Free Will, Free Won't?

[Zone]

This is actually a statement in support of what I’m saying. Yes they act differently, because a new influence is affecting the neurophysiological processes that control their conditioned type of behavior.

Yes but what is it that alcohol does to them? Think about this one.

I think you missed the point here again. What I said was:
When you look back at something you did, and think that-You could have done differently –Is no different than saying-You could have existed in a different universe. Saying that you could have done differently if you wanted to, ignores the obvious flaw in such a speculation, the “If you wanted to” part. The fact is, you “wanted” to do exactly what you did, and would not have nor could you have, done any differently than EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID!

No because I can want to do something but not do it. Animals have to do what they want and machines can't want to do anything.

There are parts of your body that perform functions without your consciousness giving them instructions, yes?

Yes.

The parts that perform those functions are equally a part of you as anything else is, are they not?

Aye.

If the functions in your body that fight cancer shut-down, and you contract it, would it be fair for me to ridicule you for being careless?

It would be my bodies fault really, the genetic sequence fucked up or something but it's not something I necessarily did. But if smoke and got lung cancer then it would be my fault. So it does depend.

I’m not saying that these functions are example of why free-will is false. I’m saying that your subconscious mind operates without you consciously controlling it either.

It wouldn't be sub-conscious if I could. It would take much effort to do everything your sub-conscious can handle automatically. You're trimmed down to what you need.

The effects it has on your consciousness are no more in your control than those which fight cancer. Why do you insist on taking credit for your subsconscious activity?

I didn't say I did. You can certainly override the autopilot to some extent or ignore suggestions from it.

Your subconscious mind feeds your conscious sense of self the information that you identify with as being YOUR thoughts.

We're talking about a very primitive part of the brain here it's not the part where conscious thought occurs.

But YOU, in the sense that you identify with being YOU, is getting information from an involuntary source, and then taking credit for it as it presents itself into consciousness.

No you just have a little reptile brain in your skull that gives you suggestions and/or runs the automatic pilot program. That's not the higher functionality we have.

You can take no more credit for the thoughts that appear in consciousness than you can for the tumor that forms on your brain. Is this not making sense to you?

Well no it isn't really, I don't think you understand how the arrangement works. Different parts of the brain have different tasks the primitive parts take care of the basics of survival and function.

That is my entire point. So, you can’t consciously take credit for the functions they are performing, right? Even though they are YOU in every sense. You aren’t the agent in control of them, nor is your consciousness the source of their existence, so them working or not working, is not something that YOU can take credit for, given what you associate as being YOU, same goes for your thoughts!

I can take credit for driving a car even if the gears are automatic or it has automatic wipers.

Precisely! Those “suggestions” are determined by your subconscious, which we’ve established, is something you are not in control of.

Automatic functions mean less you have to do yourself?

The suggestion you “choose” is determined by your unique mind and the way it was formed. The decision made at that point, is the only one YOU could ever make. The retrospective observation that other things existed to choose from, does not, and could not change the choice you made.

But you can decide not to do something you would like to do or do something you don't really want to do. That's the freewill element we're aware of these things.

I think you may want to do a little more research, what you’ve just said is a baseless assertion, and it’s demonstrably false. But ultimately, it’s irrelevant to my argument. Those “suggestions” are what creates the illusion of an option. Your consciousness is at the mercy of those suggestions.

You may be speaking for yourself here. Ever considered learning some self control?

Every single thought you have, the key strokes that you make, ALL of them just occur to you from a deeper state of awareness. It’s illusory to pretend that your consciousness is the creator and author of them.

My conscious mind is moving my hand and hitting the keys I want to type right now so yeah I'm the author of this. If I wasn't I'd like to know who else was.

If you pay attention, and are really honest with yourself, it’s quite obvious.

Is it?

(If you watch the video, many of your complaints and “objections” are addressed in it)

I don't have complaints or objections only a slight sense of bafflement.

Close your eyes, and try to think of as many movie names as you can in 2 minutes.

There will be a hiatus of nothingness, and then, from seemingly nowhere, names of movies will begin to appear in consciousness.

Yes of course, you give your brain an order and it retrieves the information for you. It's a handy biological computer you have in there.

You will probably be familiar with most, if not all of them by name. But, most of them, perhaps none of them would have occurred to you during your experiment. You know them, they are in your brain, but, they just won’t occur to you.

There are only a certain number of films you know?

You are clearly not free to choose that which doesn’t occur to you to choose.

It depends on the films you've seen really.

You are clearly not what chooses that which occurs to you, and you are clearly not privy to ALL the possible information stored in your mind.

True but you only need to focused on a small part of it, the stuff you immediately need right at this moment.

So, I’m curious, on what grounds do you pretend to take credit for the things that your subconscious offers?

That's just your little reptile portion of your brain not your higher functions.

You are making baseless assertions that “you choose from suggestions”, but you haven’t established these terms as anything more that incoherent conjecture.

The base being I know that I'm doing this, I ought to know given that I'm the one in here. I can back this up with a working knowledge of brain function. The parts of the brain responsible for what you're talking about are the primitive parts.