Consciousness: Horgan says it is real (General)

by dhw, Thursday, January 09, 2020, 11:14 (1778 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: This is my best, slam-dunk argument for free will. That doesn’t mean it always or even usually works. My students can be so stubborn! But I feel good making this argument, it convinces me. Usually. To be honest, I have doubts about free willnow and then. Sometimes I feel like I’m sleepwalking through life. I’m a confabulating somnambulist, a bundle of reflexes, twitches and compulsions with no self-knowledge, let alone self-control.

DAVID: A natural straight forward no nonsense view. The brain works in mysterious ways.

Natural perhaps, straightforward, no. We all think we have a choice. Some people think our choices are dictated by circumstances beyond our control (the endless chain of cause and effect) so our choice is predetermined by that chain – no free will. Alternatively, we can argue that the chain has made us what we are, but all our decisions are still our decisions and no one else’s – free will. I’m not surprised that his students are stubborn, especially after reading his conclusion. (Without self-control, how can you possibly have free will?) Maybe it would help him first to define what he means by “free will”. We had this discussion a few times with Romansh, who managed to define free will out of existence: “The ability to act or to make choices independently of the environment or of the universe.” My own definition was: “An entity's conscious ability to control its decision-making process within given constraints.”

I don’t understand why you have headed this thread “consciousness” when the subject is free will. May I please have your permission to change it?