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

by dhw, Wednesday, September 23, 2015, 12:28 (3349 days ago) @ BBella

Dhw: I'm pleased to have support from both of you as regards conscious choices being integral to a definition, but I don't actually know why Romansh objects to it, since it does not make the slightest difference to the two premises above. My point is that unless we are aware of a choice, we will not use the faculty we call free will (whether it is free or not.) Perhaps one of you (or someone else) can explain the problem to me.-BBELLA: I take Romanash to be saying (which I don't think you disagree) and correct me if I'm wrong, Romanash, that all our present choices are made with all our history in mind (cause and effect). Our memories (subconscious included) and DNA determine our present choices. If any of these change (organ implants, blood transfusion or memory loss) our choices will be influenced. So again, cause and effect. So how free is free will? As free as a baby in a play pen full of toys. What determines what toy the baby chooses has everything to do with the child's history.
[...] 
This may not have answered your question or may not represent Romanash's perspective, but is what came to mind.-Thank you for this excellent summary (and the sad example of your father) of the cause-and-effect case against free will, which I accept completely. But my question is why Romansh objects to the inclusion of consciousness in the definition. For the life of me, I cannot see how free will (if it exists) can come into play unless one is conscious of what is to be chosen/decided, what are the options, what are the restrictions and what may be the future consequences. This does not in any way invalidate the cause-and-effect argument, but is a key factor in the argument that even if we are not conscious of all the influences that determine our decisions, those influences constitute the self that makes them. I am me, regardless of what has formed me, and so this “I” has the ability to make conscious choices.
 
The importance of consciousness and different levels of consciousness is illustrated by your father's case. What you called his “habitual self” would have been the one with full consciousness, which allows for free will according to the identity criterion. Once consciousness is affected by disease, drugs, alcohol, hypnosis etc., it becomes extremely difficult for us to assess the degree of “freedom” - often used as a defence in court. You say he had lost awareness of his past, and his senses seemed to have taken over, so I guess you would have said he was not “himself” any more. But I would certainly not like to be pinned down to drawing borderlines. And so, while acknowledging the validity of the cause-and-effect argument (no free will), I would confine my identity concept (free will) to circumstances in which there is no “coercion” by influences beyond those that constitute the given constraints of nature and the environment.