the self as a being apart from physical reality who would imagine that it is merely a cog - rather than the whole machine.

A whole machine inside an immense machine is still a machine!

Reductivism is clearly false. You can imagine you are a collection of atoms…

Atoms, molecules, magnetism, electrical impulses, empty space - I am all of these things, and I would not exist without them.

Your body would not exist without them.

Only to those who have faith.

Actually, no - the potential of complexity should be a fairly simple matter of arithmetic, even for a mathematical numpty like me; the more entities there are, the greater the possibilities for interaction and cooperation.

Interaction and cooperation do not entail the capacity for **self-**determination.

You are presupposing that everything has a physical location. Where is truth located?

In the brains of sentient, self-aware beings, stored as information about the correspondence of our perceptions to the physical reality we experience.

Correspondence doesn’t exist in the brain nor does it exist in physical reality. It is an intangible fact - like the existence of the universe before there were rational beings in the universe. Knowledge is not composed of things but facts.

You are presupposing anything can exist without at least a physical substrate.

You are presupposing everything has a physical substrate. How would you justify that assumption?

I have already stated that rationality entails creativity as well as mechanical activity, intuition as well as intelligence, induction as well as deduction, synthesis as well as analysis, insight as well as hindsight and foresight, and lateral thinking as well as logical thinking.

None of which are possible without the physical elements that build these concepts.

They are not concepts but intellectual powers and activities.

You can’t think without the necessary hardware, or the content about which to think.

Do you mean you can’t think about your**self **- your thoughts, emotions, values and purposes? Don’t you believe you have a self?

 

[Sair]

Free will is neither new nor inexplicable in the context of the universal belief in independent minds. What are the “explicable realities of our world”?

Universal belief in independent minds? Neuroscientific research is increasingly pointing to the idea that minds are not independent entities. If they were, they would exist apart from particular configurations of matter and energy such as we consider to be conscious agents. Consciousness itself is yielding to empirical investigation, just as other explicable aspects of the world external to ourselves - such as gravity, electrical conduction, evolution, organic chemistry, you name it - have yielded. To be fair, we may not have uncovered any ultimate truth to such phenomena, but we also don’t need to (and evolution, as we’ve learned, is always a trade-off between costs and benefits) - we have learned enough to be able to act within the world and even manipulate the results of physical laws for our own ends. Do you imagine we could do this if our minds were somehow removed from involvement in physical reality?

Do you reject them all?

Of course I don’t reject them all. I merely treat them with appropriate suspicion.

A rational being - if you are referring to a person. If you cannot control your thoughts or decisions you are irrational.

But who says we cannot control our thoughts and decisions? That only follows if you consider that your “self” is something existing independently of your physical manifestation.

Only if free will is considered to be absolute. Mitigating circumstances presuppose a modicum of free will.

You mean, I am assuming, a differential likelihood that any individual will choose certain actions under certain circumstances. That is all very well, but this still places a constraint upon free will - any individual will have certain parameters within which he or she may act; not all options will be open, but the consideration of which options were, in fact, open to the person in question, will affect the judgement of whether or not that person could have done otherwise in given circumstances - hence the presumption of guilt. A person who acts in self-defence, for example, could choose to merely disable their antagonist, rather than kill them - should they be judged harshly because they went for the latter option, or not? Is it certain that their rational faculties (whatever they are, and however they were formed) were able to operate in the circumstances specified?

A determined result rather than an autonomous agent.

And here’s the point - what do you require for the existence of an entirely autonomous agent? No influence, other than what is generated by the agent in question, from the inside? Any external constraint impinges upon autonomy under such parameters. What about considering the ability of any individual to act upon external constraints? The real issue is whether you consider the operations of the brain - reception of information, processing of information, initiation of action in response to information - to be operations that occur independently of the individual, or operations that are an integral part of the individual. As Dennett says - repeatedly - if you make yourself small enough, you can externalise everything.

A whole machine inside an immense machine is still a machine!

Sure. But so what?

Your body would not exist without them.

And whatever it is you are proposing to be the seat of free will would not exist without my body. What is your point?

Interaction and cooperation do not entail the capacity for **self-**determination.

Why not?

Correspondence doesn’t exist in the brain nor does it exist in physical reality. It is an intangible fact - like the existence of the universe before there were rational beings in the universe. Knowledge is not composed of things but facts.

Knowledge is composed of perceptions and information, which depend on physical bases. Are you proposing that the existence of the universe prior to human history is a product of unanchored imagination?

You are presupposing everything has a physical substrate. How would you justify that assumption?

Absolute absence of evidence to the contrary.

They are not concepts but intellectual powers and activities.

Which, as I said, depend upon physical brains. Show me that intellectual powers exist independently of brains - or similar configurations of matter and energy - and I might reconsider my position on the physicality of thought and consciousness.

Do you mean you can’t think about your**self **- your thoughts, emotions, values and purposes? Don’t you believe you have a self?

Where have I indicated I don’t believe I have a self? My point is that thoughts, emotions, values, purposes cannot exist without physical substance. Suppose, for the sake of argument, you have a mind unattached to any physical substrate; independent, free-floating, unreceptive to any physical phenomena (since it is nonphysical and no-one has ever demonstrated how physical and non-physical phenomena can interact). What’s to think about? What’s to perceive? What is there to generate emotions, in the absence of any circumstances to which this independent mind could respond? How could a free-floating consciousness generate intention and purpose in the absence of physical phenomena about which to formulate such intention and purpose? Yet that is exactly what advocates of souls propose - the self has existence and substance beyond physical reality (at least as a hold-over from the physical reality of our “earthly existence”, as if we had another kind.)

 

[Scapegoat]

If you confuse the concept of “free will” with the concept of “free fantasizing” or “free daydreaming” or “free wishful thinking” and you think that these are the same, then there would be a contradiction. But only a few people make that particular mistake. Most people understand that the correct definition: “free will means that you come to a decision and you are able to carry out that decision - free and unhindered”. In other words: “freedom of will” cannot be separated from “freedom to act upon that will”.

As I already pointed out, if only the “freedom of will” mattered, then God could take away the “freedom to act” from all the evil people, when they “will” something evil - and their “free will” would not be violated. What is so difficult to understand this, is a “mystery” - like so many logically incoherent “arguments”.

Entertaining impure thoughts is considered a sin. Why is this so if thoughts are not an acceptable expression of free will?

 

[Serious]

Entertaining impure thoughts is considered a sin.

That may be so according to you… and it is just another example of extreme irrationality. The concept of “thought crime” is the most horrifying concepts of all… to judge someone to be a “criminal” if one has some “impure thoughts” - even if that person never acts on those thoughts - is so disgusting and despicable that I am lost for words.

Why is this so if thoughts are not an acceptable expression of free will?

Why indeed? If one presents a totally ridiculous staring point, then anything that is a logically corollary of that starting point is equally ridiculous - can I say… “idiotic”?

 

[Scapegoat]

That may be so according to you… and it is just another example of extreme irrationality. The concept of “thought crime” is the most horrifying concepts of all… to judge someone to be a “criminal” if one has some “impure thoughts” - even if that person never acts on those thoughts - is so disgusting and despicable that I am lost for words.

Why indeed? If one presents a totally ridiculous staring point, then anything that is a logically corollary of that starting point is equally ridiculous - can I say… “idiotic”?

Arent individuals arrested in certain cases for plotting a crime even if they weren’t able to carry out the crime? As citizens if we hear someone say they are thinking about bombing a school aren’t we obligated to do something or tell someone?

 

[Serious]

Arent individuals arrested in certain cases for plotting a crime even if they weren’t able to carry out the crime?

They should not be arrested for having those thoughts only. If they are arrested, it is not for entetaining the thoughts, but for planning to put those thoughts into PRACTICE!!! And the arrest should only happen when it becomes obvious that the thoughts are ABOUT to be put into practice.

As citizens if we hear someone say they are thinking about bombing a school aren’t we obligated to do something or tell someone?

Sure you are expected to tell about it to the authorities. And the authorities are supposed to monitor the ACTIONS, and interfere as soon as it becomes obvious that the intents are about to be put into action. The thoughts themselves are not punishable, and should not be punishable.

 

[Scapegoat]

They should not be arrested for having those thoughts only. If they are arrested, it is not for entetaining the thoughts, but for planning to put those thoughts into PRACTICE!!! And the arrest should only happen when it becomes obvious that the thoughts are ABOUT to be put into practice.

So you agree when it becomes obvious that the thoughts are about to be put into practice then they should be arrested. Maybe this is when God assigns sin to an impure thought.

 

[tonyrey]

Neuroscientific research is increasingly pointing to the idea that minds are not independent entities.

Neuroscientific research does nothing more than correlate. Do you really believe every single event in your mental life has a physical cause and that you are an impotent spectator?

If they were, they would exist apart from particular configurations of matter and energy such as we consider to be conscious agents.

How do you know they don’t exist apart?

Consciousness itself is yielding to empirical investigation…

Evidence?

Do you imagine we could do this if our minds were somehow removed from involvement in physical reality?

Involvement doesn’t entail dependence.

I merely treat them with appropriate suspicion.

If you were on trial that attitude would receive its appropriate treatment!

But who says we cannot control our thoughts and decisions?

How can you if they have physical causes?

A person who acts in self-defence, for example, could choose to merely disable their antagonist, rather than kill them - should they be judged harshly because they went for the latter option, or not?

“choose” is the keyword because it is inconsistent with physical causality being the sole explanation.

And here’s the point - what do you require for the existence of an entirely autonomous agent? No influence, other than what is generated by the agent in question, from the inside?

Not at all!

Any external constraint impinges upon autonomy under such parameters.

“impinges” does not mean “excludes”.

As Dennett says - repeatedly - if you make yourself small enough, you can externalise everything.

Again the keyword is your downfall. If everything is externalised internal causality disappears and you are left contemplating your impotence.

A whole machine inside an immense machine is still a machine!

Sure. But so what?

Impotence!

And whatever it is you are proposing to be the seat of free will would not exist without my body.

You assume free will would not exist without your body - as if it has been demonstrated that nothing exists apart from microscopic specks.

The capacity for self-determination presupposes the existence of the self.

Knowledge is composed of perceptions and information, which depend on physical bases.

Knowledge is the interpretation of perceptions and information, much of which comes from your interior experience of yourself.

Are you proposing that the existence of the universe prior to human history is a product of unanchored imagination?

It has been a universal belief that the universe is the product of a rational Being.

Absolute absence of evidence to the contrary.

Your dogmatism overlooks the fact that all our knowledge of the physical world is a mental construct.

Show me that intellectual powers exist independently of brains - or similar configurations of matter and energy - and I might reconsider my position on the physicality of thought and consciousness.

“Show me” again implies that everything is observable by the senses! Can you be shown truth or freedom?

Where have I indicated I don’t believe I have a self?

You haven’t explained what it is.

My point is that thoughts, emotions, values, purposes cannot exist without physical substance… How could a free-floating consciousness generate intention and purpose in the absence of physical phenomena about which to formulate such intention and purpose?

Why do you think a body is necessary for persons to think, experience emotions, formulate intentions and purposes, make decisions and choose to love other persons? Aren’t personal relationships - including your relationship to yourself - more important than anything else in your life? Do you judge others primarily by their physical appearance or by their personal qualities?

Your description of “a free-floating consciousness” reveals your inability to think of anything in spiritual terms. Your metaphysical horizon is restricted to things rather than persons yet you don’t regard yourself or others as mere things! You consider persons to be derived from particles - which is a hopelessly inadequate explanation when we consider the power of the mind and the fact that all the most important things in life are intangible. You are deluded into thinking your physical senses reveal the whole of reality! Why on earth should they have priority over your intellect, your emotions, your values and your intuitions?

Your entire philosophy is based not on the movements of particles but on your personal interpretation of reality yet you are leaving yourself out of the picture. You are reducing the subject to an object and thereby annihilating yourself!

atomic particles > electrical impulses > thoughts > persons. Does that strike you as a logical sequence? Or is it more rational to interpret reality in terms of its highest aspect rather than its lowest? The success of science is due solely to persons and their ability to choose the best explanations.

You claim that materialism is true but in practice you don’t think or live like a materialist. Science will never dispose of the mind because it is a product of the mind. Whether we like it or not we are persons and nothing will ever alter that fact. Persons cannot be explained away as permutations of particles… or emotions as electrical impulses…

There is no logical stopping place on the progression:

nihilism > egoism > tribalism > humanism > universalism

Either everything is valuable and significant or nothing is valuable and significant.
If everything is valuable and significant there is a reason why it is valuable and significant. Reasons are only to be found in personal existence and not in the impersonal world of material objects…

 

[Serious]

So you agree when it becomes obvious that the thoughts are about to be put into practice then they should be arrested.

Even then the arrest is to prevent the planned action, and not the thought itself.

Maybe this is when God assigns sin to an impure thought.

That is not what you said above. You said that having “impure” thoughts is a “sin” in and by itself. (By the way, I love your phrase: “impure” thoughts. It is so vague and non-descriptive. It could comprise almost anything).

 

[Sair]

Neuroscientific research does nothing more than correlate. Do you really believe every single event in your mental life has a physical cause and that you are an impotent spectator?

No, because I am not a Cartesian dualist.

How do you know they don’t exist apart?

What reason is there to think they do? I’ve never had conversations with dead people.

How can you if they have physical causes?

Because I am physical. The proposition of self-control makes no sense otherwise. How does anything nonphysical interact with that which is physical?

The capacity for self-determination presupposes the existence of the self.

But it doesn’t presuppose that the self is an independent, immaterial entity.

Knowledge is the interpretation of perceptions and information, much of which comes from your interior experience of yourself.

And again, the self actually experiencing and monitoring these internal impressions and fluctuations must be physical, otherwise it really would be impotent in a physical world.

It has been a universal belief that the universe is the product of a rational Being.

Which means precisely nothing when it comes to determining the truth of that proposition. Humans have demonstrated throughout history that we are perfectly capable of collectively holding erroneous beliefs.

Your dogmatism overlooks the fact that all our knowledge of the physical world is a mental construct.

And you are tacitly supposing that the mind is nonphysical, which is a proposition yet to be demonstrated.

“Show me” again implies that everything is observable by the senses! Can you be shown truth or freedom?

Of course - “truth” and “freedom” are the symbols we apply to certain states of affairs in the physical world. If someone asks you, “What is freedom?” how do you explain it without reference to actual situations that obtain in reality such as we experience it?

Why do you think a body is necessary for persons to think, experience emotions, formulate intentions and purposes, make decisions and choose to love other persons? Aren’t personal relationships - including your relationship to yourself - more important than anything else in your life? Do you judge others primarily by their physical appearance or by their personal qualities?

Brains - particular configurations of physical substance - are demonstrably necessary for the formulation of thought, intention, purpose and so on. Do you actually think we choose to love others? Or is love a collection of emotions and responses triggered by certain environmental cues? These emotions and responses require bodies that function in certain ways. Making and executing choices about how we act towards others require bodies. You are also attempting to conflate the shallow evaluation of aesthetic attractiveness with the necessary bodily substrate upon which all our senses, emotions and thoughts manifest.

You are deluded into thinking your physical senses reveal the whole of reality! Why on earth should they have priority over your intellect, your emotions, your values and your intuitions?

The things that matter in our lives must be perceptible to the senses, otherwise we would have no means of interacting with our environment. If you were a brain in a vat, what would you think about? What would make up the content of your thoughts if you were impervious to environmental (name removed by moderator)ut?

Either everything is valuable and significant or nothing is valuable and significant.
If everything is valuable and significant there is a reason why it is valuable and significant. Reasons are only to be found in personal existence and not in the impersonal world of material objects…

Why the dichotomy? Why can’t some things be valuable and significant and others be irrelevant? Again, the brain in the vat might be a useful thought experiment here - some things that demonstrably matter to bodily-instantiated persons would obviously not matter to a brain in a vat. Why would you have any interest in the taste of food, for example? Or the warmth of clothing? Why would communication of ideas matter to you, when you lacked the wherewithal - ears and vocal chords, for example - to participate in such communication? Reasons for action, reasons for belief, reasons to value certain things and states of affairs, are all to be found in the realities of our physical existence.

 

[tonyrey]

Neuroscientific research does nothing more than correlate.

No response!

I am not a Cartesian dualist.

For a physicalist every single event in our mental life has a physical cause so we must be impotent spectators.

I’ve never had conversations with dead people.

Silence does not entail non-existence.

How can you if they have physical causes?

Because I am physical.

Therefore every single event in your mental life must have a physical cause and you must be an impotent spectator.

The proposition of self-control makes no sense otherwise.

What is the self?

How does anything nonphysical interact with that which is physical?

Unlike physicalists I don’t claim to have privileged insight. How do you exercise self-control?

The capacity for self-determination presupposes the existence of the self.

But it doesn’t presuppose that the self is an independent, immaterial entity.

No material entities are independent.

Knowledge is the interpretation of perceptions and information, much of which comes from your** interior **

experiences.And again, the self actually experiencing and monitoring these internal impressions and fluctuations must be physical, otherwise it really would be impotent in a physical world.

According to you internal impressions don’t exist! Everything is externalised.

It has been a universal belief that the universe is the product of a rational Being.

Humans have demonstrated throughout history that we are perfectly capable of collectively holding erroneous beliefs.

The onus is on a small minority to justify their rejection of majority opinion.

Your dogmatism overlooks the fact that all our knowledge of the physical world is a mental construct.

And you are tacitly supposing that the mind is nonphysical, which is a proposition yet to be demonstrated.

You have evaded the fact that all our knowledge of the physical world is a mental construct. Please refer to Q.V.Quine - who was a physicalist!

“Show me” again implies that everything is observable by the senses! Can you be shown truth or freedom?

Of course - “truth” and “freedom” are the symbols we apply to certain states of affairs in the physical world.

If “truth” and “freedom” are symbols they exist only in the mind and can be safely ignored. “truth” and “freedom” are facts regardless of anyone’s opinion.

If someone asks you, “What is freedom?” how do you explain it without reference to actual situations that obtain in reality such as we experience it?

False dilemma. The reality we experience is psychological as well as physical.

Aren’t personal relationships - including your relationship to yourself - more important than anything else in your life? Do you judge others primarily by their physical appearance or by their personal qualities?

Brains - particular configurations of physical substance - are demonstrably necessary for the formulation of thought, intention, purpose and so on.

Only for materialists. There is no evidence whatsoever that matter produced mind.

Do you actually think we choose to love others?

Yes. I am not a biological robot.

Or is love a collection of emotions and responses triggered by certain environmental cues?

No. We are not cogs in a machine.

These emotions and responses require bodies that function in certain ways. Making and executing choices about how we act towards others require bodies.

A gratuitous assumption.

You are also attempting to conflate the shallow evaluation of aesthetic attractiveness with the necessary bodily substrate upon which all our senses, emotions and thoughts manifest.

Your reduction of love to “the shallow evaluation of aesthetic attractiveness” reveals the shallowness of your view of reality.

You are deluded into thinking your physical senses reveal the whole of reality! Why on earth should they have priority over your intellect, your emotions, your values and your intuitions?

The things that matter in our lives must be perceptible to the senses, otherwise we would have no means of interacting with our environment. If you were a brain in a vat, what would you think about? What would make up the content of your thoughts if you were impervious to environmental (name removed by moderator)ut?

You are assuming “we” are no more than brains. How do you justify that hypothesis? Have scientists constructed a person?

Either everything is valuable and significant or nothing is valuable and significant.
If everything is valuable and significant there is a reason why it is valuable and significant. Reasons are only to be found in personal existence and not in the impersonal world of material objects…

Why the dichotomy? Why can’t some things be valuable and significant and others be irrelevant?

Because the atomistic view of reality is false.
Everything is ultimately linked and forms part of the whole.

Again, the brain in the vat might be a useful thought experiment here - some things that demonstrably matter to bodily-instantiated persons would obviously not matter to a brain in a vat. Why would you have any interest in the taste of food, for example? Or the warmth of clothing? Why would communication of ideas matter to you, when you lacked the wherewithal - ears and vocal chords, for example - to participate in such communication? Reasons for action, reasons for belief, reasons to value certain things and states of affairs, are all to be found in the realities of our physical existence.

Reasons exist only in the mind! You base your entire interpretation of reality on exterior events even though our interior existence is the only one of which we can be absolutely certain.

 

[tonyrey]

Either everything is valuable and significant or nothing is valuable and significant.

Because the atomistic view of reality is false. Everything is ultimately linked and forms part of the whole.

Either the Big Bang was valuable and significant or it was valueless and insignificant.
There is no way of evading that dilemma…

 

[Sair]

Because the atomistic view of reality is false. Everything is ultimately linked and forms part of the whole.

Either the Big Bang was valuable and significant or it was valueless and insignificant.
There is no way of evading that dilemma…

It is quite obvious from this and the previous response that you are quite unwilling to admit to what appears to many (increasingly, as neuroscience advances - and as the evidence for the lack of physical causality for mental events remains nonexistent) to be the obvious necessity of physical substance to what we consider to be our selves. Do you choose to be so? Consciously? Or is it a particular state of your mind (subsisting upon the physical condition of your brain) that causes you to be unwilling to admit the physicalist propositions of self and free will?

We are, as Dennett would say, “choice machines” (following Gary Drescher), but this only goes so far. Certainly, we may choose to act upon our wants, but as Sam Harris points out in Free Will, we cannot consciously determine our desires. To address a point touched upon earlier, I don’t actually think that Harris and Dennett are arguing at cross-purposes, even though the former claims that free will doesn’t exist and the latter argues extensively that it does. Neither of them claims the kind of free will that consists in being the independent, conscious originators of our wants and subsequent choices. The key difference is that Dennett is arguing for a radical re-thinking of our notions of just what instantiates the self and its freedom, while Harris is content - happy, even - to accept that free will simply is a non-starter, both logically and scientifically.

 

[tonyrey]

Because the atomistic view of reality is false. Everything is ultimately linked and forms part of the whole.

I could state with equal facility (and far greater cogency) :

“It is quite obvious from this and the previous response that you are quite unwilling to admit to what appears to many (regardless of neuroscience - which is restricted to the brain - and the total absence of evidence for the **monopoly **of physical causality) to be the pellucid necessity of our intangible minds.”

Do you choose to be so? Consciously?

I consciously choose to reject physicalism because we have direct knowledge of our thoughts whereas we infer the existence of electrical currents in the brain from our interpretation of our perceptions. The power of the mind is demonstrably greater than that of the brain which is, judging by all the evidence, totally unaware that it exists - predictably -because it is no more than a biological computer.

Or is it a particular state of your mind (subsisting upon the physical condition of your brain) that causes you to be unwilling to admit the physicalist propositions of self and free will?

I could ask you with equal facility (and far greater cogency) :

“Are you unwilling to admit physicalism is false because you are unwilling to admit it is unreasonable to believe reasons are not - and cannot be reduced to - physical causes?”

We are, as Dennett would say, “choice machines” (following Gary Drescher), but this only goes so far. Certainly, we may choose to act upon our wants, but as Sam Harris points out in Free Will, we cannot consciously determine our desires.

We can consciously control, sublimate and transform our desires.

To address a point touched upon earlier, I don’t actually think that Harris and Dennett are arguing at cross-purposes, even though the former claims that free will doesn’t exist and the latter argues extensively that it does. Neither of them claims the kind of free will that consists in being the independent, conscious originators of our wants and subsequent choices. The key difference is that Dennett is arguing for a radical re-thinking of our notions of just what instantiates the self and its freedom, while Harris is content - happy, even - to accept that free will simply is a non-starter, both logically and scientifically.

In short we are regarded as biological robots without any moral responsibility for our mental and physical activity, programmed entirely by past and present events, with no mind of our own and incapable of thinking independently or making decisions for ourselves!

 

[Sair]

I could state with equal facility (and far greater cogency) :

“It is quite obvious from this and the previous response that you are quite unwilling to admit to what appears to many (regardless of neuroscience - which is restricted to the brain - and the total absence of evidence for the **monopoly **of physical causality) to be the pellucid necessity of our intangible minds.”

I consciously choose to reject physicalism because we have direct knowledge of our thoughts whereas we infer the existence of electrical currents in the brain from our interpretation of our perceptions. The power of the mind is demonstrably greater than that of the brain which is, judging by all the evidence, totally unaware that it exists - predictably -because it is no more than a biological computer.

I could ask you with equal facility (and far greater cogency) :

“Are you unwilling to admit physicalism is false because you are unwilling to admit it is unreasonable to believe reasons are not - and cannot be reduced to - physical causes?”

We can consciously control, sublimate and transform our desires.
In short we are regarded as biological robots without any moral responsibility for our mental and physical activity, programmed entirely by past and present events, with no mind of our own and incapable of thinking independently or making decisions for ourselves!

Greater cogency? By whose standards, and in what respect? Perhaps from the point of view of someone who is a dyed-in-the-wool dualist, which I am not. As much as absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, the case for the existence of any nonphysical entity has yet to be made, let alone - the perennial spanner in the works of any Cartesian account of the person - how anything nonphysical can possibly interact with or have any effect upon that which is physical. We know physical things exist - we know nothing about nonphysical things. You claim we are directly aware of our thoughts, when what we are actually aware of are the symbols in which we encode those thoughts - words and images. We are not aware of the mental processing that actually gives rise to thoughts, nor can we necessarily control which thoughts arise in our minds at any given moment.

The great merit of accounts of consciousness and free will such as those posed by Dennett and Harris are that these constitute a serious attempt to actually integrate the findings of scientific investigation into our long-held notions about human agency and responsibility. They don’t simply cling to the idea that free will, in the classical libertarian sense, must exist because we feel like it does - in much the same way as an amputee might feel that he still has the missing limb. Our conscious perceptions are not always what they seem, and the primary reason for the success of science is that it has involved the development of ways of correcting for this.

As Harris points out in this article, which offers a useful and - I thought - clarifying discussion of his arguments in Free Will and where his approach differs from Dennett’s, we often need ways to get past how things seem in order to discover how they actually are.

You claim that we can consciously control our desires. What you mean, perhaps, is that we can consciously choose whether or not to act upon particular desires, based upon our perceptions of potential rewards and costs from indulging that particular desire. There’s no doubt that we can do this. But who formulated the desire? I think the idea that we are not the conscious authors of our desires is quite unproblematic. If I have a choice between a light, lean salad for lunch or a greasy burger and chips, my actual desire might well be for the burger, even if I consciously choose to eat the salad after assessing the probable consequences of each. Does this mean I control my desire? Not at all. I simply avoid acting on it, but that doesn’t make it go away (although habituation over time has demonstrable effects upon desires), nor does it mean that I will make the same decision if the same circumstances are repeated on a day when my desire for the burger succeeds in overwhelming my rational faculties.

As for your conscious choice to reject the evidence for the correspondence of the human mind to underlying physical phenomena, this too is serving a desire, an underlying motivation, even if you are not consciously aware of it. How you act is determined by the relationship between your desires and motivations, which you neither create nor control, the options that are available (not just to your practical abilities but to your awareness - you can’t choose an option if it just doesn’t occur to you) and the processing of all the relevant information, both at a conscious level and ‘below’, so to speak. In context, some people really want to believe in free will, perhaps because it is absolutely fundamental to how they view the world; others are more than happy to reject it on the basis of logic and scientific findings; still others, of which I suspect I am one, really want to get to the bottom of what’s actually going on, and truly appreciate the efforts of Dennett, for example, to integrate the hard facts uncovered by scientific investigation with the deeply enculturated beliefs shaping our views of reality. All of these are instances of desire, of an underlying motivational or intentional state, but I doubt any of the kinds of people mentioned had a conscious say in developing these conditions. That work was done by our environments and by the machinations of our brains of which we are not consciously aware.

 

[grannymh]

Brains - particular configurations of physical substance - are demonstrably necessary for the formulation of thought, intention, purpose and so on.

This conversation is way beyond my mental capacity. Nonetheless, I would like to point out that before our brain and neural system go into action, there is usually some kind of stimulus. Our legs do not decide to walk to the fridge to get a beer on their own.

 

[Sair]

This conversation is way beyond my mental capacity. Nonetheless, I would like to point out that before our brain and neural system go into action, there is usually some kind of stimulus. Our legs do not decide to walk to the fridge to get a beer on their own.

We are always subject to environmental influence - even staunch proponents of classical libertarian free will cannot legitimately deny this! We are also, I think - and to a greater extent than we often appreciate - creatures of instinct. Our responses to certain stimuli are often not “rational” in the sense of standing up to reflective, thoughtful explanation. An example is the disgust response, which appears to be responsible for quite a lot of the decisions we consider to be made on a sound moral basis - although we cannot articulate reasons for making these decisions.

 

[tonyrey]

Perhaps from the point of view of someone who is a dyed-in-the-wool dualist, which I am not.

You are in fact a materialist who has not produced a solution to its insurmountable problems - such as the verification principle that is impossible to verify by sense observation and is itself intangible and unobservable.

As much as absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, the case for the existence of any nonphysical entity has yet to be made…

The existence of the intangible mind is more certain than that of any material object

let alone - the perennial spanner in the works of any Cartesian account of the person - how anything nonphysical can possibly interact with or have any effect upon that which is physical.

You are assuming you know how your brain is conscious, grasps abstract principles, makes decisions and controls itself - the perennial spanner in the works of any materialistic account of the person.

We know physical things exist - we know nothing about nonphysical things.

You are assuming that we **know **our thoughts are merely electrical impulses

You claim we are directly aware of our thoughts, when what we are actually aware of are the symbols in which we encode those thoughts - words and images.

Symbols of what? What are symbols composed of? How does the brain encode symbols?
How does the brain understand symbols? If you cannot answer these questions your hypothesis is gratuitous.

We are not aware of the mental processing that actually gives rise to thoughts, nor can we necessarily control which thoughts arise in our minds at any given moment.

“necessarily” gives the game away!

The great merit of accounts of consciousness and free will such as those posed by Dennett and Harris are that these constitute a serious attempt to actually integrate the findings of scientific investigation into our long-held notions about human agency and responsibility.

“serious” in whose opinion and on what basis?

They don’t simply cling to the idea that free will, in the classical libertarian sense, must exist because we feel like it does - in much the same way as an amputee might feel that he still has the missing limb.

Belief in free will is not based on a feeling but on logic. Machines are not autonomous or responsible.

Our conscious perceptions are not always what they seem, and the primary reason for the success of science is that it has involved the development of ways of correcting for this.

A rational belief is not based on a negative proposition.

As Harris points out in this article, which offers a useful and - I thought - clarifying discussion of his arguments in Free Will and where his approach differs from Dennett’s, we often need ways to get past how things seem in order to discover how they actually are.

A platitude!

… If I have a choice between a light, lean salad for lunch or a greasy burger and chips, my actual desire might well be for the burger, even if I consciously choose to eat the salad after assessing the probable consequences of each. Does this mean I control my desire? Not at all. I simply avoid acting on it, but that doesn’t make it go away (although habituation over time has demonstrable effects upon desires), nor does it mean that I will make the same decision if the same circumstances are repeated on a day when my desire for the burger succeeds in overwhelming my rational faculties.

To avoid acting on a desire implies that you are controlling it!

As for your conscious choice to reject the evidence for the correspondence of the human mind to underlying physical phenomena, this too is serving a desire, an underlying motivation, even if you are not consciously aware of it.

As for your conscious choice to reject the evidence for the independence of the human mind to underlying physical phenomena, this too is serving a desire, an underlying motivation, even if you are not consciously aware of it! (A two-edged sword.

It does not follow that all our conscious choices are serving a desire, an underlying motivation - except a desire to discover the truth!

How you act is determined by the relationship between your desires and motivations, which you neither create nor control, the options that are available (not just to your practical abilities but to your awareness - you can’t choose an option if it just doesn’t occur to you) and the processing of all the relevant information, both at a conscious level and ‘below’, so to speak.

There is no evidence for the truth of these assertions

In context, some people really want to believe in free will, perhaps because it is absolutely fundamental to how they view the world; others are more than happy to reject it on the basis of logic and scientific findings; still others, of which I suspect I am one, really want to get to the bottom of what’s actually going on, and truly appreciate the efforts of Dennett, for example, to integrate the hard facts uncovered by scientific investigation with the deeply enculturated beliefs shaping our views of reality.

You are obviously attached to your opinion but that has no bearing on its validity.

All of these are instances of desire, of an underlying motivational or intentional state, but I doubt any of the kinds of people mentioned had a conscious say in developing these conditions. That work was done by our environments and by the machinations of our brains of which we are not consciously aware.

How would you demonstrate that your opinion is not motivated by the desire to reject the objective reality of independent minds, truth, goodness, freedom, justice, love and purpose?