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

by romansh , Sunday, September 06, 2015, 16:35 (3145 days ago) @ dhw
edited by romansh, Sunday, September 06, 2015, 17:26

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. 
So dhw, what are the ramifications of every object and energy being determined by either in a mechanistic way or in some probabilistic quantum way? -And please do this before we re-enter our semantic debate on what we mean by free will. 
> 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.
Again this is a trite and irrelevant rejoinder. I have said before that just because there may be a physical restrain eg handcuffs this is irrelevant to the free will discussion.
> 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.” 
The problem here is we enter the consciousness quagmire and the semantic debate of choice. But I will let it pass for the moment. Assuming we do make our "own" conscious choices, are these choices independent of cause? Above you have suggested it is impossible? And ultimately is this not what we are talking about when we discuss free will?-> (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.
Does a river choose its path across a plain? In one sense no ie a conscious choice, but I have no way of verifying what consciousness is for a river and how aware it is?-In the same way does my consciousness make choices that are not a result of some interesting and perhaps as yet undiscovered physics? We can dissect David's dualism and suggest consciousness is not part of the equation ... but then does this dualistic consciousness respond to cause and effect. David says he believes in cause and effect, so that makes it tough to see how David's consciousness is actually dualistic.-> 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.
Actually I find I am not aware of what I am writing - except in a historical sense. I have that awareness. -We can debate what is and is not consciousness all you want - that is why it is a quagmire. eg Susan Blackmore does not think she is conscious now. I understand why she might think that; to others it is a complete anathema 
> 
> 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. -Actually I don't think it is convoluted at all. For me it is perfectly straight forward. When you say In this sense, we do not have free will what are the ramifications of this? Do you actually believe what you just said?-> 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.-When you make choices "I" alone am responsible for them. I am not sure how you can say this. It is a complete non-sequitur bearing in mind bearing what you have just apparently agreed to. What we have just done is drawn some arbitrary box around a person and said (to varying degrees no doubt) we will ignore outside influences: known, unknown, subliminal etc. But in a sense you are right ... if my house were subject to flooding I would control the flooding by a dam or a levy. I would hold the topography and rainfall events responsible for the flooding. What I do is ignore the sun and its contribution to the rain. -If we are reduced to arguments from instinct then we are in deep trouble, scientifically and philosophically.-Can I suggest you read the Self Illusion by Bruce Hood, we can then maybe discuss this in a bit more depth.