A Sense of Free Will: the consciousness quagmire (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, September 06, 2015, 15:15 (3153 days ago) @ romansh

ROMANSH: When I first started playing the free will game on the AgnosticWeb, here a few years ago I wanted to define free will in terms similar to something like ... the ability to act or make choices independently of the environment. You and dhw insisted on putting in a consciousness component. I understand why, but this definitely causes a quagmire of confusion.-I have tried to stay out of this discussion partly because we have already played your game several times, and partly because I am currently very pressed for time, but I will exercise what may or may not be my free will to register a protest and also to put forward a proposition. The protest first: yet again you have defined free will as the ability to act or make choices independently of the environment and the universe. (The universe is mentioned in your essay, but was also in your earlier definition.) You know as well as I do that nothing in the universe can be independent of the universe. That may be a reason for rejecting the concept, but I doubt if any believer in free will would expect to be able to flap his arms and fly just because he wants to. However, you like playing games, and so your trick is to offer a definition that makes free will impossible. I can't remember the definition I offered last time we discussed this subject, but it was probably along the lines of: “The ability to make one's own conscious choices within given constraints.” (Those are the constraints imposed by the environment and our own limitations.) We cannot make choices unless we are aware of what is to be chosen and of what actions are or are not possible within those constraints. Awareness is consciousness, and unless you wish to pretend that while deciding what to write in your next post, you are not aware of this website or the points you are going to respond to, or the games you now hope to play, I see no reason why you should regard it as a quagmire. The quagmire is the source, mechanics and nature of consciousness, but that is a different subject.-The rest of your argument seems to me to be perfectly feasible, so in my view you really don't need any philosophical convolutions. Of course we are all subject to cause and effect, and so our choices are dependent on factors beyond our own control: chemical, hereditary, environmental, educational etc. In this sense, we do not have free will, as we do not make our own conscious choices. -The proposition: if I remember rightly, last time we discussed this I made the (unanswered) point that all these factors go to form our identity (though this is never complete, since it continues to develop with every new experience). Even if what makes “me” may be beyond “my” control, nevertheless it is me, and so when I make my choices, “I” alone am responsible for them. In this sense, I may be said to have free will: I make my own conscious choices within given constraints. I would therefore suggest that the answer to the question of whether we have free will or not depends on the level at which we wish to consider it. Our instincts tell us that we have it, because it is our self and nothing else that makes the decisions, but our intellect tells us that our choices have been fashioned for us by conditions over which we have no control.