Free Will, Consciousness, Identity (Identity)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, July 21, 2012, 18:34 (4507 days ago) @ dhw

dhw,-Free will is a completely different kind of question compared to everything you algebraically copied my "irrelevancy" into. -As I stated earlier, what the question of "free will" is, is a restatement of the "brain in a vat problem." -I'll assume everyone where knows what that is. -The only solution for the brain in a vat, is answering the question: "What reason do I have to believe that I'm a brain in a vat?"-The "Brain in a vat" is ultimately a question about how we know what we know. -What we know about Free Will:-1. If it is deterministic, than we do not have free will. (We are a brain in a vat.) -2. If it is truly free, then we do indeed have free will. (We are NOT a brain in a vat.) -Fact: As humans, we can only DO one thing at a time. This has been cognitively demonstrated time and again. We're not good multitaskers. -Fact: Whether our wills are free or unfree, the majority of our cognitive processes are invisible to us: they seem to appear at random. ("A thought comes when it wills!") -When you combine the facts together, you see really quickly that in any given circumstance, only the strongest "will" can ever be turned into action. -NOW:-The ultimate question of free will, turns on the idea that we have the means to *know* the difference between a free and unfree action. This is the IDENTICAL condition in the "Brain in a vat" problem. In BOTH cases, we literally can NEVER know whether or not our will is free (not in a vat) or unfree (in a vat). -This is categorically different than the beginning of the universe: The answers ARE actually out there. We have evidence. There's a trail to follow. There are things in the universe we can study, in order to give us answers. -Free will? Not even in the same ballpark. The *only* thing we can do, is assert free will, or assert NO free will. It's an axiom. Not an object. Not a thing. -So how does this finally make "Do I have free will?" an irrelevant question? I submit one more thing for your consideration. A question MUST HAVE a reachable answer. That's the first rule in mathematics, and by that extension--logic. If your question cannot terminate, it's not a valid question. -Since we know, that the question of free will is identical to the "brain in the vat" problem, and we know that there is no logical consequence that necessarily follows either conclusion--then the question is a red herring. Invalid. No different than "Why does quando floo?"

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"