Do you believe in free will?

[tackattack]

Numbered for my convenience

---

If this is accepted, would you also say that a hallucination has substance separate from reality? It holds no material space, so is separate from the material, therefore has a reality of its own.
Does a hallucination create its own separate existence through the mind?

---

1- Not a substance separate from reality, but becomes the reality of the viewer, as he deems his hallucinations as real. Reality = perception (within the4 mind) of reality. Unless we’re defining some absolute value for reality. Many people have false memories of things that never really happened due to reconstructive properties of memory. That doesn’t negate the real implications of what really happened with who they are, or lessen the affects of what they perceived happening 20 years later on their decision process.

---

My point of view, thou Genkaus believes it is loaded through a assumption of determinism, which was an aspect of disagreement. I am still considering how much merit that argument has.Let's play God and pause time for one second;The universe can only be changed in a limited number of ways.
1) Changing the current or past state of the universe in this instant we have paused.
2) Changing the fundamental laws of the universe that dictate how the universe progresses from one instant to another.
In my view, changing 1 or 2 requires supernatural means (potentially technology sufficiently advanced as to appear magical).
You were created by the causal events of the universe leading up to this point. You lack the ability to change either premise 1 or 2 of the universe therefore you lack the ability to change the future of the universe.
In order to prove free will, I believe that either a supernatural 3rd cause (which I dismiss) or a problem with the 2 assumptions I have made about causal events.

---

2- I thought we were leaving God out of it, but I’ll go along with the thought process. You say we lack the ability to change the future, yet isn’t that the core of determinism? Everything you do and what you perceive yourself doing causes a change in the course of causality around you in your environment. I think the problem lies with premise 2. Changing the fundamental laws of HOW the universe works is not the same as not changing the COURSE of the universe through free will.

---

Otherwise, I define free will as the freedom to act without certain types of constraint. My argument is that the constraints are complete and total.
Every natural system, ever investigated, whether weather systems, or the nervous system, to our concept of self, has always been proven to be determined and it is egotistical to believe we have a special ability to remove ourselves from the standard causal chain by which the universe moves from one instant to another.
Changing the future in the quoted argument of mine, is a little inaccurate, as has been pointed out, but rather we are not free to exempt ourselves from the natural progression of universal causation.
What we believe to be free will is the conscious justification for our decisions that are already made by the combination of a million factors.
Rather unkindly, Free Will is the name we give to our inability to comprehend even a hundredth part of the factors behind each and every decision, right down to a facial tick.
Thats more or less my position.

---

3- OK let’s say that we took a guy, knocked him into a coma for a few months while we augmented and messed with how he thinks chemically and physically. Then he wakes up and goes about his life acting as a completely different person none the wiser, but he is the same person. Which is the real him the one caused up to that point or the one we caused while he was in the coma? What happens when he starts realizing his memories aren’t his and never really happened? None of what we did interrupted the causal chain. What we did do was affect why he makes decisions, not how he makes them. At no time could (while he’s conscious) we reduce what he define’s as who he is (or his agent) to not functioning. Whether he’s aware or unaware of the tampering of his mental self, there is an irreducible “I” and the ability to introspect

---

"Mental" but separate from the brain would be the other half, in this case. I'm wondering why you think that these are somehow different things, this isn't a position that one can reach by evidentiary means, as that leads us to mind as effect. You seem to be invoking the dues ex machina, I'm wondering why you feel the need to do this, since we have a pretty good idea of how all of this "mental" stuff is accomplished (even though we don't have a complete picture, of course). It's a bit of manouvering to state that ideas or concepts are not material, as this is exactly what we understand them to be, our way of interpreting and communicating electro-chemical signals which are very much material, and can be pointed to (scans, chemical analysis), quantified (cognitive testing in addition to scans and analysis), tampered with (psychoactive drugs), or entirely removed (trauma, intentional or unintentional).

How do you propose that this separate "mental" entity interfaces with the brain? Where is it, where does it come from from, and what can it do? What would it look like if someone had a functioning brain but not a functioning "mental entity"?

---

Without having a totally complete view I don’t believe entirely removed is possible. I don’t think that any version of compartmentalization or disassociation, have ever not had its own awareness in space time or sense of agent. I suppose I can’t fathom what someone who had a functioning brain but not a completely dysfunctional mind. I’m interested in your hypothesis on this. I would assume it interfaces like anything else, from one of the sensory inputs or qualia.

---

The brain is physical. The mind is mental. The agent of self is a mental attribute. Free will is also a mental attribute. I believe will is not forced or predetermined by cusal chains outside of any influence. These abstracts or insubstantials hold no material space as the brain does, therefore they're seperate from the material. Therefore I believe that there are more than determined and material things that exist in reality. I believe reality exists in in more than just material substance.

As I see, your position on free-will is derived from following metaphysical assumptions.

1. There are two separate components of reality - physical and non-physical (which could be alternatively referred to as mental).

2. The mental component is not only separate from, but independent of the physical component. That is the only way it could exist while remaining independent of certain laws governing the physical component - specifically - the law of causation.


Now, what other conclusions can be drawn form these premises?

1. Since you have argued that the mental could exist independently of the physical, but never argued the other way around - either the physical reality is also independent of the mental reality or it is dependent upon it.

2. Since the implications of these assumptions are very much a part of physical reality - the physical reality is not independent of the mental one, but dependent upon it.

3. Therefore, the mental reality holds primacy over the physical - that is, in any apparent contradictions regarding the facts - the laws of this mental reality would supersede the laws of physical reality.

Now, let us look at some laws of physical reality that would not be applicable to the mental reality.

1. As stated, the law of causation does not apply to mental reality.

2. The law of causation is a necessary consequence of law of identity (an entity is what it is and can only act according to its nature). Therefore, the law of identity is not applicable as well.

3. The entire body of rational inquiry is based on the law of identity - therefore reason and logic as means of gaining knowledge of the mental reality are useless.

So, until now, based on your assumptions, we've gathered following facts about your position - that you believe in a reality beyond the physical reality. that you consider this reality to hold primacy, that you do not have any rational way to know anything about this reality and that between any apparent conflict of facts between this reality and the physical one, you'd choose to accept the other one.

Is it just me or is this position dangerously close to a fundamentalist one?

Moving on from the logical implications of your assumption to the assumptions themselves. Do you have any justification by which you hold these assumptions?

---

OK, we’ll roll with this:
1. There are two separate components of reality - physical and non-physical (which could be alternatively referred to as mental). Ok fine I agree that that is my position.

2. The mental component is not only separate from, but independent of the physical component. I don’t believe it’s completely independent of causation, as everything we are comes from before. I don’t believe though that it falls in an unalterable causal change.

3. I do believe in a reality beyond the physical reality but not that this reality to holds primacy. Maybe if you better define this primacy then I could take a closer look at it.

---

I'm going to interject a notion.

As I consider the mind to be exactly the same thing as the brain, I consider 'free will' to be the capability for my genetics and experiences to effectively make me do things, so while I am being 'forced' to do something, it is the decision of my brain and therefore also the decision of my mind, since they're the same. Get it?

I consider 'free will' the capability of nature and nurture to make you pursue a course, so therefore it exists based upon my materialist definition.

---

I think I get it, but as was pointed out, if your nature is all that makes your capability to choose then it’s not free, unless you can exceed who you are.