If free will was not real

[The Grand Nudger]

Here's the thing for me.  Rhythm, you are seeing the physical world as black-or-white.  In other words, you expect mutually exclusive views to be one-right, one-wrong.  However, there's much about the Universe that doesn't play by this rule.  It seems to me that at least some things in the Universe resolve down to truth values based on the perspective you take, or on the method you use to make the resolution.

LOL, no.  I;m asking people in what sense something is free, when they claim it to be free, and whether or not they can demonstrate it -to- be free either by the "vanilla" definition -or- their own description of it's freedom.

Is a photon a particle or a wave?  Yes.  No.  Not really.  Kind of.  Both.  Neither.

Relevance?  Is free will a photon.  Are we asking whether it;s a wave or a particle?  No, no, and no.  

If you look at it from the perspective of brain chemistry, I think you could have a reasonable expectation of determinism, implying that fee will cannot be anything more than a label for a very complex but completely deterministic process.  That, clearly, is your position.

My position is that if something does have free will, it's not the brain.  Maybe something out there can make free will happen, that something just doesn't appear to be our brains....not that my position matters, since we're discussing those other positions we've been exploring.

But the problem is that this is not the only perspective.  An introspective view allows a subjective agent to experience for itself its own nature.  I can know what its like for me to experience "redness," and no matter how much you talk about this or that brain function, part, or process, you cannot contradict what I know through experience-- because human agency is defined subjectively, not objectively.

I've been exploring the perspectives of others.  I can, indeed, contradict your experience.  We do it all the time when we tell people that there really -aren't- pink elephants dancing over their heads..that they are insane, and need help.  You;re seeking liscense to consider your descriptions of your experience accurate carte blanche. That has to be the most intellectually and scientificlly stifling thing I've ever heard.

The physical monist view, we must remember, isn't reality.  It's an idea about the nature of reality.  When you try to squeeze the reality of human experience into a box the shape of your world view, you might as well insist that light "can only" be a particle.  It makes perfect sense in logical terms, but insisting that apparent paradox is necessarily false is to demand that the Universe not be as it really is.

I only seek that whatever ideas we have be intelligible.  Free-but-not-free will is not intelligible. Ironically, it appears to be a compulsion to defend personally important folklore. Ultimately, whether or not a person changes their ideas of free will (or reality) in response to my comments is a non-issue for me. I'd rather help them find a better way to describe whatever it is, a better argument for whatever they maintain. This, here, is not the way to establish one's position. No amount of anothers position being one of many will speak to the truth of any given position, no amount of anothers position being wrong or insufficient will makes ones own more accurate, and no amount of prattling on about photons will inform us with regards to free will.

If -I- can poke holes in it, here on AF......it's probably not a groundbreakingly accurate description of reality, eh? If it's important to someone (and we've seen that it is, the importance of this or that has been stressed time and time again)... a slick presentation is a thing of value....wouldn't it be nice to be able to explain free will (regardless of whether or not we have it..or it even exists in actuality) in a way that doesn't fold under itself as soon as it's uttered?