Philosophy Now Forum

raw_thought wrote:No one said that one cannot be conscious of the subconscious. The brain does the calculations unconsciously and then presents the results to the consciousness. Consciousness cannot do the calculations because it cannot be aware of them before they exist. You still dont get it. Your whole post has nothing to do with what we are talking about.

NO, I'm posing possibilities on a subject that you earlier agreed we cannot know with certainty, yet here you are speaking of how it works with certainty!

I am saying that one cannot be conscious of a thought before one thinks it.
You disagree with that??? I think that is fairly obvious.
Or do you disagree with the proposition, " Causes always precede effects."?

"Again I ask you, if you say that you cannot be conscious of the unconscious..."
Spheres
No one said that!

raw_thought wrote:"Again I ask you, if you say that you cannot be conscious of the unconscious..."
Spheres
No one said that!

Yet, of the currently unknowable, here you are speaking of how it works with certainty!

All I am saying is that it is logically impossible for consciousness to create thoughts because no one can be conscious of a thought before one thinks it. I am making no claims as to how the brain works. How the brain performs calculations is not part of this debate.

Perhaps a metaphor might help. I am saying that what you see on a computer screen is not what performs the calculations. The hardware does the calculations. The image on the screen is an effect of that hardware. The image on the screen has no power to calculate.

There are two options.
1. Everything is physical,obeys cause and effect and there is no free will.
OR
2. Consciousness is supernatural (it does not obey physical laws such as cause and effect) and therefore free will is possible.

Find a third option cuz it sure seems to me I make all kinds of choices (weighing, considering, deciding, doing) all the time. I prefer 'agency' to 'free will', but whatever you wanna call it, human beings have sumthin' that makes them more than bio-automation.

Then you opt for option 2. That consciousness is supernatural.

Nope. I'm an atheist and see no evidence of super- or supra-natural goings on.

The evidence I do have (that I self-direct and choose, that I'm an agent in the world and not bio-automation) sez there must be a third option.

That I can't voice that third option, and that you and other determinists won't consider a third option, doesn't mean there isn't a third option.

All the logic in the world doesn't negate what I know by way of self-interrogation.

What surprises me, saddens me, is how easily you and others can deny what should be as plain to you as the noses on your faces.

You folks, it seems, wiil fight to the death to declare yourselves nuthin' but reacting organic machinary...I don't get it.

But as you like...

henry quirk wrote: All the logic in the world doesn't negate what I know by way of self-interrogation.

It certainly does SEEM that way. It's difficult to see why the slight change in formulation would cause so much concern. What you feel in a given moment would not change by thinking that there are natural causes of your behavior about which you are largely unaware.

The question is...how do you think you came to be able to "self-interrogate"?

henry quirk wrote:I make all kinds of choices (weighing, considering, deciding, doing) all the time.

True...but these processes are still dependent upon your prior experiences. You might not be destined to commit a given action, but the actions you make are the result of prior causes you could not be entirely aware of. The sculpting process of a lifetime of experiences is too much information for a person to consider, and too far removed in time to combat the feeling of agency at the moment a decision is made.

I haven't a clue how (self) consciouness works....I only know that I am a self-directing, self-examining, animal.

And: sure, I'm mired in countless causal chains. However, like you, I can and do intiate chains of my own all the time.

raw_thought wrote:There are two options.
1. Everything is physical,obeys cause and effect and there is no free will.
OR
2. Consciousness is supernatural (it does not obey physical laws such as cause and effect) and therefore free will is possible.

Or limited choice, and free will to choose that. As I said somewhere before, I can decide to be a bodybuilder, but I can't decide to want to be a bodybuilder, if I'm so disinclined.

If our choices are limited, then that really isn't free will at all.