Do you control what you believe?

[Edwardo Piet]

]I am defining nothing as free. For any thought, desire, choice, decision, (whatever word you wish, just pop it in there) to be free, there must be some thought that did not originate from the biochemical reactions of the body. It is moot what leads to this point. If the conscious mind has a thought that is not a direct deterministic result of the physiology of the body, then from whence did this thought come?

If nothing is free then the will isn't free.

It doesn't matter where our thoughts come from: They are ultimately entirely determined by unconsciousness or ultimately entirely undetermined.

]I believe that we are no more than a highly developed bio-mechanical robot that is completely subservient to the physiological processes of the robot. Our awareness is simply an illusion that 'tricks' us into believing that we have a choice.

Do you believe that we have no conscious motives?

]I do not think so. Regardless of the semantics of decision/choice or the levels involved, the question is where does any free will originate?

It makes no sense to question where free will originated if you don't understand the question. If you equivocate one kind of free will with another, then you can't ask the question properly. If you ask the question without having any definition of free will at all, then the question is pointless.

]Is an amoeba aware? At what point does awareness kick in? does it take two cells or two trillion? how about one trillion nine hundred and ninety nine cells? This is your cut off. You cannot let yourself get caught in Zeno's paradox or else the infinite regression arises.

My point was demonstrating that you can't get libertarian free will from conscious motivation.

And that my dear Watson is the crux of the situation. Theists will have you believe that god initiated free will. As there is no god, it would not be possible for free will to 'appear' ergo, there is no free will.

With or without a god, the concept of libertarian free will is logically incoherent.

]This is where it can truly get involved. Quantum mechanics does not project the path of a particle or wave, it projects the "statistically probable' path of a particle. This means that one really cannot project far into the future. If a particle or wave did not take the highest probable path, that would affect any future calculations.

Still, that's the unpredictability of the universe, it doesn't mean that the universe is philosophically indeterministic, it just means that at least thus far, it is scientifically indeterministic.

Again, the nature of consciousness only 'tricks' us into believing that we have any control.

Do you believe in conscious motivation?

It really is relevant to at least know whether you're talking about a compatibilistic or incompatibilistic sense of "free will" because they're completely different senses of "free will".