Determinism.....

[Tiberius]

I dont think that proves we don't have free will, cant it just mean that we make decisions before we realise we do?

No, because it's not our conscious mind making the decision. Sure, it's still *us* as in our body, but it isn't an active choice that we think about in our head. If I show you two balls, one red and one blue, and ask you to choose one of them, you think about it, and finally decide on the red one. However the research shows that before you've actively made the final decision in your conscious mind, your subconscious has already done it. In other words, all our conscious mind is doing is taking orders from our subconscious. Given that we cannot control our subconscious, I don't see how we can have free will. All decisions we think we make are all orders from our subconscious mind.

Who gives a damn if our conscious or subconscious is making the decision? It is still us making the decision. So yes, we have free will. That we can choose wrongly means our will is still free. Once we become capable of only the wisest option: we become computers, which are enslaved logic machines.

It matters quite a bit. Free will depends on the conscious mind making the decision, not the subconscious. If the conscious mind makes the decision, then you (as in you as a person, thinking, etc) make the decision. You actively think, "I'll choose the red ball" and do so. If the subconscious is simply telling your conscious mind to think "I'll choose the red ball", and you have no control over your subconscious, then we have no free will.

Show me that the subconscious always chooses rightly: and you will have shown that free will does not exist when a subconscious is present.

Please explain how "right" and "wrong" have anything to do with free will. Free will is the ability to actively make decisions in your conscious mind without any external influences. Something external might influence your thinking about the decision, but it doesn't *have* to influence it.

You may have the impulse to take a bigger slice of pie... that is a subconscious decision. The subconscious is not capable of thought, nor is it 'aware' of its surroundings. It is simply the underlying bios upon which our operating system (consciousness) is built. It might reach decisions faster than the operating system... but that is only because it functions simply.

Didn't know you were suddenly a neuroscientist. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure all *real* neuroscientists disagree with what you've said here. The subconscious mind does think, and it is far from simple.