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

by dhw, Saturday, November 14, 2015, 14:31 (3297 days ago) @ romansh

dhw “why have conversations at all?”-ROMANSH: I get the feeling you don't really understand the issues.-How strange. I get the same feeling about yourself. You consider all definitions other than your own to be “inaccurate”, and you consider all approaches other than your own to be “irrelevant”. The issue is whether we do or do not have free will, and I get the feeling you do not really understand that the answer depends on the definition and the approach we adopt.-ROMANSH: Another common test is ... could have I done otherwise?
For a choice I might be able to see several possibilities or courses of action. I feel like I can choose any of them ... I might even at the last moment choose an alternative I had not previously considered. But as I make the choice the question remains could I have done otherwise?
Now if my choice and subsequent action is a result of cause and effect then it is difficult to say I could have done otherwise. The constituent parts of my body respond to the chemistry and physics that make up the various processes going on in my brain.-The above is a direct repetition of the argument that if our choices are dictated by cause and effect, we do not have free will (= determinism). Quite right. However, there are other approaches to the subject which you consider to be irrelevant, just as you consider your definition to be the only accurate one. How many more times are we going to draw these circles?
 
DAVID: Those constituent parts don't control my ability to think and reason. My thoughts and reason are not material, but the chemistry and physics of my brain are, two different unexplained levels of reality from the brain. For my position, cause and effect, determinism don't apply.-Dualism is another approach to the subject, which I have discussed under “Different in degree or kind”. In view of all its religious implications, it is one that I have tried to avoid in this context, not least because eventually it would lead to subjects such as predestination. However, it shows that belief or disbelief in the existence of free will depends on the definition and the approach. I have now chosen to repeat this three times in one post. Could I have done otherwise? Do I have the ability to do otherwise? The answer seems to depend on the definition and the approach, doesn't it? Ts, ts, there I go again.