Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, November 27, 2020, 18:21 (1457 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Again total muddle. The schizophrenic brain forces the soul to have schizophrenic thoughts. The soul can only think with the form of brain it has to work with: sick brain, sick thoughts created by the soul working through it and getting the result it is forced to accept.

dhw: Why on earth (as opposed to heaven, or wherever dualists’ souls go to after death) do you need a soul if it is the brain that dictates how the soul thinks? If the brain determines the nature of thoughts, it stands to reason that the brain is the source of the thoughts!

Please think if the brain as a tool the soul uses, a point you seem to miss. In schizophrenia the soul's proper thoughts are translated into psychotic thought. The sick brain cannot handle the soul's thoughts properly so they appear distorted.

dhw:This argument makes total nonsense of your concept of free will: “the soul can only think with the form of brain it has to work with”, so clever brain, clever thoughts; stupid brain, stupid thoughts; warped brain, warped thoughts. And these conditions don’t influence your decisions? You could hardly have a more devastating rebuttal of free will (we’ll leave dualism out of it for the time being)

You are simply following your weird concept of the soul/brain arrangement. Each individual with a damaged/incompetent brain expresses his free will within those limits.

dhw: But there is another option:

dhw: Whether you think your will is free or not depends on which of these approaches you take: 1) you are not free from all the causes that have made you what you are and that therefore influence your decision (no free will); 2) you are what you are, regardless of the influences, and it is you who take the decision, and nobody else. You are free from all constraints other than those of the situation and of your own limitations. (You have free will). I still can’t see why you refuse to acknowledge that belief in free will depends on what you think the will is free from.

DAVID: I don't agree. As time passes I can think and analyze about all my past influences, and choose to ignore them. I can be what I wish to be. […]

dhw: If you actually know ALL your past (and present) influences, you are the superest of all Supermen.

No. I'm just trained in psychiatry to enough degree that I have analyzed myself and also with outside help. You can see the past and change.

dhw: And I must now add that if your “soul” can only think with the form of brain it has to work with, then the brain will determine what you wish to be.

See above. We all have limits. I'm not the genius Einstein was. As I've noted in the past the complexity of one's concepts depends on the complex ability of one's brain to allow their production. What you miss is all of us/souls can think with our brain to its limits. The quality of brain limits folks ambitions. I can't replicate Einstein. I can't write plays, but I have become freely what I wished within my limits. Limiting free will does not mean my will is not free within those limits. So I will agree with you in a limited way. We all have limits to our desires about our possible accomplishments in life.