Free Will: Egnor shows neurological proof (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, November 29, 2020, 19:22 (1455 days ago) @ dhw

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)

DAVID: Exactly!!! Your bolded phrase is correct!!! They limit your possibilities/range of thought. Sick brains force sick thinking. Limited brain caused limited thinking. The free will expression of thoughts will be sick and limited in a sick brain. Full and 'normal' free will requires a normal brain.

dhw: Aside from the problem of what constitutes “normal”, you’ve almost got it! But if the sick brain forces sick thinking, the determinist will tell you that your thinking is dependent on your brain, and so there is no such thing as free will, and since the nature of thought depends on the brain, the materialist/determinist will tell you that there is no such thing as the “soul”. (NB: as an aside, another form of determinism is religious: it argues that God knows everything, therefore he knows the future, therefore the future is fixed and we don’t have free will. But that too would come under Option 1: you can’t escape the influence of predestination!)

I don't care what a determinist thinks about the presence of the soul's relationship to the brain. I am answering from the viewpoint of my theory of dualism, and nothing more, and I don't care if determinists negate the soul. Egnor and I believe in the soul and present our thoughts from that viewpoint.

DAVID: Remember the person with a limited brain still has his own free will within the limits. No loss of free will theory.

dhw: Yes, that is option 2: we are our individual selves, and are free within the constraints of the situation and our own limitations.

Agree.

dhw: The incompetent brain is “you”, and “you” alone take your decisions with no constraints other than those of the situation AND YOUR OWN LIMITATIONS. Option 1 is that you cannot help having an incompetent brain – it is something you were born with, and it determines your decisions even if you don’t realize it – as is the case with innumerable other factors that have never been under your control (upbringing, disease, accidents, traumatic experiences imposed from outside yourself…)

DAVID: Agreed as it fits my exposition of brain neurology of thought.

dhw: Yes, you agree with option 2, as bolded.

Only as it fits my understanding of brain neurology as related to the soul.

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.

DAVID: 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, etc. etc. […] So I will agree with you in a limited way. We all have limits to our desires about our possible accomplishments in life.

dhw: You are agreeing with me in a total way. All this is option 2, as bolded above. And what you are missing is option 1. And our conclusion will depend on which of these approaches we adopt.

DAVID: As I interpret both your options, both are valid and correct. You are forced to use the brain you are given or develop in illness or whatever circumstance alters its function. But free will is still exercised within the old or new limits that appear.

dhw: Yes, both are valid and correct, and so your belief or disbelief in free will depends on which of the approaches you adopt. Thank you for agreeing with me at last! Egnor has “proved” nothing, and I think we can now close this thread.

Egnor's proof is totally valid in this discussion. His point still is if the brain is the lone creator of thoughts (sans soul), uncontrolled electricity from seizures entering the that are used for thinking should create thought and they do not. What is lacking is the driving force from the soul, the true originator of thought by using the brain circuits.

I haven't seen you disprove that considering neither he nor I care about determinism's dismissal of a soul at work.