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When I encounter an apple that is rotten, I interact with it differently than I interact with a fresh, ripe apple. How the one got to be rotten, and how the other got to be ripe, makes no difference for this. The same applies to people. The difference between a good and a bad person is in what they are, not in how they got to be what they are. I married my wife because of what she is, not because of how she came to be what she is.
We can see from various nonhuman animal studies that there appears to be moral behavior, and a sense of right and wrong, in a variety of animals. See, for example:
So a sense of morality does not separate humans from other animals.
You can do what you want, within limits (e.g., you cannot fly without the aid of any devices, etc.). That is the freedom that you have. What would be the advantage to being able to choose what you do not want?
As for why you want what you want, that is another matter. That will involve things that are beyond your control, as my hand example is meant to illustrate.
Science deals with things that are testable. It is not inherently committed to a purely physical world. If psychics were real and had their abilities due to nonphysical things, their abilities would still be testable and demonstrable.
Going back to your idea of something being repugnant to your idea of human dignity, that is an interesting emotional aspect of you. That is not a way to determine the truth about things in the world. Humans are animals. Too many people have been infected with that vile superstition known as "Christianity" which warps their view and gets them to believe that humans are somehow separate from other animals. Modern evolutionary theory teaches us otherwise. Which explains why so many Christians hate evolution.
I'll concede the point for now. This much I do know: If there is something "more" that exists beyond the brain and its physical parts, which are subject to causal determination, it's very difficult - maybe impossible - to demonstrate what this might be, outside of what it feels like in actual experience, with any degree of plausibility.
My only bone left to pick with you is that you continue to call what we're left with free will.
I find it very strange that people want to insist on the phrase "free will" to be used for something that seems meaningless and useless, instead of having it be a useful phrase.
Even saying, "one could have done otherwise" is somewhat ambiguous. Often, one means, if one had wanted something else or willed something else, one could have done otherwise. In that sense, it fits perfectly with determinism, as there is no mention of why one wills whatever one wills.
As for how this feels, I do not think that one can normally will just anything. Can you honestly say that you can choose to will to peel the skin off of your left arm? You could peel the skin off if you wanted to, but you probably cannot want to do it. Your freedom (insofar as you have freedom) is in being able to do what you will to do. But you do not have the freedom to arbitrarily select what you want to do, what you will to do.
I think that what I am saying in this thread fits perfectly with the subjective experience that one has, as well as with modern ideas about how the world works. As for the terminology one uses, that is something that should not be confused with the ideas themselves.
It is also worth mentioning that I am not the only person to use "free will" as I do in this thread. And it is a good idea to be aware of this fact for future discussions with other people.
This is not entirely dissimilar to the fact that the word "atheist" has two different common meanings:
(April 4, 2015 at 12:41 am)Pyrrho Wrote: There seems to be quite a lot of time wasted on the question of the meaning of the term "atheism." I think I can explain why people talk past each other on this. Quite simply, there is more than one standard meaning of the English term "atheism."
There you will see (unless, of course, they change it between when I quote it and when you look at it):
atheism noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
Notice, the two common and proper definitions are not the same. They are, as is common with words, related in their meaning, but they are not the same.
People commonly insist that the word "atheism" means one of these, but the simple fact is, in English, either meaning is right and proper. Notice, one of these is a lack of belief, and the other is a belief.
So, when someone uses the term with one of these meanings, and you want to use the other, the best thing to do is to explain which of the standard meanings you intend. It is of no use to tell people that they are wrong to use a term in accordance with a standard meaning of the term; being a standard meaning, they are right to use it in accordance with that meaning, but one is wrong to insist it must mean only one of the standard meanings of the term.
The same idea applies to other words. Most words have more than one meaning in a dictionary, and it is ridiculous to believe that everyone else uses one and only one of the meanings contained therein. If there were only one right meaning of the term, there would only be one definition in standard dictionaries.
Sometimes, with the word "atheism," both senses are given as if they were one definition in a dictionary. As in this case:
(ā′thē-ĭz′əm) n.
Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
Notice, in this case, two different ideas are presented as if they were one definition, and not two separate and distinct ideas. Still, if you pay attention, "disbelief" and "denial" are not the same thing. One is not believing something, and the other is believing that something is false. One is a lack of belief, and the other is a belief.
This means that it is a good idea to carefully define the expression at the beginning of the conversation, to avoid talking past each other.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
