What do we do while deciding if free will exists?

[bennyboy]

To you guys who say there's no free will: sure it's real. I use free will every time I'm standing in the candy aisle: WHICH ONE will I choose to buy today? For some reason, I always seem to buy a Snickers bar, though.

[robvalue]

But wait. You can never have the same exact situation twice. Time has moved on, everything has moved on. You'd have to have two identical realities running side by side with the exact same conditions to see if any "choices" are actually being made. Otherwise, you can never be sure that a "choice" could have happened any other way. Slapping a guy in the face twice in a row is far from the same event, it's entirely different.

[Whateverist]

Likewise I guess we'll need a parallel universe to decide whether your musings on the lack of free will are indeed a reasoned position on your part or merely one you hold as a result of the same forces which give rise to the 'illusion' of free will. If there is no free will there isn't really anything to discuss since you hold your positions, as you must, given the factors which determine you and I must do the same. Reasoning and opining are acts every bit as much as are choices. If we don't make the latter, we don't make the former.

[The Grand Nudger]

Pretty sure, Benny, that no is disputing that you're using "something" at the candle aisle.  Just not convinced that your free will is a tool that determines which candy bar you pick up..if it exists in the first place, or..more broadly, that free will is an explanation for or contributing factor to choice - assuming it does exist.  That's the amusing bit. If we could demonstrate that there were a ghost in the machine..it would get us no closer to demonstrating that the ghost was at the controls. I think theres a simpler explanation for all that ambiguity.

[bennyboy]

Pretty sure, Benny, that no is disputing that you're using "something" at the candle aisle.  Just not convinced that your free will is a tool that determines which candy bar you pick up..if it exists in the first place, or..more broadly, that free will is an explanation for or contributing factor to choice - assuming it does exist.  That's the amusing bit. If we could demonstrate that there were a ghost in the machine..it would get us no closer to demonstrating that the ghost was at the controls. I think theres a simpler explanation for all that ambiguity.

Nothing in my life exists as I see it, so not a problem.

My wife, it turns out, is 99.9999999% empty space, but that doesn't stop me from getting annoyed when she grinds her teeth while she's sleeping. It turns out that my house, my kids, and every other thing I love are impermanent, and a couple hundred years from now, we'll all be so thoroughly erased that it's like we never existed, but that doesn't stop me from feeling it means something to go to work, save money for our dream home, and try to teach my kids life lessons. It turns out that my Mom is probably just a typical primate mammal, and all those things she did that made me feel special were really just a human mother acting like a human mother, but that doesn't stop me from getting a warm fuzzy feeling when I think about my childhood.

The fact is that I'm completely immersed in the fairy tale that we call human existence-- and free will is no less valid in that fairy tale than anything else is. The reality of physics and the reality of what it's like to be human are very different things, no?

[robvalue]

For the last time, I'm the only one who exists. You figments are keeping me awake!

[The Grand Nudger]

The fact is that I'm completely immersed in the fairy tale that we call human existence--

-and yet you and I can have this conversation...we can express this doubt, we can both accept that it is not all as we see it....so no...judging by this conversation alone neither of us is so immersed, and immersion would not be any excuse for advancing a non-factual position -as- fact by brute force.

 and free will is no less valid in that fairy tale than anything else is. 

that which is valid is not always true.  

The reality of physics and the reality of what it's like to be human are very different things, no?

Doesn't seem so to me....any disparity we're likely to reference is circumscribed, explained, and in fact a description -of- the physics of our perceptions, and I would say...no disparity -at all-.  You experience your wife as a physical object, for example -despite being empty space- because you are not structured in a manner that allows you to pass through her.  Similarly, you experience the soil beneath your feet as a "solid" block - impossible to traverse simply..a nematodes experience of the same is vastly different...and in this example not due to a difference in stuff or structure..merely a difference in scale. If you were structured differently, or of a different scale, your experience would be a description of those things, that relationship, instead.

You and I perceive that which we are equipped to perceive, in the manner that our perceptions are capable of perceiving them......there's a reason you can;t read my mind..there's a reason you don't see ir..there's a reason you don't hear infrasound, and there's a reason that you can't actually detect temperature as an absolute.... Don't you think?

[Whateverist]

Pretty sure, Benny, that no is disputing that you're using "something" at the candle aisle.  Just not convinced that your free will is a tool that determines which candy bar you pick up..if it exists in the first place, or..more broadly, that free will is an explanation for or contributing factor to choice - assuming it does exist.  That's the amusing bit. If we could demonstrate that there were a ghost in the machine..it would get us no closer to demonstrating that the ghost was at the controls. I think theres a simpler explanation for all that ambiguity.

I have met the ghost and he is me.

[bennyboy]

The fact is that I'm completely immersed in the fairy tale that we call human existence--

-and yet you and I can have this conversation...we can express this doubt, we can both accept that it is not all as we see it....so no...judging by this conversation alone neither of us is so immersed, and immersion would not be any excuse for advancing a non-factual position -as- fact by brute force.

I'm immersed enought that even though we are talking about free will, and the possibility that it's an illusion, I still feel like I'm acting completely freely while I think and type. I still feel like my wife is a solid body (well, kinda solid lol)-- not as perceived but in every sense that I know and experience her.

 and free will is no less valid in that fairy tale than anything else is. 

that which is valid is not always true.  

You forgot to call me Grasshopper.

The reality of physics and the reality of what it's like to be human are very different things, no?

Doesn't seem so to me....any disparity we're likely to reference is circumscribed, explained, and in fact a description -of- the physics of our perceptions, and I would say...no disparity -at all-.  You experience your wife as a physical object, for example -despite being empty space- because you are not structured in a manner that allows you to pass through her.  Similarly, you experience the soil beneath your feet as a "solid" block - impossible to traverse simply..a nematodes experience of the same is vastly different...and in this example not due to a difference in stuff or structure..merely a difference in scale. If you were structured differently, or of a different scale, your experience would be a description of those things, that relationship, instead.

That's right. If I was something else, my experience of the world would be totally different. To me, this means that the world view of people, or anything else, is essentially mythological.

You and I perceive that which we are equipped to perceive, in the manner that our perceptions are capable of perceiving them......there's a reason you can;t read my mind..there's a reason you don't see ir..there's a reason you don't hear infrasound, and there's a reason that you can't actually detect temperature as an absolute.... Don't you think?

Of course there is.
You seem to think I'm talking about idealism. I'm not-- at least not exactly. I'm talking about the fact that the world as we experience it is essentially mythological-- i.e. that our world view is mythological. That doesn't necessarily require that the universe itself, or the matter under the hood, is not physical monist. Different issue.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm immersed enought that even though we are talking about free will, and the possibility that it's an illusion, I still feel like I'm acting completely freely while I think and type. 

-and as before....no one disputes immersion any more than anyone disputes the "something" you use to pick a candy bar.  I made my response explicitly to the statement that this immersion was -complete-. It obviously isn't..because, again, here we are having this discussion, here you are calling it "mythology". Seems to me, that you know better, that it isn't so complete as to have fooled you - which is why it puzzles me to see that you described it as such.

I still feel like my wife is a solid body (well, kinda solid lol)-- not as perceived but in every sense that I know and experience her.

Because she -is- a solid body, in the way that we take solid to mean.  Whats the problem?

That's right. If I was something else, my experience of the world would be totally different. To me, this means that the world view of people, or anything else, is essentially mythological.

You must have a different definition for mythology than I do.  I think that you're going to need a hell of alot of poetic license to make any parity between our sensory experience and mythology stick.  Your wife not only "seems" solid...to you...she -is- solid.....to you.  For some odd reason..I can't seem to unload the dozen odd dirty jokes I have lined up in my mind for this one.....I think I might have accidentally started respecting you....sonofabitch! : wink :

Of course there is.

The comment I responded to, with that quoted section, then..seems nonsensical if you've accepted this.  Perhaps you could rephrase?  The world as we experience it is precisely what we would expect from equipment with the range of operating parameters ours has....not seeing why that's mythology, or why it is different than the physics that it is an expression -of-?