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

by dhw, Friday, November 13, 2015, 13:12 (3298 days ago) @ romansh

dhw “The ability to act or make choices independently of the environment and the universe” or “independently of cause” defines free will out of existence.-ROMANSH: I addressed this at least to some extent in my last post. This is false for the person who believes in contra causal or libertarian free will. This would be accurate for those of us who believe in cause and effect.-We are going over and over and over the same old ground. Here is a definition of God: “A fantastic, fictional, made-up being believed by some silly idiots to have created the universe and life.” This is accurate for an atheist and false for a theist. That is what you have done in a less blatant manner with your definition of free will, and there is no room for discussion on whether God/free will exists or not because your definition allows only one conclusion. One can therefore only challenge your definition, which is pointless because for you it is the only accurate definition! Round we go!-dhw I have offered a different definition (“the ability to make conscious choices within given constraints”, which you have misrepresented by equating compatibilist “coercion” with “given constraints” - not the same thing at all), but for you any other definition is inaccurate. 
ROMANSH: I may have got the wrong end of the stick here. But having said that what are the "given constraints"? Also I keep saying coercion is irrelevant to me, but you keep bringing it back up.-You brought it up, by wrongly equating it with “given constraints”, which I explained to you in detail during our earlier discussion. They are the constraints imposed by Nature and by the environment. Even if I want to, I can't waggle my ears and fly (Nature). If I am in prison, I can't go for a walk in the country (environment). Coercion is part of the compatibilist approach: my choice is not forced on me by other people, institutions, conventions etc. The fact that it is irrelevant to you does not make it irrelevant to others. As with your definition, you are only prepared to consider your own cause-and-effect approach, and so there is no point to this discussion.
 
dhw Cause and effect is your chosen approach,
ROMANSH: Not just mine ... this is the basis of the determinism debate.
Compatibilism and some forms of libertarism say ultimately that determinism is somehow irrelevant to the debate. Are you suggesting that determinism is somehow irrelevant to the debate? -I have made it clear over and over and over again that I accept the determinist cause and effect argument, according to which there is no such thing as free will. But I also accept other approaches as both relevant and valid, because - yet again - the question of whether we do or do not have free will depends on how we define it, and subsequently on our approach to that definition. How many times would you like me to repeat this?-dhw According to my definition, you may be right, but it also allows for other approaches in defence of free will.
ROMANSH: Actually I find your definition to a large extent defines free will into existence.
Do we make decisions? Plainly yes.
Are we conscious? For what you regard as consciousness (being aware and being able to explain a decision) the answer would be yes.-If it's “to a large extent”, clearly there is still leeway, and in fact it offers complete leeway. It merely defines what I suspect most people would understand by the term. The question then has to be asked: do we have that ability? Your answer is that we do not, because the conscious choices are not ours: they are dictated to us by an endless chain of causes and effects which we do not control. Example: I consciously choose the chocolate ice cream instead of the vanilla. Your view: my choice is dictated by my taste buds, my upbringing, the fact that if the universe didn't exist, neither I nor ice cream would exist. You are quite right. Another view: my taste buds and my upbringing have resulted in ME, and so the choice is MINE, and the existence of ice cream and the universe are what gave rise to the choices but not what determined the choice. Another view (compatibilist): nobody and nothing is forcing me to choose the chocolate. If you define the subject out of existence, and if you dismiss all other approaches to the subject as irrelevant, then as David asks: “why have conversations at all?”