Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, November 14, 2020, 11:54 (1470 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Seizures are bursts of improper electricity. Egnor's point is they never produce immaterial thought which suggests them Your bold makes the point.

dhw: Yes, my point being that since seizures affect the brain, causing loss of control or of consciousness, or strange behaviour, they do NOT suggest that there is an immaterial, abstractly thinking, decision-making soul.

DAVID: Exactly wrong. Seizures activate a brain without an active soul. For proper brain activation a soul is required, Egnor's point.

So what do you think the soul is doing during a seizure if the soul and not the brain is the source of our thoughts and our decisions?

dhw: Do you regard free will as meaning free from all the influences I have listed that have made you what you are? I don’t see how that is possible. Or do you mean that your decisions are yours and yours alone, free from constraints imposed on you by sources other than the situation and your own limitations? If so, then I agree with you and Aquinas that we do have free will.

DAVID: We are free to sort out our previous developed prejudice and biases and express new thought. My example: I was raised by parents as a liberal politically. I am now a Libertarian, very grossly different. Your last statement encompassed that approach with Aquinas, and in that I agree. I am completely free to change my mind, and so are you.

dhw: I have put both arguments across, depending on what you think “free will” is free from. You haven’t told us.

DAVID: Free will is completely free from material controls.

How about the controlling influence of our genes?

DAVID: Genes help make IQ, but not concepts.

dhw: Of course. And I suggest that our IQ is a major influence on how we make our decisions, and our genes are what we are born with, i.e. a material influence which is beyond our control and which we cannot be free from.

DAVID: But that doesn't tie up my expression of my will.

The problem is not the expression of your will, which is the implementation of your decision. The problem is why you take the decision in the first place. Are you telling us that your level of intelligence has no influence on your decisions? (NB: I am as usual open to considering both sides of the argument, and I have already explained why I think free will IS possible.)