Do you believe in free will?

[Norfolk And Chance]

This is exactly what I was trying to say.

[NoMoreFaith]

This is the definition I've been using all along. If you wish to change it now, don't lay the absence of consensus on my door.

In the context of Gods omniscience sure. You're trying too hard to prove a point that doesn't exist.
Not sure what your point is supposed to be other than to attempt to claim I have changed my definition. The only difference is using the compulsion to choose (coercion) and causation (the factors that compel). They both lead to the same thing.

I am making the point that the discussion revolves around individual interpretation of the terms. There is the stanford one I quoted, your compatibilist one, my determinist one, your reference point seems to create the definition, which I find interesting.

And as I've been repeating time and again - "he" is not something separate or independent from the natural processes of his mind. "He" is those processes and therefore the choice is being made by "him".

I've never said differently. I completely agree, the self is nothing more than the sum of the whole. A Wholly determined one at that. I think you have me confused with someone who argues against that idea.
The only area I differ is the illusion of choice. I believe every choice is compelled, and just as a kicker, you are usually compelled to LIKE it.

It hasn't been established as such.

Don't be so sure. The subconscious mind does a variety of extremely fucked up things, that your conscious brain doesn't even register. Optical illusions are a good example combined with visual stimuli.

You're
When you aim for a career growth, you don't make instinctual choices and start justifying after the fact that they are all leading towards your intended goal.

On the small scale you do. I suspect as neuroscience becomes more confident, that we'll find that long range planning is equally as fictitious as short range planning.

Honestly I don't know, my opinions about what is likely to be found are clear, but we don't know yet.

Or when you cook, you don't automatically throw together whatever ingredients fall in your way and then claim that the final dish was what you were planning all along.

Seriously? This is the crocoduck defence in free will form.

Quite simply, you don't cook by saying "I want Pie" and Pie shall appear. You start with the concept of "Pie" and store the goal in your memory, you then take small steps which lead to a whole. You refer to your memory with lots of small scale individual decisions influenced by the memory for each tiny step of the cooking process. Until you have achieved your goal. Each part of this constructed in the subconscious then filtered through the conscious to rationalise. Your conscious mind lags behind milliseconds behind each individual step towards the overall goal of PIE.

Like evolution, you can only create complex thoughts, by combining memory and lots of minute decisions.

Or when you go to a restaurant, you don't grab your wallet, check your cash, lock your apartment, catch a cab, tell him where to go and get a table - doing all this on autopilot and then justifying it to yourself.

Quack Quack Snap said Mr Crocoduck.

The obvious fallacy of your argument is that you don't start justifying each decision upon completion of the whole task. You justify even minute decision an instant after the decision is already made.

To use a better example. How do you WALK.

How many thousands of adjustments are made in order for you to walk. You can't just start moving your legs and hope for the best. It require a thousand different tiny commands at a subconscious level to achieve the goal the body is looking for.

Its all very well saying "I shall walk to McDonalds", a decision formed from hunger responses, memory and instinct, is then rationalised in thought. But without a million tiny decisions, there is not one big decision, and Big decision, I would include choosing to cycle or walk.. thousands, maybe millions of microdecisions made to get to that point. Like evolution, the decision does not suddenly appear like your crocoduck, it is the sum part of a millions of tiny decisions.

Unlike evolution, all these small actions are leading towards one single purpose - all of them the result of the same motivation for that purpose. The purpose isn't assigned after all the actions have been taken.

The point is, that your motivation is certain and inevitable in a given situation. Of course their consistent. But ignoring the causation of motivation is your fundamental error in reasoning.

Why would ignoring causation of motivation be an error, once you have judged it irrelevant?

Where do I judge it as irrelevant. I see no place where I do. Rather the motivation is the creation of a million little decisions as explained and without your knowledge. It is no more relevant to freewill as any other causal step that moves the universe from an instant to another.

To state that there is no uncoerced action - means that any and every action you undertake, you did not want to undertake. Any causative factors in the picture would not make an action coerced if there is no conflict between will and action.

Really. And you claim that I misunderstand coercion?

Coercion is to be compelled into a choice. You are attaching an emotive statement that you are doing things you do not want to do, which is fine if you are talking about terrorists taking hostages!
That is COMPLETELY irrelevant to coercion in the sense of being compelled to take one alternative over another.

If you want consensus that we are not forced into doing things we do not want to do, you have it 110%.
Addiction comes in many forms and might fall into your version of coercion I imagine, but that is not the version of coercion discussed in terms of the free will discussion.

To bring it into context, not only are you coerced into making a decision by the chemicals, and firing of electrons, but you are also told you enjoy it.

Coercion and Compulsion are almost equivalent terms when discussing why we CHOOSE an action. You are not free from coercion, because you are COMPELLED to choose an action.

This clarifies a lot of the misunderstandings now.

It is not your agreement with hard-determinism that leads me to the conclusion, but your virulent disregard for any concept with the words "free" and "will" in it - without any actual consideration to what the concept actually signifies.

No. Just No. You assume that if you are not agreed with, that someone misunderstands the concept. Which is arrogant and faulty. Especially hot on the heels of a fundamental misunderstanding of what coercion of choice entails.

You do realize that Kant committed the very same fundamental error I've been talking about (considering the agent independent of material world) and considered causality to be the illusion?

I chose that quote specifically, because it highlights the barbarism of terms you are using to justify free will in a determined, and COERCED decision making process. Its the claim to have solved the problem, through nothing other than wordplay and readjustment of meanings.

Yes, but those little decisions are undertaken with that larger conscious decision in consideration - the large decision is not justified a-posteriori.

Think of a decision as an organic being. As a whole, it is complex and compelling, but under a microscope, consists entirely of little things that care not one jot for the overall organism, but working together for mutual benefit.

But until you present some evidence that the conscious ever directs the action itself without recourse to causation, I will remain a hard determinist.

Why would I present any evidence for such when that has never been my position.

You have stated that the motivation precedes the action, whereby, I am arguing that, counter-intuitive as it may be, this does not seem to be the case.
We agree in terms of things being caused, but there is a clear realm of disagreement in what this means.

I find the idea that you act before you think to be more revealing. I, however, try to think my actions through before acting them out. [/quote[

Decision to act. Not Action. Don't be foolish. You're smarter than that.

[quote='genkaus' pid='261549' dateline='1332798237']Do you still not see your problem? Compatibility (not compatibilism) does not require free-will to be proven by exceptions to determined response system - free-will is a part of what determines the response of the system.

Rather, you don't see the problem that it is mere assertion, rather than logically proven.

I don't claim to have proven my position either, just to be clear. But since we're in a stand-off of refusing to accept each others assertion, we are gridlocked.

I thought you started out with a pretty decent definition. I'm not sure where in between you lost your way.

Using Coercion in its sense of being forced into something you don't want to do rather than the compulsion to act fucked things up quite royally.

Much of your responses now are getting slightly offensive to be honest, such as the little dig that I "act before I think".

Maybe when we cool a little bit, we should have a more formal debate together, and we can agree on the correct usage of terms before hand. I feel most of our conversations have been wasted in us both (I've been guilty of it as well) misusing terms in the wrong places.

[Whateverist]

Using Coercion in its sense of being forced into something you don't want to do rather than the compulsion to act fucked things up quite royally.

Much of your responses now are getting slightly offensive to be honest, such as the little dig that I "act before I think".

Maybe when we cool a little bit, we should have a more formal debate together, and we can agree on the correct usage of terms before hand. I feel most of our conversations have been wasted in us both (I've been guilty of it as well) misusing terms in the wrong places.

But don't you see, you will either cool down or not and agree on the usage of terms or not, exactly as your enviro-/experiential/DNA dictates. There is no need and no possibility of deciding differently. If you'd been born with all the factors that have gone into determining Genkaus' perspective, then you'd have no choice but to argue his side. If you're right about determinism then you can't win. Reasoning is futile. Those thoughts which confirm or undermine your position are just more 'givens'. If you have no free will, you have no reason to give more credence to your thoughts than to Genkaus'. If you can see through the illusion of your apparent free will then why stop there? Why accept the thoughts and opinions that are given to you to think? Why suppose that what seems reasonable or rational to you is any more reliable than the illusion of your free will? In short, if you don't have free will, can you possibly have 'free thought'?

[Angrboda]

So far neuroscience seems to indicate, although only in terms of non-consequential actions, that the activity to commit to an action, occurs before the conscious motivation to do so.
Whether this is also true of larger conscious decisions is open to debate, but it would not surprise me if all actions occur on this level, which are merely rationalised by the conscious mind.

If I recall the cited experiment correctly - the action was not committed to before conscious motivation was available - it was still open to retraction. As suggested by the name of the activity - readiness potential.
Further, in non-consequential actions, this argument might hold, since the time difference between the motivation and the action are minimal. But in goal-directed behaviour, this certainly would not hold, since the motivation and all possible actions leading to it need to be considered before the action is undertaken.

CERTAINLY would not hold? The world of neuroscience awaits your revelation with baited breath. Everyone's a closet Nobel prize winner today.

No one in the world of neuroscience would greet it as revelation. Hell, no one with common sense would greet it as revelation.

I ask that you keep the ad hominems to a minimum, s'il vous plait. Unless of course it was your intent to imply that I have no common sense, in which case I suggest that you go fuck a rake, or the nearest painfully pointed object in your vicinity.

[tackattack]

I apologize in advance because this week has been horribly busy and I dind't get back to the repsonse yet. Hopefully I'll have time to catch up on the thread.

---

1- Not a substance separate from reality, but becomes the reality of the viewer, as he deems his hallucinations as real. Reality = perception (within the4 mind) of reality. Unless we’re defining some absolute value for reality. Many people have false memories of things that never really happened due to reconstructive properties of memory. That doesn’t negate the real implications of what really happened with who they are, or lessen the affects of what they perceived happening 20 years later on their decision process.

You are confusing perception with projection. Perception, by definition, cannot be of anything other than the external reality. False or apparent perception - also called projection, is the conscious or unconscious effect on perception. That is a result of a person's mind. Neither are independent of or separate from the physical reality.

3- OK let’s say that we took a guy, knocked him into a coma for a few months while we augmented and messed with how he thinks chemically and physically. Then he wakes up and goes about his life acting as a completely different person none the wiser, but he is the same person. Which is the real him the one caused up to that point or the one we caused while he was in the coma? What happens when he starts realizing his memories aren’t his and never really happened? None of what we did interrupted the causal chain. What we did do was affect why he makes decisions, not how he makes them. At no time could (while he’s conscious) we reduce what he define’s as who he is (or his agent) to not functioning. Whether he’s aware or unaware of the tampering of his mental self, there is an irreducible “I” and the ability to introspect

Why would he be the same person? The same body - perhaps. If the very agency by which the decision is made is changed, then the agent is changed as well. There may be an "I" - but that "I" is separate in both cases.

OK, we’ll roll with this:
1. There are two separate components of reality - physical and non-physical (which could be alternatively referred to as mental). Ok fine I agree that that is my position.

2. The mental component is not only separate from, but independent of the physical component. I don’t believe it’s completely independent of causation, as everything we are comes from before. I don’t believe though that it falls in an unalterable causal change.

3. I do believe in a reality beyond the physical reality but not that this reality to holds primacy. Maybe if you better define this primacy then I could take a closer look at it.

Justify your second premise. Causation is applicable to the physical reality because of its feature of being temporal. The non-physical reality can either be temporal or be non-temporal, but not both. If its not, then it would be independent of causation. If it is, then it would fall under unalterable causal change.

As to your third - primacy means when the laws of two reality are in apparent conflict - which one would you consider as applicable. An action being the result of causation and it being independent of causation are contradictory and cannot be true at the same time. Here you have two realities - one where causation is undoubtedly applicable, the other where it is somehow both applicable and inapplicable. But, for some reason, in a conflict between free-will and causation, you choose a less applicable one.

---

I think I get it, but as was pointed out, if your nature is all that makes your capability to choose then it’s not free, unless you can exceed who you are.

The very definition you present here requires violation of law of identity. You can only be who you are - neither less nor more. Any requirement of negating this premise takes away any ground for a logical discourse.

---

1- Perception is just the product of perceiving. That typically comes from sensory input, but if our agent has a means to perceive rather than just cogitate than we can recognize or understand why we are and who we are. We can intuit or reason then why we are deciding. That gives us conscious choice. If the agent can exist without material means than it is independent of the material and that would seperate from physical reality correct?

3- So what you're saying here is he still can't change who he is, even though he knows who he now perceives himself to be is not truly himself?


J2-why can't it be both? Can we not think back to things that were with memory? It's not the reality now, but it's sequential and out of temporal current reality. We don't always necessarily feel the way we felt as the observer back then, despite potential ghost sensory inputs giving us a projection. I believe thoughts are categorical not analogical. Let me ask you this: Can you perceive something in any way other than the way you typically expect to perceive it?

J3- How is there a primacy issue when I state reality can be comprised of phenomena that seem more real than noumena only because of their tangibility. I'm not saying either have the ability to divorce themselves completely from the causal chain, but in fact change its course. This perception of noumena and phenomena with introspection and reasoning , filtered through identity, are what encompasses free- will to me.

4- If you can't be anything other than who you are (law of identity) can you be more than more than one you? I'm fairly certain that there are some multiple personalities I'd like to introduce to you. If each has their own identity and are unaware of the others the whole would be schizophrenic but the parts break the law of identity.

---

1- Not a substance separate from reality, but becomes the reality of the viewer, as he deems his hallucinations as real. Reality = perception (within the4 mind) of reality. Unless we’re defining some absolute value for reality. Many people have false memories of things that never really happened due to reconstructive properties of memory. That doesn’t negate the real implications of what really happened with who they are, or lessen the affects of what they perceived happening 20 years later on their decision process.

Such is the case with free will. It is the reality of all of us, none of us feel constrained to act. In this, it is no different to hallucination. This has been my position all along. The illusion of free will makes it real to us, and we can feel the effects of the illusion, but it, like the hallucination, is only real to the observer, i.e. you.
To equate the hallucination with the illusion of free will, consider an optical illusion. We are aware of the brains mechanisms(or at least a very good theory) for creating the illusion, and the causation of why your eyes and mind interpret it in a certain way.
We are not defining the appearance of grey dots between areas of high contrast squares as reality, however the brain certainly perceives them as real, as per the hallucination. So the question is, do we consider the illusion of free will, as being equivalent to being real.
I consider free will to be the grey dots of the optical illusion, real to the observer, but no more than the interactions of the brain and the method in which it perceives.

2- I thought we were leaving God out of it, but I’ll go along with the thought process. You say we lack the ability to change the future, yet isn’t that the core of determinism? Everything you do and what you perceive yourself doing causes a change in the course of causality around you in your environment. I think the problem lies with premise 2. Changing the fundamental laws of HOW the universe works is not the same as not changing the COURSE of the universe through free will.

It is a thought experiment, God was the most economical way of introducing the pausing of time concept.
To clarify, the presumption we can 'change' the future is based upon a presumption that events would occur differently in which has been altered through the application of this concept of free will.
My argument is that free will itself is part of the causal chain, and cannot induce change at all, nor be modified beyond truly random factors (if they exist).
There are no crossroads of choice between alternatives, it would require an force capable of changing a fundamental property of the universe, for instance how the electric pulse routes its way through your mind. That pulse was always going to fire the same way if you replay that same instant a hundred times unless a force exists to change a fundamental property which affects how your brain reacts. Otherwise, we are all just reacting in a unchangeable chain.

In the example of pausing time, you can affect change to this causal timeline if you were to change how the electric pulses in the mind are about to fire to divert them to another course.
In another words, I do not believe that your free will can change things, which begs the question, how is it possible to have acted differently at all. Of this question, I have not seen an answer. If it can be shown than a variable in choice can be MADE to act differently given identical circumstances, then I am completely wrong. However, we have covered the fundamental unfalsifiable nature of this question, so it remains a idea, and untestable hypothesis.

3- OK let’s say that we took a guy, knocked him into a coma for a few months while we augmented and messed with how he thinks chemically and physically. Then he wakes up and goes about his life acting as a completely different person none the wiser, but he is the same person. Which is the real him the one caused up to that point or the one we caused while he was in the coma? What happens when he starts realizing his memories aren’t his and never really happened? None of what we did interrupted the causal chain. What we did do was affect why he makes decisions, not how he makes them. At no time could (while he’s conscious) we reduce what he define’s as who he is (or his agent) to not functioning. Whether he’s aware or unaware of the tampering of his mental self, there is an irreducible “I” and the ability to introspect

There is a presupposition that there IS a real him and a real you. The "I" is a product of the variables leading up to any instant. This concept of the reality of self is nothing more than the sum of all variables leading up to the instant you consider the self.
Your actions are a causal variable in that makeup, at the end of the day, were you ever capable of not knocking him out and changing his memories in this hypothetical. My proposition is that you were never capable of the choice any more than I have the choice to reply. The reasons I do so are the inevitable result of the self in this instant.
This is exactly the point, nothing you did interrupted the causal chain. It was always going down like that.
Am I the same person I was 10 years ago, no. Am I the same person I was 5 seconds ago, no. I am merely the sum of my parts up to this point, and do not exceed it.

---

1- So you asked the question, do we consider the illusion of free will, as being equivalent to being real. If you define real as having an objective existence than no. However, how do you know what is objectively real? I don’t want to rehash things that I’m sure have been said as I’m not caught up on the thread. If you see these letters as black and I see them as black is that enough to make them really black? You fully admitted that none of us feel constrained to act. That’s as much an axiom as can be reasonably achieved, IMO, much like we agree on what a rock is or the color blue.
2- Can you condition yourself to think a certain way or think differently? Manipulating the subconscious has been practically a profession for some. Are they actually changing the way we think? Yes, I believe they are. Secondly I believe you can change how your brain reacts. The choice isn’t always A or B. When you factor in a strict timeline you can suspend deciding which changes causality. It’s never the left or right door that matters, it’s which and when that makes a cause and effect chain continue. Are you implying we can only react based on our nature or that we are forced to act on our nature?

[genkaus]

In the context of Gods omniscience sure. You're trying too hard to prove a point that doesn't exist.
Not sure what your point is supposed to be other than to attempt to claim I have changed my definition. The only difference is using the compulsion to choose (coercion) and causation (the factors that compel). They both lead to the same thing.

Note that this would be the fallacy of equivocation. Within some contexts compulsion means to cause by force and within others to simply cause. By ignoring this critical distinction, you are able to equate coercion and causation.

I've never said differently. I completely agree, the self is nothing more than the sum of the whole. A Wholly determined one at that. I think you have me confused with someone who argues against that idea.
The only area I differ is the illusion of choice. I believe every choice is compelled, and just as a kicker, you are usually compelled to LIKE it.

When you stated, and I quote - "His choices are made for him through the natural processes of his mind" - you assumed distinction between the natural processes of the mind and the person.

And again, use of the word compelled here is incorrect. Within this context "caused" is appropriate.

On the small scale you do. I suspect as neuroscience becomes more confident, that we'll find that long range planning is equally as fictitious as short range planning.

Honestly I don't know, my opinions about what is likely to be found are clear, but we don't know yet.

To consider long range planning to be fictitious would mean that the actions undertaken towards the achievement of a long-term goal are not a product of conscious consideration.

Quite simply, you don't cook by saying "I want Pie" and Pie shall appear. You start with the concept of "Pie" and store the goal in your memory, you then take small steps which lead to a whole. You refer to your memory with lots of small scale individual decisions influenced by the memory for each tiny step of the cooking process. Until you have achieved your goal. Each part of this constructed in the subconscious then filtered through the conscious to rationalise. Your conscious mind lags behind milliseconds behind each individual step towards the overall goal of PIE.

Like evolution, you can only create complex thoughts, by combining memory and lots of minute decisions.

Unlike evolution, there is a final cause driving all these small decisions. The storage and retrieval of the concept of pie and its ingredients is not automatic or unconscious. In fact, the next action has to be considered before the current action is completed. Your memory and your decisions are a part of your conscious mind.

The obvious fallacy of your argument is that you don't start justifying each decision upon completion of the whole task. You justify even minute decision an instant after the decision is already made.

That is where you are wrong. If each decision were to be justified after being made, then the series of actions cannot be consistently expected to lead to the same result.

You like using the evolution analogy - consider this. Within evolution, there is not central purpose or goal driving the mechanism. The result are judged beneficial or harmful after occurring. As a result, the process is meandering, unreliable and notoriously inefficient. What if the same thing was occurring with all our actions. Any big decision would be the consequence of lot of small decisions - none of them chosen expressly with the big picture in mind but randomly and justified after selection. How often do you think you'd actually get to the restaurant if that were the case.

To use a better example. How do you WALK.

How many thousands of adjustments are made in order for you to walk. You can't just start moving your legs and hope for the best. It require a thousand different tiny commands at a subconscious level to achieve the goal the body is looking for.

Exactly my point. Even the subconscious level commands are being guided by the conscious command - to walk.

Its all very well saying "I shall walk to McDonalds", a decision formed from hunger responses, memory and instinct, is then rationalised in thought. But without a million tiny decisions, there is not one big decision, and Big decision, I would include choosing to cycle or walk.. thousands, maybe millions of microdecisions made to get to that point. Like evolution, the decision does not suddenly appear like your crocoduck, it is the sum part of a millions of tiny decisions.

And the question here whether the conscious consideration of the big decision that determines the small ones or whether the big decision, like the small ones is justified after the fact. If you must compare it to evolution, compare it to naturally occurring evolution to artificial breeding. In the former, there not being any big picture, the changes occur and then they are justified. In case of artificial breeding, there is a big picture - so only the changes towards that goal are allowed.

Where do I judge it as irrelevant.

I do.

Rather the motivation is the creation of a million little decisions as explained and without your knowledge. It is no more relevant to freewill as any other causal step that moves the universe from an instant to another.

If it was "without your knowledge". Consciousness of motivation leads to the knowledge of the decisions required to satisfy it.

Really. And you claim that I misunderstand coercion?

Coercion is to be compelled into a choice. You are attaching an emotive statement that you are doing things you do not want to do, which is fine if you are talking about terrorists taking hostages!
That is COMPLETELY irrelevant to coercion in the sense of being compelled to take one alternative over another.

If you want consensus that we are not forced into doing things we do not want to do, you have it 110%.
Addiction comes in many forms and might fall into your version of coercion I imagine, but that is not the version of coercion discussed in terms of the free will discussion.

To bring it into context, not only are you coerced into making a decision by the chemicals, and firing of electrons, but you are also told you enjoy it.

Coercion and Compulsion are almost equivalent terms when discussing why we CHOOSE an action. You are not free from coercion, because you are COMPELLED to choose an action.

This clarifies a lot of the misunderstandings now.

As noted earlier, this is the fallacy of equivocation. Within the context of free-will, compulsion and coercion are equivalent - compulsion and causation are not. When talking about being "compelled" by firing neurons, you are necessarily considering the compelled and the compeller to be separate entities - thereby once again choosing to separate the entity form its structure.

The principle is simple - while causation can be achieved with the subject and object being the same (i.e. you can cause yourself to do something), the same is not true for compulsion (you cannot compel yourself to do something). So, in order to apply the principle of compulsion here, you have to treat the neurons and the chemicals as a separate entity from the person - something you yourself admitted not supporting.

No. Just No. You assume that if you are not agreed with, that someone misunderstands the concept. Which is arrogant and faulty. Especially hot on the heels of a fundamental misunderstanding of what coercion of choice entails.

No, I assume that when my arguments aren't addressed. The fundamental misunderstanding is yours - for the reason given.

I chose that quote specifically, because it highlights the barbarism of terms you are using to justify free will in a determined, and COERCED decision making process. Its the claim to have solved the problem, through nothing other than wordplay and readjustment of meanings.

You can keep shouting coerced, it does not make caused and coerced equivalent. And what you refer to as wordplay and readjustment of meaning, is actually understanding the concept by the words used to define it.

Think of a decision as an organic being. As a whole, it is complex and compelling, but under a microscope, consists entirely of little things that care not one jot for the overall organism, but working together for mutual benefit.

Except, here it is the caring for the overall organism that is the final cause of the existence of each and every one of them.

You have stated that the motivation precedes the action, whereby, I am arguing that, counter-intuitive as it may be, this does not seem to be the case.
We agree in terms of things being caused, but there is a clear realm of disagreement in what this means.

And my argument is that posteriori justification of the action with a rationalised motivation, with all of the rationalizations leading to one singular coherent goal would be a very rare event indeed. It is not so.

Decision to act. Not Action. Don't be foolish. You're smarter than that.

An intractable decision to act is separated by the action only by a matter of time. Either the presence of consciousness between the two able to override the "decision" in which case it is not a decision, but an inclination or it is not - in which case, the posteriori justification comes in - leading to problems with long-term goals.

Using Coercion in its sense of being forced into something you don't want to do rather than the compulsion to act fucked things up quite royally.

I which, I'd still claim the correct usage of the words.

Much of your responses now are getting slightly offensive to be honest, such as the little dig that I "act before I think".

I replied in kind.

---

But don't you see, you will either cool down or not and agree on the usage of terms or not, exactly as your enviro-/experiential/DNA dictates. There is no need and no possibility of deciding differently. If you'd been born with all the factors that have gone into determining Genkaus' perspective, then you'd have no choice but to argue his side. If you're right about determinism then you can't win. Reasoning is futile. Those thoughts which confirm or undermine your position are just more 'givens'. If you have no free will, you have no reason to give more credence to your thoughts than to Genkaus'. If you can see through the illusion of your apparent free will then why stop there? Why accept the thoughts and opinions that are given to you to think? Why suppose that what seems reasonable or rational to you is any more reliable than the illusion of your free will? In short, if you don't have free will, can you possibly have 'free thought'?

You are talking about the understanding of determinism as a self-refuting idea, which does not stand in face of a compatibilist view.

---

I ask that you keep the ad hominems to a minimum, s'il vous plait. Unless of course it was your intent to imply that I have no common sense, in which case I suggest that you go fuck a rake, or the nearest painfully pointed object in your vicinity.

Unless you hold that in goal-directed behavior all the constituent actions are not chosen with priori consideration with their applicability to the goal, instead automatically and rationalized afterwards - no, the implication is not applicable to you.

[tackattack]

I do have a question for you genkaus. If will is completely under coersion at all times, and the agent is part of the coersion, wouldn't he be affecting the direction of the will? Wouldn't that indicate that will, while influenced by multiple known and unknown influences, if incluenced by the desires of the agent would be under a degree of partial control of the agent?

[NoMoreFaith]

1- So you asked the question, do we consider the illusion of free will, as being equivalent to being real. If you define real as having an objective existence than no. However, how do you know what is objectively real? I don’t want to rehash things that I’m sure have been said as I’m not caught up on the thread. If you see these letters as black and I see them as black is that enough to make them really black? You fully admitted that none of us feel constrained to act. That’s as much an axiom as can be reasonably achieved, IMO, much like we agree on what a rock is or the color blue.

The nature of reality, that could do with its own thread. Blimey.

Hmm, I think you can put a objective standard for reality as something which can be objectively measured, and to clear up any potential confusion on my interpretation of that, I mean things that have the potential to be measured, even if we lack the technology to do so.

So in many respects, there are things we are aware of, such as decision making processes in the brain, that we haven't got a solid grasp on measuring.

The studies I've mentioned in this thread rely on technology which will no doubt improve as time goes on, and my opinions on determinism are not set in stone, but simply a reaction to what we know at this point in time.

2- Can you condition yourself to think a certain way or think differently? Manipulating the subconscious has been practically a profession for some. Are they actually changing the way we think? Yes, I believe they are. Secondly I believe you can change how your brain reacts. The choice isn’t always A or B. When you factor in a strict timeline you can suspend deciding which changes causality. It’s never the left or right door that matters, it’s which and when that makes a cause and effect chain continue. Are you implying we can only react based on our nature or that we are forced to act on our nature?

Depends on what you mean your nature, the psychological nature, or physiological nature. Either way, psychological nature is based on the physiological in my estimation.
I imply, I think(!), this is a new area of discussion still for me, that we are forced to act in purely line with our physiological nature. We are no different to the movement of planetary bodies, and the weather system. Vast, almost unknowable in complexity but ultimately driven by fundamental laws that we can no more change, than if we try to pretend gravity doesn't coerce us to stay on the ground.

[genkaus]

1- Perception is just the product of perceiving. That typically comes from sensory input, but if our agent has a means to perceive rather than just cogitate than we can recognize or understand why we are and who we are. We can intuit or reason then why we are deciding. That gives us conscious choice. If the agent can exist without material means than it is independent of the material and that would seperate from physical reality correct?

The "if" being what precludes the possibility. Both the actions of perception and cogitation require material reality to occur. So, your argument prior to the if tells you why that "if" is not true.

3- So what you're saying here is he still can't change who he is, even though he knows who he now perceives himself to be is not truly himself?

You are not making much sense here. He truly is as he perceives himself. Whether he wants to remain so or not and the actionable change resulting from the motivation is irrelevant.

J2-why can't it be both?

Because both would entail a necessary contradiction

Can we not think back to things that were with memory? It's not the reality now, but it's sequential and out of temporal current reality.

No, the memory itself is a part of current temporal reality. The content of the memory is a reference to reality - not reality.

We don't always necessarily feel the way we felt as the observer back then, despite potential ghost sensory inputs giving us a projection. I believe thoughts are categorical not analogical. Let me ask you this: Can you perceive something in any way other than the way you typically expect to perceive it?

My expectation is to perceive it as it is - so no, I cannot perceive it any other way. That says nothing about the projection.

J3- How is there a primacy issue when I state reality can be comprised of phenomena that seem more real than noumena only because of their tangibility. I'm not saying either have the ability to divorce themselves completely from the causal chain, but in fact change its course. This perception of noumena and phenomena with introspection and reasoning , filtered through identity, are what encompasses free- will to me.

That is where you are wrong. I asked you for the justification of noumena. You have no faculty to perceive it.

4- If you can't be anything other than who you are (law of identity) can you be more than more than one you?

No.

I'm fairly certain that there are some multiple personalities I'd like to introduce to you. If each has their own identity and are unaware of the others the whole would be schizophrenic but the parts break the law of identity.

Don't confuse personality with identity. Multiple personalities all would be subsets of the same identity,

---

I do have a question for you genkaus. If will is completely under coersion at all times, and the agent is part of the coersion, wouldn't he be affecting the direction of the will? Wouldn't that indicate that will, while influenced by multiple known and unknown influences, if incluenced by the desires of the agent would be under a degree of partial control of the agent?

I think your question is better directed at NoMoreFaith. It is not my position that an agent's will is under coercion all the time and it is my position that the agent being a part of the cause precludes coercion.

[tackattack]

---

It doesn't have to actually be predicted. But if your choice is in theory accurately predictable, then how is it free? It means it doesn't matter if your perception says you might have made a different choice, you in reality could never have made but the one you made. You are always totally and effectively coerced. It is merely a matter of when you are concious of coercion, or not.

So my view is there can never be any degree of freedom in a will, only degree of insensibility to the constraints that are rigidly controling it.

---

You’re making it not a matter of whether or not you’re coerced but whether or not it’s predicted. If it’s completely 100% predictable and you don’t have access to that prediction mechanism or the prediction, it wouldn’t be part of your coercion correct? If you are totally and effectively always coerced (self or external) then the only way predictions would factor in would be if you were aware of them. If you knew 100% what you were going to do could you stop it is the questioning I have for your logical process.

---

1- So you asked the question, do we consider the illusion of free will, as being equivalent to being real. If you define real as having an objective existence than no. However, how do you know what is objectively real? I don’t want to rehash things that I’m sure have been said as I’m not caught up on the thread. If you see these letters as black and I see them as black is that enough to make them really black? You fully admitted that none of us feel constrained to act. That’s as much an axiom as can be reasonably achieved, IMO, much like we agree on what a rock is or the color blue.

The nature of reality, that could do with its own thread. Blimey.

Hmm, I think you can put a objective standard for reality as something which can be objectively measured, and to clear up any potential confusion on my interpretation of that, I mean things that have the potential to be measured, even if we lack the technology to do so.

So in many respects, there are things we are aware of, such as decision making processes in the brain, that we haven't got a solid grasp on measuring.

The studies I've mentioned in this thread rely on technology which will no doubt improve as time goes on, and my opinions on determinism are not set in stone, but simply a reaction to what we know at this point in time.

2- Can you condition yourself to think a certain way or think differently? Manipulating the subconscious has been practically a profession for some. Are they actually changing the way we think? Yes, I believe they are. Secondly I believe you can change how your brain reacts. The choice isn’t always A or B. When you factor in a strict timeline you can suspend deciding which changes causality. It’s never the left or right door that matters, it’s which and when that makes a cause and effect chain continue. Are you implying we can only react based on our nature or that we are forced to act on our nature?

Depends on what you mean your nature, the psychological nature, or physiological nature. Either way, psychological nature is based on the physiological in my estimation.
I imply, I think(!), this is a new area of discussion still for me, that we are forced to act in purely line with our physiological nature. We are no different to the movement of planetary bodies, and the weather system. Vast, almost unknowable in complexity but ultimately driven by fundamental laws that we can no more change, than if we try to pretend gravity doesn't coerce us to stay on the ground.

---

Sorry, I tend to wax wide and philosophical when overworked and under rested.
1- So you think you can put an objective standard for reality as something which can be objectively measured. Could it ever be divorced from personal perspective though? I think that requires the impartiality of mechanization. I think you and I both do a lot of rigorous subconscious daily tests on what’s real, hence the term “reality checks”. Here’s a question to put your theory to the test. If you and I agree on what blue looks like does the object it’s describing that make someone else seeing it as gray any less real? As far as your stance on determinism, I can’t recall who exactly stands where or on what but your position seems a reasonable one.
2-I’m attempting to divorce the psychological and physiological. By nature I meant our individual sense of agent at an instinctual level. I believe our nature is shaped by conditioning and genetics. It is also a large part of the self identity, and categorically the basest definition of self definition. If we had no ability to self correct and realize the course could be changed, then we would be no more the sum of our physical parts (and just like a planet). It’s not about the originating cause or natural laws. We’re not talking about going outside the bounds of natural laws. I believe within the bounds of natural laws we can effect change. I think you assume that causal determinism is a natural law, and that we’re trying to say we’re apart from those laws. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that part of who we are is our perception and desires. Those desires and perceptions are both outputs and inputs to the causal chain and if they can be shown to be altered, shows we have the ability to not be the sum of physiologically are determined to be.