Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, November 11, 2020, 11:09 (1255 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: What we call our will cannot exist without consciousness, and nobody knows the origin of consciousness. Simply stating that it is immaterial does not prove that it is not the PRODUCT of materials, and it certainly doesn’t prove that there is such a thing as the soul. Although in a “specific sense” I can agree with Aquinas’s reasoning (see later), the neuroscience proves absolutely nothing. The case against free will is not confined to materialism versus dualism, but encompasses all the influences that shape our decisions and over which we have no control: to what extent are our reactions to choice determined by our genes, our upbringing, our chemical composition, diseases, accidents, experiences etc.? We may feel that our decisions are our own, because the influences are subconscious, but that feeling is hardly a reason for saying that our decisions are “free”, and it ignores the chain of cause and effect, which led Romansh to define free will out of existence, along the lines of the ability to take decisions independently of the universe. (I can’t remember his exact words.)

During those discussions, I defined free will as “an entity's conscious ability to control its decision-making process within given constraints”, the latter comprising constraints “imposed by the environment and our own limitations”. (e.g. our free will cannot enable us to walk out of prison, or flap our arms and fly). If we lay emphasis on all the influences known and unknown that shape our decisions, then I would say it is very difficult to defend the concept of free will, but if we follow Aquinas’s reasoning – regardless of materialism versus dualism – we can say that all the influences,including those that are material, are what constitute our singular identity, and so it is the unique “I” and nobody else who takes the decisions. The problem of defining "free will" is not the word "will" but the question of free from what?

DAVID: I do not follow the logic of the bolded statement, especially the colored material phrase. Certain choices are purely immaterial, such as my affection for you, which at times other readers may suspect. That is Aquinas point. He has removed the material from the issue. He sees our will as free from the material, as I do, for certain decisions, as the tempting slice of cake tells us.

Our act of choosing is immaterial, but the influences that make us choose what we choose may be material (e.g. our genes, our chemistry, our current state of health). However, the rest of my bold supports Aquinas, because both the material and the immaterial influences have produced our singular identity, and so it is “I” who choose, and nobody else chooses for me. My definition leaves open the question of whether we do or don’t have free will, and as I said at the end of my post, it all depends on what we are free from. Again, if you mean free from influences beyond our control, I’d say we do not have free will. But if you mean that our decision is free from all constraints other than those imposed by the situation or by our own limitations, then I’d say we do have it.