Seconded. (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Wednesday, September 08, 2010, 14:11 (5189 days ago) @ romansh

ROMANSH: "Assume I had an unconscious want or will, and let's assume that this could be satisfactorily demonstrated that it independent of my environment and of the universe. Then this particular want could not be described as "free will" because it was an unconscious want, is this your intent?"-I wish you would make your example more concrete, but as it stands, I have no idea what you are trying to prove. This may be my fault, in which case I apologize in advance, but I will give you my response and you can then correct any misunderstandings.-First of all, I don't like your attempt to equate want with will. I take want to mean desire, whereas in this discussion we are using will as the part of the mind which takes conscious decisions. Your use of these terms can only confuse the issue.-Secondly, I don't see how any want, conscious or unconscious, can be satisfactorily demonstrated to be independent of the environment or the universe. What might I want consciously or unconsciously that is not within the universe? But that has nothing to do with the independence of the will. The will may determine whether or not a want is to be satisfied. To answer your question, if the want remains unconscious, then I certainly can't relate it to free will, which I believe can only work on a conscious level. It might, however, affect decisions made consciously. For instance, I may be offered a choice between chocolate and ginger, and although I have no idea what subconscious forces have fashioned my taste, I will feel that my choice of chocolate is made freely. -I'd like to return to the problem I raised in my post of 7 September at 12.37, as this post seems to reinforce it. (Again, though, that may be because I've missed your point.) You strongly agree that consciousness is integral to free will, and yet you're clinging to your own definition which excludes consciousness - my own definition of which you have accepted - as well as the internal factors that separate the owner of the ability from his/her/its environment. Furthermore, your phrase "independently of the environment or of the universe" seems to me far too ambiguous. On one level, nothing in life can be independent of the environment and the universe (hence your belief that you have defined free will out of existence), but on another the phrase can be interpreted as meaning actions or choices made independently of the direct influences imposed, for instance, by the laws of Nature or of society (hence David's initial acceptance of your definition, and see also my example of chocolate and ginger). I must admit that the discussion is immensely stimulating, and you are making me think very carefully about the subject, but I feel we are now going round in circles attacking/defending your definition when we could be digging deeper into the complex implications of my own. For instance, you have argued that if we do not have free will (i.e. if it is impossible ... using my terms ... to make conscious decisions independently of constraints beyond our control), "then our perception of consciousness is not what it seems." This cries out for further explanation. You wrote: "If we have no free will then what is my "self" that rattles around in my brain that thinks it does have free will?" That question alone may shed light on the degree of influence exercised by the uncontrollable constraints (e.g. our genetic make-up, the laws of Nature). We did run a thread on the subject of "identity", but I suspect that you and the rest of us can add a great deal to this. Time, then, to move on?