Free will again (Humans)

by dhw, Sunday, March 18, 2012, 13:14 (4632 days ago) @ romansh

ROMANSH: Like Bella when I ask myself the question am I conscious, I too seem to awake. And if I think back on my days experience I realize I have not been been conscious or at least present - what ever that means. I have memories of my thoughts and perceptions. These are very scattered though. But until I ask that question I had not been consciously self aware.-Thank you for responding. "What ever that means" is what we're trying to find out! I'm tempted to ask if during the day you become a zombie. I don't mean that rudely. My point is that there are degrees or levels of awareness, and I just don't believe that you go through the day without being aware of what you are doing and perceiving. But being "consciously self aware" is a different level. In my correspondence with BBella, I suggested that small children are conscious/aware, but do not have the same levels of self-awareness that an adult has. They clearly know, for instance, that they're hungry, and they do what is necessary to satisfy their hunger. I don't think they consider different options, effects, influences, relationships etc. In our daily lives, we may well operate much of the time on a similar, lower level, but that doesn't mean we are not conscious.
 
ROMANSH: The point of the link was twofold, 1) if we have no free will then our consciousness is not what it seems. There is no independent me in my brain, and 2) if consciousness does not exist (at least in the sense we perceive it) then it pointless to have consciousness in our definition of free will.-If I'm to make sense of these two purely hypothetical statements (the reverse of which would be equally true), I need to know what consciousness "seems", and in what "sense we perceive it", and that requires definition. I perceive consciousness (it "seems" to me) as "awareness of one's surroundings and oneself". If that doesn't exist, I don't know how we are managing to conduct this correspondence. I perceive will as "the faculty of conscious and deliberate choice of action" (Collins). These definitions are valid for me, whether our will is free or not. If you disagree that the will (free or not) operates through consciousness, it would be very helpful to have your own definition of the two terms.
 
ROMANSH: The question Blackmore asks (for me) is there any difference between the awakened/present moment and the "less" conscious moments. The way I read Blackmore her answer is No. I can see why she says this.-"Less" conscious (why the inverted commas?) does not mean non-conscious. It confirms my argument that there are different degrees of consciousness. If you can see why there is no difference between lesser and greater degrees, e.g. between a child's awareness of hunger and what to do about it, and an adult's awareness of the different options, effects, influences etc.- not to mention the capacity for self-analysis - do please explain it to me!