Determinism.....

[Tiberius]

I still made the decision. That I thought about my decision before I made it doesn't make my decision any less made. Your subconscious is a part of you, is it not? As such, this subconscious was free to make a choice... a choice which you justified with your conscious. It was completely your decision.

This is the thing. The evidence doesn't show that the conscious mind "justifies" the decision made by the subconscious, but is told by the subconscious what to think. Your body made the decision, but that doesn't mean it was a free choice. You are oversimplifying the concept of free will by saying that all choices, irrelevant of where they are made, means the subject has free will. Thus you could argue that on this definition, all animals have free will, even those which we observe to act instinctualy.

Free will for me means that your conscious choice is the original (or deciding) choice. By my definition, we have no free will; by your definition, we do (but then so does everything, including a computer since it is also making decisions...)

Think about it this way. I am playing a game of chess with a friend. I have played chess many times, and think I know that they will move into a trap I set up. However, they still have the ability to move to a different place. The subconscious might think that I will chose the red ball... but similarly: I could take an initiative at the last moment and seize the blue one.

You evidently didn't understand the experiment that I was talking about. The point is, the evidence doesn't say you can "take the initiative at the last moment and seize the blue one". It says that all the conscious mind is is a slave to the subconscious. Even if you were thinking at the last possible moment "I'm going to take the blue one", your subconscious had already made that decision moments before.

Right and wrong have a great deal to do with it. Free will is being able to choose without others telling them or coercion. However, there is no choice if we are programmed to be 'right' every single time a divergent option appears. Simply: we will never choose, we will have only the option of being 'right', even if the option of being wrong seems to present itself. If the subconscious was always right, then yet: we would have no free will. But our subconscious is hardly the best judge to go by. We are only machines... slaves to logic... if our only option is to do what is best.

I never said the subconscious always did the "right" thing. I'm surprised that you think "right" and "wrong" are real concepts, when truthfully we can only say they are subjective. Without free will, I'd say that nothing is "wrong", and nothing is "right" either. We aren't in control of our actions at all. But that has nothing to do with the validity of the concept of us being a slave to the subconscious mind.

And you are a neuroscientist I guess? And I suppose that I cannot voice my opinion that a flaming car will crash into you... unless I hold an advanced degree in physics? Simply, bring your evidence for why you would say all of that.

No, but then if you go and write about how the sub-conscious can't think or isn't aware of our surroundings, I will call you on the bullshit. I don't insist I am right, unlike yourself. I use the evidence that scientists (mainly neuroscientists) have provided. You make it up on the spot.

Here is some lingual evidence against the subconscious being as aware as the conscious... in other words: subconscious is a mislabeled term if it is greater than or equal to the conscious.

Sub- (a prefix) is attached to a word to show that it is lesser or that it is beneath. In example: Sub-human, sub-marine, sub-machine gun. You will notice: sub-conscious. In some way or another, the sub-conscious is beneath the conscious. I take it neuroscientists are not often linguists?

If you really think that the name of something bears total descriptive properties of that thing, then you are clearly a moron. Please don't embarrass yourself again by bringing up such a pathetic argument unless you want to explain how it has any bearing on what we are talking about here.

I don't think the complexity or simplicity of the subconscious has any bearing. I think Adrian skipped over the important concept which is that it is still us making the decision even if that's mechanically generated by the subconscious.

It's still us, but I was assuming we were talking about the mind here. We could get into how we are all composed of atoms, and that there is really nothing special about that, but I didn't think that was what we were talking about. Like I said before, if we go with this definition of free will, I have no problem with it. However I would then propose that we don't have "true free will", and we could discuss that at length. You could use your argument to suggest that anything that has the ability to make decisions has free will. Does a computer have free will, even though the decision is generated by user input?

Where is free will defined as separate from a subconscious decision? The "rational agent" can be conscious or subconscious. Even with your plea to complexity of the subconscious you're conceding this.

The difference between will and "free" will must be clear. If it is free, it means you have total control over the decision, rejecting everything you can and basing your decision completely on your own thinking. If the decision is told to you by your subconscious (as an order), I can't see how that can be construed as free will. If you have to follow it no matter what, freedom disappears.