(August 30, 2016 at 6:59 pm)Panatheist Wrote: But on a much more fundamental level I have no choices whatsoever. All of my behavior is the result of forces beyond my control, the outcome of the laws of biochemistry, electricity, and physics acting on my brain and nervous system in conjunction with my environment, genes, and prior experiences.
On a fundamental level, there's no "you" anyway, to wonder if it has free will. On a fundamental level, I'm nothing but a collection of wave functions kind of vibrating in space. But this says really nothing about what it means to be a person and to experience life.
As soon as we start talking about conscious agency, we're talking about a very, very high order of supervenience. The real question is whether free will can supervene on building blocks which themselves don't have the capacity for freedom. My answer to that is-- why not? That's what emergence IS-- the spawning at one level of organization of properties that are nowhere to be found on lower levels.
This in my opinion is a fallacy that many have committed in the argument against free will-- to paraphrase, "As below, so above."
