Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, November 15, 2020, 12:00 (1258 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.

dhw: 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?

DAVID: The seizure is beyond soul control and occurs without soul activity as an uncontrolled burst of unnecessary electric storm from a focus in the brain.

My question is not what the soul doesn’t do but what it does do, i.e. if the soul does the thinking and makes the decisions, why does the patient lose control and behave abnormally? Do you think the soul nods off during a seizure, or thinks to itself: this is weird but not much I can do about it?

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.

dhw: How about the controlling influence of our genes?

DAVID: What control are you thinking of? My genes set a substrate for my personality, but I control how I make my personality.

You said that, for example, your genes “help make IQ”. Do you think your intelligence level has no influence on your decisions? Do you think that decisions are not influenced by genetic disorders, or by other material factors such as diseases, accidents, physical traumas such as rape?

DAVID: The issue is control over the primary decision making. I will stick with my sense of full control.

What do you mean by “primary decision making”? The whole question is whether our decisions are free from factors beyond our control. I share your sense of full control, but I recognize that there are both material and immaterial factors that have shaped all my decisions and from which I am not free. And so I can say I do not have free will. On the other hand, I recognize that all those factors have contributed to the unique combination of qualities and defects that make up my unique identity, and so the decisions are taken by “me”. Apart from the limitations imposed by the situation and by my own capabilities, they are free from outside constraints that are not “me”. And so I can say I do have free will.