Free will again (Humans)

by dhw, Thursday, March 08, 2012, 19:45 (4642 days ago) @ BBella

BBELLA: I'm wondering if there isn't a confusion about just what's being discussed in this article and what we were discussing before. For me, when I identify with the observe within, I do not become self-conscious and begin to act unnaturally. I feel I actually become more natural. I don't know.-Our original discussion was on free will, but then you and Matt began to swap notes on meditation, and Romansh revived the Susan Blackmore article, which seems to me nothing but a series of reflections on different levels of consciousness, though she doesn't even mention levels. She only talks of being "conscious", or "fully aware", and ends up not knowing whether she is / has been "conscious" or not. Conscious of what? Presumably of being conscious. But I'm not sure myself what she's actually trying to say, and would be interested to know what you think she's getting at. -You wrote earlier: "Thought can't be controlled. Only what you choose to focus on can be controlled." That is not only an insight into the possible nature of free will (if it exists), but also sums up the targeted nature of your own thinking about consciousness. I can't see any such focus in the Blackmore article. I see nothing there except a pointless reiteration of the fact that she doesn't know how conscious she is.
 
My own further reflections were not about her article as such, but about the dangers of too much self-awareness. Self-conscious is a good expression here, because it entails awareness of the self combined with insecurity and even embarrassment. (I'm afraid I also find Susan Blackmore's style embarrassingly self-conscious, but that is a matter of taste.) My use of "deadly" was indeed a reference to the actor's career, but I think that is a very good example both of levels and of the problem of excessive self-awareness. I'd put this on a par with what I've called the philosophical level of thinking, which leads to a similar loss of security ... nothing is certain, nothing is real. If Susan Blackmore's students run around wondering whether they are conscious or not, they will end up not perceiving objects but only perceiving themselves perceiving objects. However, perhaps I really have misunderstood the whole piece.
 
*******-I've just read the free will article David has pointed out to us, and also some of the (mainly sceptical) comments. One (Matthew Bowen) argues that there is no space left for free will without recourse to the supernatural (e.g. dualism). "Supernatural" is a term I'd like to see abolished, since none of us know the full extent of what is natural. In any case, since when has the case for materialism been proven?