Philosophy Now Forum

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 8:20 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 12:55 pm And this is why we look at the psychology, life circumstances etc. of the person who made a choice, to establish whether or not that person could have chosen otherwise. We don't turn to some stupid free will/determinism issue. But this could be a foreign concept to a butthurt autist with an agenda.

Here you are asserting that your brain, unlike rapists, is free from determinism.
(sorry, I just wanted to see what it's like to make up what other people 'have said.' I guess I see the appeal.)
Anyway, it doesn't matter what you say, because you were always going to say it. I.m not sure why I started a thread where I think the only people who could say anything on the topic are brain scientists and that nothing anyone says makes any difference. But I can always say I had to start the thread.

Yeah, it's kinda satisfying. I can dismiss anyone's thoughts, unless they are brain scientists who can prove free will is the case. I can attribute ideas to other people they don't have cause I can't help but do that and it also doesn't matter.

This is freedom!

He seems to have some kind of axe to grind, I wonder what his deal is. Endless defensive musings about dasein and free will and abortions that were never meant to get anywhere. He seems to be angry about something

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 2:25 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 12:34 am What difference does it make what they say about anything when everything that they do say they say only because they were never able to freely opt not to say it?

IOW you can attribute whatever you want to compatibilists, since it doesn't matter. You didn't say here: but this is what say. You didn't say here: OK, they don't say that. In a discussion you say: it doesn't matter what they say. Which means, I don't care if they said it or not. I get to attribute whatever to them. OK, fine. You're not interested in what they say and feel free to attribute whatever to them. Not a discussion.

Again, I always come back to this:

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

I don't know if what I say about anyone here really matters. I do believe "here and now" that if we live in a No God universe, our own existence then seems to be essentially meaningless and purposeless. It just then seems important to distinguish between things mattering in a world that could never have unfolded any other way and a world where "somehow" the human species -- God or No God -- are of their own free will able to have a genuine impact on their own existence.

Only how exactly would philosophers go about assessing and resolving that? This thread is an example of the limitations confronting us here. We discuss it. Words defining and defending other words. And, from time to time, references to those more intent on exploring all of this empirically, experientially, experimentally.

Then back to the compatibilists among us here explaining how they are still responsible for saying it. Back to them explaining how, given their own understanding of determinism, Mary is still morally responsible for aborting Jane and Mike is still morally responsible for raping Maria.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 2:25 amI used to the rape scenario and did explain their position on this.

It went right over my head then.

Note to others:

Are you a compatibilist? Do you believe that determinism and moral responsibility are able to be reconciled? For all practical purposes...not just "philosophically"?

That, as well, it can be explained to Mary and Mike how, even though they were never able to freely opt not to abort or rape, they are still morally responsible for doing so.

Or, if you yourself are not a compatibilist, maybe you know someone who is. Ask yourself, "who do I know that can best reconcile the two for him?"

Or, if you believe that iwannaplato has accomplished this already, please link me to this.

Same thing. How "for all practical purposes" is this applicable to Mary and Mike? They are compelled to abort and to rape by "nature" -- the laws of matter -- and could never of their own free will have opted not to. Just as you and I are compelled by our brains to react as we must to abortion and rape. The part I root existentially, subjectively, subjunctively in dasein. So, even if we do have free will in a No God world it doesn't make the Benjamin Button Syndrome any less applicable in regard to human interactions that are judged morally and politically. At least --click -- given the arguments I make in the OPs here:

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 2:25 amNot responding to what I wrote on the compatibilist justification for holding them responsible. Repeating things you have said.

Ditto?

Yes, proofs revolve around human interactions in the either/or world. Human interactions that "somehow" encompass free will. Mary either aborts Jane or she doesn't. Mike either rapes Maria or he doesn't. And you and I "here and now" react to abortion and rape as we do. Again, the part I root existentially in moral nihilism and dasein, the part others here root in God or in ideology or in genes or in deontology.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 2:25 amNot responding to what I wrote on the compatibilist justification for holding them responsible. Repeating things you have said.

Ditto?

And around and around we go. The rapist could not have not raped. But we can choose how we react to the rapist ourselves?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 2:25 amNever said that. Not responding to what I wrote on the compatibilist justification for holding them responsible. Repeating things you have said.

Ditto?

Note to others:

Make of this what you will. What you must?

Click: I repeat things here in exchanges because I am not satisfied with how others reacted to the points I made. In other words, just like everyone else here.

And I am definitely not satisfied with Iwannaplato's effort here. From my frame of mind, it's just another close encounter with just another Mr. Wiggle. The whole point being to avoid my points. Then eventually he can come back around to how it's actually my very own rude and uncivil posting style that drives everyone away.

And the only way that makes sense to me is if the reconciliation itself is also an inherent component of the only possible reality. Mike and Mary are determined -- fated, destined -- to abort and rape. You and I are determined -- fated, destined -- to react to abortion and rape as we do. Nothing composed of matter is not wholly in sync with the laws of matter.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 2:25 amYes, I have asserted this several times.

Then we are far, far removed regarding the "for all practical purposes" implications of this. Abortion, rape, reactions to them. Punishments and rewards. Or is everyone and everything but one more domino toppling over onto the next in line? Though maybe the pantheists are right and the universe itself provides the teleological parameters for why we are here. And that is always crucial because finding that allows us to connect the dots to one of these...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

...paths of/to enlightenment.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 11, 2023 5:46 amThen they realize 'Oh, he didn't assert that.' They learn that they made a mistake. Yes, if you can't or won't do that, that just like the people who do learn, is something that was always going to happen. But if you can't learn when things that are fairly easy to check are pointed out to you, then you become, for many people a less interesting conversation partner. Yes, given your nature, you were always going to not learn when certain things are pointed out. But given that not everyone is like that, some people are doing to choose not to interact. And according to a compatibilist all this was always what was going to happen.

...the assumption [from my frame of mind] is that all of this is unfolding in the only possible manner it ever could have unfolded. So, if some here are compelled by their brains to stop interacting with me, where does the part about responsibility come into play?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 2:25 amLook at what I said about rapists above and why the compatibilist holds them responsible. And now their justification is not the same as the libertarians. It's right there in the begginning of the first post in this latest interactions and you have still not even commented directly on that justification.

Please link me to it. Meanwhile down the road I'll zero in on compatibilism and moral responsibility. See if i can come upon someone able to bring me closer to understanding something that as of now seems completely senseless to me.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Sep 11, 2023 5:46 amSo, can you manage to admit that I never asserted that compatibilist brains were free in some way from determinism?

This is basically how the libertarians react. Their assumption is that I can freely opt to think all of this through again and finally admit that you or others are right about me. Why? Because from their frame of mind, human brains are indeed fundamentally different from all other matter. I can of my own volition begin to grasp your point and come around to it. Whereas your rendition of compatibilism [as I understand or misunderstand it] is nothing at all like mine is.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 2:25 amSure, there are gonig to be overlaps between the behaviors of litertarians and compatibilists. This doesnT' mean they are the same or that their beliefs are the same or their reasons for attributing responsibility are exactly the same. But you're not interested it seems in responded to the differences I presented back in my first post, it seems.

Overlaps? The libertarians are arguing that "somehow" human beings did acquire free will. And that is precisely why Mike is responsible for raping Maria. He chose to rape her. On the other hand, given the manner in which I understand compatibilism, Mike is responsible even if he was never free to opt not to rape.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 4:02 pm Let's acknowledge: holding someone responsible may not mean exactly the same thing in compatibilism and other belief systems. Nevertheless for me the word can cover the various senses fairly well and there is overlap, including in how one responds.

Again, the assumption being that "somehow" in explaining what the word "covers" means to him above, he was able of his own free will to opt to explain it differently?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 2:25 amI did not say that. Again you are addding in that I am assuming something. And as I said, I am not a determinist nor a compatibilist so even if I was asserting free will whatever that would mean, it wouldn't be a contradiction. And you still haven't managed to respond to what I wrote was the justification for compatibilists assigning responsibility to people for their acts. I actually did it a few times in a few different ways None of them have you responded to.

Again, all I can do here is to ask those who deem themselves to be compatibilists, to note whether they think what Iwannaplato notes regarding compatibilism is reasonable. Then forgetting him completely, explaining to me how, as compatibilists, they believe Mary and Mike are both never able not to abort and rape and still morally responsible for doing so.

Then another leap to Stooge Stuff.

Again, I would recommend that you simply steer clear of my posts. I never read yours. We'll other than when you respond to something I posted.

You're one of the "serious philosophers" here. And, sure, in regard to crucial aspects of philosophy, that's an important thing to be.

But my main interest in philosophy pertains to human social, political and economic interactions. The ones that come into conflict over morality and politics and religion.

And, as with those like Phyllo, I still don't really grasp how you connect the dots between "identity, value judgments, conflicting goods and political economy". Given particular contexts. With Phyllo, the Christian God "somehow" comes into play.

What i am always most curious about in others is how they manage to keep from becoming "fractured and fragmented" in regard to conflicting assessments of moral responsibility. Especially those who seem to reject God and religion but are still able to embrace some measure of objective morality. There's gib with his "emotional" Self, Maia with her spiritual Self, others with their intuitive/intrinsic Self.

Ah, never mind.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 9:09 pmAgain, I always come back to this:

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

Either way, it's still just a very rare configuration of matter, bound by physical laws. There's no reason to think otherwise. I see two major possibilities (aside from the many minor, unlikely possibilities, not worth mentioning):

1. multiversal/extradimensional views of the human brain/mind are wrong, our brain/mind is part of this 4D universe and there's nothing more to it. In this case determinists are correct, no free will at all. I think the idea of compatibilism in a 4D world makes no sense either, it's more like a contradiction of terms.

2. multiversal/extradimensional views of the human brain/mind are correct, in this case our brain/mind is a higher dimensional thing which COULD mean some limited free will, from our individual 4D perspective. One way to put it would be: creating your 4D reality-tunnel in a 5D (or more than 5D) landscape.

I strongly suspect that we live in a more than 4 dimensional world, but I don't know if this translates to some limited free will or not, and if yes, how much free will. I'm trying to find out. Also, some people may have more such "extradimensional" free will than others.

This would all still be bound by the extradimensional laws of physics, too. I'm pretty sure this multiversal/extradimensional thing is not what compatibilists have in mind, but I'd argue that this is the way how some free will and the laws of physics could actually fit together.

One could say that from a higher dimensional perspective, this is still determinisim, but from a 4D perspective, it's some limited free will.

I don't know if what I say about anyone here really matters. I do believe "here and now" that if we live in a No God universe, our own existence then seems to be essentially meaningless and purposeless.

Both in the above 1. and 2., looks like there's no God, not even some higher purpose without a God. We could say that nothing really matters. Our existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless.

It just then seems important to distinguish between things mattering in a world that could never have unfolded any other way and a world where "somehow" the human species -- God or No God -- are of their own free will able to have a genuine impact on their own existence.

Limited or no free-will, I don't think the human species will have a big enough impact on its existence. And even if it would, there is still no reason to think that it would serve some ultimate meaningful purpose, because there doesn't seem to be one.

These are the realities imo, so it's better not to be too preoccupied with them. I for example live as if I had some "multiversal" free will, plus I treat it as a fact that I have a lot of everyday psychological free will.

Is Free Will Necessary For Moral Responsibility?
A case for rethinking their relationship
Carrie Figdor and Mark Phelan

Introduction: Freedom and Moral Responsibility

How are free will and moral responsibility related? As Kadri Vihvelin writes, within the philosophical literature on moral responsibility ‘it is…widely agreed that the existence of free will is a necessary condition of the existence of moral responsibility.’

How "widely agreed" in the philosophical community? For some years now I have been trying to bump into an argument able to convince me that "somehow" a wholly determined universe and moral responsibility are compatible. And here I assume further that compatibilists themselves are no less wholly compelled to think what they do about it. So, it's ever and always back to the profound mystery embedded in biological life evolving into self-conscious human beings here on planet Earth.

Michael McKenna seconds Vihvelin’s summary:

"Free will is understood as a necessary condition of moral responsibility since it would seem unreasonable to say of a person that she deserves blame and punishment for her conduct if it turned out that she was not at any point in time in control of it."

There you go!

What do I keep missing here when the compatibilists get around to Mary and Mike?

Peter Van Inwagen also prominently defends this position, writing that:

"…without free will there is no moral responsibility: if moral responsibility exists, then someone is morally responsible for something he has done or for something he has left undone; to be morally responsible for some act or failure to act is at least to be able to have acted otherwise, whatever else it may involve; to be able to have acted otherwise is to have free will. Therefore, if moral responsibility exists, someone has free will. Therefore, if no one has free will, moral responsibility does not exist."

Okay, Mr. Compatibilist, how is this applicable or not applicable to Mary and Mike? And, in regard to the human brain, how is what they did [abort/rape] not in turn interchangeable with how the rest of us react to what they did? Autonomically, wholly in sync with the laws of matter.

Is Free Will Necessary For Moral Responsibility?
A case for rethinking their relationship
Carrie Figdor and Mark Phelan

Finally, in Freedom and Resentment, P. F. Strawson acknowledges widespread agreement over this view [above]. He distinguishes pessimists and optimists regarding the justifiability of practices of punishment... under the assumption that determinism is true: pessimists think such practices would not be justified, optimists think they would. But he also notes that both sides agree that freedom is necessary for moral responsibility even though they differ on what ‘freedom’ means.

Then the part [of course] where I note the predicament all of us face here. Including the authors. Strawson distinguishes optimists from pessimists as he does. But how on Earth would he go about determining if this distinction itself was something he was able to make autonomously? Instead, if this distinction is no less intertwined with our own distinctions no less intertwined in brain matter that compels all of us to distinguish only as we ever could have given the only possible material reality.

Same thing regarding what we come to think that freedom means. Some here assume they thought this up of their own volition. It means only what it does to them because they introspect autonomously. Others assume that, on the contrary, we reward or punish behaviors as we do because we were never able not to. Justification is moot to the laws of nature.

Unless, perhaps, it's not? Back to what may well be the profoundest mystery of them all: The possibility of teleology in a No God world.

What do the pantheists/Spinozans have to say about that: https://www.quora.com/Is-there-such-a-t ... -pantheism

Free will & Moral responsibility
AQA Ethics

Libertarianism, Determinism & Compatibilism

Libertarianism about free will is the view that we do have the power to make genuine choices and could have done otherwise than what we did. It is the view that free will exists.

Just out of curiosity, any libertarians/advocates of free will here who do believe they are able to actually demonstrate that we have autonomy. Or, instead, are you willing/able only to take a leap of faith to the "belief" "in your head" that "somehow" when matter evolved into biological life here on Earth and became us we "just did" acquire it.

Sartre is a libertarian. Sartre claimed that there is no objective purpose, nor anything else determines our actions because “existence precedes essence”, meaning humans exist before they have a defined purpose and so have to subjectively define their purpose for themselves. This suggests that they have the free will to decide their purpose.

Sartre, no doubt, for some, offers up the worst of all possible worlds: "somehow" we did acquire free will. But what on Earth and for all practical purposes does this mean if any behaviors that we do choose are no more essentially rational and purposeful than any other behaviors? Then, in the is/ought world, it's just a matter of how more or less "fractured and fragmented" you become.

Sartre’s argument is a psychological one, that people cling to fabricated notions of objective purpose like religion or Aristotle’s ‘final cause/telos’ because they are afraid of not having a purpose, more specifically they are scared of the intensity of the freedom that comes from having to choose their own purpose.

Here, however, we are back to engaging human psychology in order to probe the extent to which human psychology itself is or is not autonomous. Matter having evolved into brains actually able to ponder what that means.

And whether one way or another it can do this because it freely opted to choose to.

Sartre thought that this sense of “radical freedom” led to feelings of abandonment (by God/objective reality), anguish (over the weight of being completely responsible for your actions) and despair (over our inability to act exactly as we’d like due to the constraints of the world). It’s much easier to believe that we don’t have free will than face that existential angst.

Also, I suspect, if we did "somehow" acquire free will, it's much easier to assume that there is but One True Path to understanding the world around us.

Fortunately, there are lots and lots of paths...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

...to choose from.

Free will & Moral responsibility
AQA Ethics

As Sartre’s argument is psychological, he does not provide metaphysical grounds for rejecting determinism and so is arguably committing the genetic fallacy.

Go ahead, try to think that through. Isn't the human brain that thinks up philosophical grounds for things like free will the same human brain that experiences emotional and psychological states that are merely assumed to be autonomous?

What if human psychology is capable only of creating the illusion of free will?

Until we grasp the extent to which human genes themselves are able to create a bona fide autonomy, how would we go about determining what constitutes a genetic fallacy?

Are human genes "somehow" able bring about free will? And, here and now, what is the most comprehensive understanding of how human genes and the human brain are intertwined in the laws of matter?

The genetic fallacy is assuming that the way in which someone comes up with a theory is relevant to whether it is true or false. Just because people have a psychological need to believe in objective purpose, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Did your brain, wholly in sync with your genes, compel you to come up with one set of theoretical assumptions about human psychology and free will rather than another? Okay, beyond a "world of words" how would this be substantiated?

Here, in fact, is the author encompassing how in a world of words, Sartre might defend himself...

Counter-defence: Sartre could respond that this is a misunderstanding of his argument. Sartre’s starting premise is that there is nothing in our experience which suggests we have a telos or are determined. All that we experience is ‘radical freedom’ – a sense that every choice we make is completely up to us because there is nothing in our experience like God or telos which could influence or guide that choice. So Sartre is using an a posteriori approach.

What if, instead, Sartre's starting premise is one that he was never able of his own free will not to opt for? That if others were only able to understand his argument as they must they were never able not to misunderstand it. Meaning that for all practical purposes understandings and misunderstandings themselves are essentially interchangeable. Just as using an a priori or an a posteriori approach are.

Then straight back up into the clouds...

Belief in the mind being non-physical (dualism). If our choices originate from a non-physical self or soul, then they would be unaffected by the deterministic cause and effect of the physical universe. Descartes’ arguments for the soul. Kant phenomenal vs noumenal realm.

And then the part where many ponder how on Earth an omniscient God can possibly be reconciled with human autonomy itself.

Just one more thing to boggle our own minds going all the way back to, well, we don't even really know what that is, do we? Just as for most [including me as often as not] we "just know" that we have free will.

Free will & Moral responsibility
AQA Ethics

Hard/Philosophical determinism

Barron D’Holbach was one of the first Atheists and observed that if we are not created by God and don’t have a soul, we are just physical things like any other and therefore follow the same laws of cause and effect.

That's the point I come back to over and again. In fact, many who embrace free will come back to that in turn. The only possible explanation for free will is God. Just as objective morality is derived from God so is autonomy. Or are we to believe that in a No God universe mindless matter just "somehow" became living, biological matter that...became us?

God or No God, however, free will is no less the antinomy today that it was going back to the pre-Socratics.

Every event is caused by previous events, including human action. If we keep tracing the cause of our action back in time, eventually we will get to before we were born, and could ultimately go all the way back to the big bang. We were not responsible for the big bang, nor our birth, but therefore we cannot be responsible for our actions either. So there is no such thing as free will.

Of course, this is just one more "philosophical assessment". We have no capacity [that I am freely aware of] to grasp if it is true. In other words [and you know what's coming], cue "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule". Them and all of the other Big Questions that some merely believe they know the answers to "in their heads". God or No God.

John Locke argued against the idea that the feeling of free will is a reason to believe it exists, by showing how it could be an illusion.

Indeed, not unlike the illusion of free will that we experience in dreams. It's all the brain's doing. Only in the dream we may as well be wide awake. After all, we don't think and feel and say and do things in dreams while constantly reminding ourselves that it is "only a dream".

Locke asked us to imagine a man in a locked room who wakes up, unaware it is locked, and ‘chooses’ to stay in the room. He felt like he made a choice, when actually reality was such that no choice was in fact available to him. Locke argues this could be the case for every human action. We simply are unable to directly perceive all the causes and effects that determined our action, which leaves us with the illusion that we were not determined, when really we were.

On the other hand [unless I am missing Locke's point], if we do have free will, eventually we discover that the door is locked. Then, of our own volition, we come up with a way to get it open. Breaking it down even. So, my own understanding of the "psychological illusion of free will" revolves more around the assumption that human psychology itself is wholly determined. Meaning both the "external" and the "internal" variables in our lives are manifestations of the only possible reality.

"That's the point I come back to over and again"

u can say that again

Listen you're in my handful of all time favorite posters Biggs, eternally and forever, so don't get the wrong idea.

But siriusly man I had to take it.

Locke asked us to imagine a man in a locked room who wakes up, unaware it is locked, and ‘chooses’ to stay in the room. He felt like he made a choice, when actually reality was such that no choice was in fact available to him. Locke argues this could be the case for every human action. We simply are unable to directly perceive all the causes and effects that determined our action, which leaves us with the illusion that we were not determined, when really we were.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

The decision to stay inside is independent of the locked/unlocked state of the door.

The locked door is not forcing him or compelling him or determining him to stay inside since he does not know that it is locked.

It can't be a cause in this case.

But if he decided to leave and found the door locked, then it would be a cause for his subsequent actions.

Belief in the mind being non-physical (dualism). If our choices originate from a non-physical self or soul, then they would be unaffected by the deterministic cause and effect of the physical universe.

Why would choices originate from a non-physical self or soul when there is a physical organ, the brain, in our bodies which makes choices?

The changes in choices can be seen when brain damage occurs, when chemicals are introduced, when physical trauma occurs.

Can there be any doubt that the brain makes choices?

What would be the point of having and maintaining a brain if it is unnecessary?

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 12:15 pm

Belief in the mind being non-physical (dualism). If our choices originate from a non-physical self or soul, then they would be unaffected by the deterministic cause and effect of the physical universe.

Why would choices originate from a non-physical self or soul when there is a physical organ, the brain, in our bodies which makes choices?

The changes in choices can be seen when brain damage occurs, when chemicals are introduced, when physical trauma occurs.

Can there be any doubt that the brain makes choices?

What would be the point of having and maintaining a brain if it is unnecessary?

Perhaps it is analagous to a radio and the transmitted radio waves from some other source. You need to radio to produce the sounds, but there is something else having effects on the radio.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 1:56 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 12:15 pm

Belief in the mind being non-physical (dualism). If our choices originate from a non-physical self or soul, then they would be unaffected by the deterministic cause and effect of the physical universe.

Why would choices originate from a non-physical self or soul when there is a physical organ, the brain, in our bodies which makes choices?

The changes in choices can be seen when brain damage occurs, when chemicals are introduced, when physical trauma occurs.

Can there be any doubt that the brain makes choices?

What would be the point of having and maintaining a brain if it is unnecessary?

Perhaps it is analagous to a radio and the transmitted radio waves from some other source. You need to radio to produce the sounds, but there is something else having effects on the radio.

Yes, but the "radio" would be affected by "deterministic cause and effect" and so the overall transmission could not be considered free of cause and effect.

The question is, what kind of impact that would have on "choice". How free is this free-will?


And there is always the problem of lack of knowledge or ability. If a person does not know something, then that is a cause which produces effects in behavior. Even if you have non-physical decision making self, it can still only act on what it knows due to genetic memory and personal experiences.
For example, you can't will yourself to understand a foreign language that you have never learned.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Oct 03, 2023 2:27 pm Perhaps it is analagous to a radio and the transmitted radio waves from some other source. You need to radio to produce the sounds, but there is something else having effects on the radio.

Yes, but the "radio" would be affected by "deterministic cause and effect" and so the overall transmission could not be considered free of cause and effect. [/quote]The first issue I was trying to deal with was the idea that if there is a brain and it does things, what would be the need for the brain if the choices are made somewhere else. Perhaps the brains is 'played' by something elsewhere or inwhere. IOW there are a couple of issues here 1) would this other substance, other than the brain, in the dualism eradicate the need for the brain. I am using the analogy to suggest that this need not be the case. 2) the determinism issue.

The question is, what kind of impact that would have on "choice". How free is this free-will?

I don't know. I can't rule it out. But I don't know.

And there is always the problem of lack of knowledge or ability. If a person does not know something, then that is a cause which produces effects in behavior. Even if you have non-physical decision making self, it can still only act on what it knows due to genetic memory and personal experiences.

Maybe, maybe not. I can't rule out that there are other was to have/store/be/include knowledge.