Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 17, 2020, 12:18 (1246 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You forget that the soul – if it exists – uses the brain to gather information and to implement its thoughts. In the circumstances, one might have expected the soul to gather information that something has gone wrong with the brain, and dammit, the brain won’t implement the soul’s thoughts that this needs to stop. Have you heard of any patients reporting such thoughts during such seizures? That would really help the cause of dualism.

DAVID: Good point. You imply the possibility the soul separates from a sick brain and has independent experiences/thought as in an NDE. Not fitting the current theory. A sick brain distorts the soul's ability to think properly, as we have previously noted. In a seizure the soul is still brain dependent for experiences and thought. Clear thought/experience not possible.

I did not say independent experiences. I said the soul (if it exists) uses the brain to gather information and to implement its thoughts. It is the soul that does the thinking, not the brain. (Otherwise you couldn’t even have NDEs.) The fact that a diseased brain gives rise to diseased thought is a powerful argument against dualism.

dhw: You gave me the example of the IQ but proceeded to ignore it. Would you say your level of intelligence has had an influence on your decision-making?

DAVID: Sure it does, but my IQ is both inherited and developed by my own efforts to improve it. I'll stick with an intellect/personality 40% inherited, 40% experienced, and 20% self developed.

Since your intellect and personality are the decision-makers, already you can’t escape 40% of influences beyond your control!

DAVID: But the final effect is a decision today is influenced by all in the past freely taken into account and so the immediate decision is freely made.

How can it be freely made if your intellect and personality are 40% governed by influences beyond your control?

dhw: Once again, our view of whether we have free will or not depends on what we think we are free from. Influences that have shaped our personality? I say no. But we are free if we argue that it is our unique personality (including all those influences) that takes the decisions, and we are subject to no constraints other than the limitations imposed by the situation and/or our own capabilities (e.g. we cannot decide to flap our arms and fly).

DAVID: It looks as if we agree. The past influences the decisions we make freely in the present.

That is not my point. I simply cannot understand why you don’t acknowledge that whether we have free will or not depends on what you mean by “free”: free from influences beyond your control (= no free will), or free from outside constraints other than those imposed by the situation and/or your own capabilities (= free will).

DAVID: Romansh's point was our brain particles in action limited our free will since we depend upon them. I ignore that approach as not valid.

I have a very different memory of his approach, which was based entirely on the principle of cause and effect. I haven’t got time to look up his exact definition, but it was along the lines of decision-making independently of the universe. In other words, he defined it out of existence.