Do you believe in free will?

[genkaus]

1. To exist as a non-material object does not require that it exist independently of material subjects. When the material brain ceases, so too does the conscience. This doesn't invalidate my original statement about the conscience's effects.

For your original statement to stand, the non-material must exist separately, if not independently - i.e. it must have a separate identity from the material. What does invalidate your statement is your assertion that consciousness can exist without any mechanism to be conscious.

2. There is no mechanism, it is outside of the material realm, just as some would argue numbers and time exist outside of the material realm. We know numbers exist in so much as we have utilized them in a material sense to enact physical changes, but they are not tangible nor do they possess mass, volume, etc.. We know time exists, but we have no physical way to obtain or measure it - aside from our arbitrary choice of movement relative to other objects. More simply, the non-material conscience can effect the material world, but it is not independent of the material world, in so much as its existence relies on a material entity - the brain.

I think the question of "time" should be left alone here, since it would lead the discussion into a whole different direction of relativity, space-time continuum and quantum mechanics.

The concept of numbers is a bad analogy, since numbers are a product of consciousness, i.e. of a conscious mind. However, if your idea of conscious mind is not independent of material reality, then how does it escape causality?

3. The ability for the non-physical conscience to effect the material world is the action of free will.

First, it needs to be established that it does.

It seems you have a confused view of how a thing can exist non-materially. One is an idealist view, where you imagine this whole other dimension to reality with souls and spirits and possibly gods. Other is the conceptual view, where you see consciousness the same way you see ideas, created by and existing within the human mind.