If free will was not real

[bennyboy]

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

The relevance is that reality cannot always be reduced down to an unambiguous expression of our very limited rational explanations for things. Mind is perhaps the most mysterious thing of all, and making black-and-white assertions about its nature based on a philosophical position that has no explanation for mind is probably not a very good practice.

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.

If most people experienced pink elephants, then I'd be inclined to think they are real. It seems to me that EVEN AMONG those of you arguing against free will, you act as though you consider it real. And among 99% of humanity, I'm sure it doesn't even occur to them that there's no such thing as free will.

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.

And no description of a physically monist position will ever explain what things are like to experience, or explain why we experience what things are like.

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?

Free will, quite simply, is a label for the capacity to freely choose. And you can philosophize all you want, but I'm still enjoying my Snickers bar, smug in the self-knowledge that I chose it freely. My experience of freedom trumps your insistence that it is incompatible with your world view.

This is this thread:
Me: Look. I have an ice cream. I chose it freely.
You: No you didn't. A deterministic chain of events starting at the Big Bang, to the creation of the Earth, to the evolution of species, to the development of your culture, to you walking in 7-11, inevitably resulted in you choosing it.

My version is infinitely more descriptive of what it's like to be a human agent than yours is. Sometimes, you have to accept that a useful idea has transcended the limits of its usefulness. And in this case, your view of the Universe has definitely hit that point.