Human Intelligence is an Illusion

[Alan V]

Imagine a master painter creating a masterpiece one brush stroke at a time. Each movement of his hand meticulously chosen to create the desired effect. Yet, what if each of those motions was chosen for him before he was consciously aware of the choice and only took credit for it upon the moment of that awareness? Experiments by Libet, Soon, Fried, Haynes and others suggest exactly that.

Suggestions are not demonstrations, and plenty of people disagree with the unwarranted over-extrapolations of determinists based on such studies.

When I was over at TTA, I posted a book review which discussed in some detail why those studies do not demonstrate what determinists think they do. Unfortunately I didn't save that post before the forum was deleted. So I guess I will have to read the book again and post a new report.

Further, I even posted a rebuttal to the initial argument (post 18) which was ignored by The Chameleon. Someone who does not address reasonable objections is not arguing in good faith, IMO.

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Just a question to everyone When you use the word "I" precisely what are you identifying as you? Particularly in the context of making choices? There's a lot of ways a person can identify their perceived nature of self.

Since I changed from being a theist to being an atheist, my self-concept changed from being my consciousness to being my body, which is what is conscious. Not everything my body does is a matter of choice, so my self-concept is not altogether relevant to your question. However, I do take responsibility for what my body does, because I consciously monitor and control it within certain boundaries. I even apologize when I belch out loud, for instance.

When arguing in favor of free will, I typically start at the high end and work my way down from there, if possible. That's why I usually say that a reason is not the same thing as a determined caused, and there are plenty of times in which we operate by reasons rather than merely react. If you are not preserving the difference between a reason and a cause, you don't recognize the function of that discrimination which the concept of free will makes. You are effectively trying to undermine the useful function of a concept, to blur certain boundaries.

I take it you are also trying to undermine the useful concept of intelligence.