RE: Do you believe in free will?
April 16, 2012 at 11:59 am
(This post was last modified: April 16, 2012 at 12:01 pm by Perhaps.)
(April 16, 2012 at 4:43 am)genkaus Wrote: Under the assertion of law of identity. A thing cannot be what it is and not be what it is at the same time. Without any mechanism for consciousness, a conscious mind in not conscious. You can make all the assertions you like about ontological dependence and which principles do or do not translate to the non-material, but this one is inescapable.
Perhaps we've misunderstood each other here. I think that the conscience itself is the non-material subject in question. It interacts with the material brain to create the 'conscious mind' which gives us free will. Through what mechanism does it interact with the material brain to create the conscious mind, i'm not sure, but that doesn't mean that it can't interact. My only premises would be that the non-material is unaffected by the determinism of the material world, and the non-material is ontologically dependent on the material in which it is harbored.
As for the law of identity, I'm not sure what issue you have with my presentation of the non-material here. The conscience has a separate identity than the brain, and they come together to create the conscious mind. To use your example again, cause and effect have separate identities, yet combine under the identity of causation.
(April 16, 2012 at 4:43 am)genkaus Wrote: The problem is that so far, your attempted justifications only go as far as to say that free-will can exist. And in that they are incomplete. In order to assert that it can exist, you should give a possible scenario of how it can exist.
Possible scenario for the existence of free will via the non-material conscience:
1. There are non-material subjects which exist
2. Conscience is a non-material subject
3. The non-material can interact with the material (while remaining outside of the determinism of the non-material)
4. If there is interaction between the conscience and the brain, then free will exists
5. There is interaction between the conscience and the brain
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4. Free will exists
(April 16, 2012 at 4:43 am)genkaus Wrote: Don't assume anything about my position. My position on freewill has already been spelled out in this thread. Refer to that is you wish to know what it is.
I apologize, could you provide which page on the thread you stated your opinion?
(April 13, 2012 at 2:27 pm)genkaus Wrote: The materialistic perspective here is an assumption on your part. The limits I'd proscribe are the logical confines of identity and causation, unless, ofcourse, you are saying that logic is not applicable to the non-materia, in which case it'd be simply nonsense.
Nicola Abbagnano Wrote:"Reason itself is fallible, and this fallibility must find a place in our logic"
I'm failing to see the issue you are proposing with the identity of the non-material subject, and I cannot explain to you how the interaction occurs between non-material and material (because I don't know), simply that it could (does) happen.
Brevity is the soul of wit.