Free Will And Free Choice

[untermensche]

... you are definitely not a part of your brain.

Why not? Provide a counter argument.

I have dissected human brains.

Where are you?

Provide evidence?

 

[fromderinside]

In the wisdom bestowed by fitness the brain is designed to develop and nurture you, a process looking at the result of what the brain's activity has wrought. Don't ask for too much else it will be presented and you won't like it.

The only way you can approach what is you is to find material variables, make hypothesis using them, conduct experiments and gather data, examine, generate theory, conduct further study to verify, locate, and measure it, establishing material description of you that does not depend on you.

What you want to do, your argument suggests, is to rationalize. You do so by you looking at you. By so doing you become self looking at self thereby becoming a part of a self serving experiment. Doing so thus leaves a self bias. Do you understand?

 

[DBT]

If the brain makes all decisions then nothing you say has any meaning.

How do you exist apart from the brain? A soul or spirit?

How do you know if something is true unless you have the freedom to examine ideas and accept some ideas and reject others?

To reject an idea is just as much an act of the will as moving a finger.

How do you examine material soul or spirit? How do you determine their existence? How do you understand the role these play in decision making?

How would a non material soul make decisions? How does it explain human behaviour?

 

[DBT]

How do you know if something is true unless you have the freedom to examine ideas and accept some ideas and reject others?

To reject an idea is just as much an act of the will as moving a finger.

I'm asking you to support your idea. If you are making a claim for the reality of soul or spirit, non material entities, you need to support your claim. Otherwise it's just a claim.

Did you say that or was it just a reflex you have no control over?

You avoided the question. Why did you do that?

 

[untermensche]

How do you know if something is true unless you have the freedom to examine ideas and accept some ideas and reject others?

To reject an idea is just as much an act of the will as moving a finger.

How do you examine material soul or spirit? How do you determine their existence? How do you understand the role these play in decision making?

How would a non material soul make decisions? How does it explain human behaviour?

You are desperately avoiding the question.

You want to talk about souls for some reason.

You claim to not have free will.

Free will includes the ability to decide if an idea is good or bad.

Without free will a zombie merely think ideas are good because they are forced to think it.

No free will then no meaningful judgements or opinions.

You simply have no clue what "no free will" means.

 

[untermensche]

Did you say that or was it just a reflex you have no control over?

You avoided the question. Why did you do that?

I have free will.

 

[fromderinside]

Momentary pause for levity.

Untermensche, are you a duck.

 

[untermensche]

An unfree entity has no clue what anything is.

Nothing an unfree entity says has any meaning.

It s just something they are forced to say.

Only something with free will knows something.

Knowing is an act of the will.

 

[DBT]

How do you know if something is true unless you have the freedom to examine ideas and accept some ideas and reject others?

To reject an idea is just as much an act of the will as moving a finger.

How do you examine material soul or spirit? How do you determine their existence? How do you understand the role these play in decision making?

How would a non material soul make decisions? How does it explain human behaviour?

You are desperately avoiding the question.

You want to talk about souls for some reason.

You claim to not have free will.

Free will includes the ability to decide if an idea is good or bad.

Without free will a zombie merely think ideas are good because they are forced to think it.

No free will then no meaningful judgements or opinions.

You simply have no clue what "no free will" means.

I have avoided no questions. The issue comes down to agency. All the evidence points to brain agency, that it is the brain that acquires and processes information and selects options based on sets of criteria.

The decisions that are made are determined by the information state of the brain in any given moment in time.

You on the other hand invoked something non material, non detectable: soul or spirit....and when you were asked to explain, you avoided the question.

 

[untermensche]

There is no evidence of "brain agency". There is no evidence the brain is experiencing what the mind is experiencing.

Nobody ever spoke to a brain.

There is only evidence of mind agency.

You have no idea what "truth" is.

Without free will there is no such thing as truth.

Truth is a judgement.

If you are not free to make judgements they are just forced conclusions and have no meaning.

You know not of what you speak.

 

[DBT]

An unfree entity has no clue what anything is.

Nothing an unfree entity says has any meaning.

It s just something they are forced to say.

Only something with free will knows something.

Knowing is an act of the will.

Knowing is a process carried out by a means. Will is not the means.

 

[DBT]

There is no evidence of "brain agency". There is no evidence the brain is experiencing what the mind is experiencing.

Nobody ever spoke to a brain.

There is only evidence of mind agency.

You have no idea what "truth" is.

Without free will there is no such thing as truth.

Truth is a judgement.

If you are not free to make judgements they are just forced conclusions and have no meaning.

You know not of what you speak.

So according to you the brain is merely there for decoration? Fill the void in the skull? Act as receiver for your inexplicable soul or spirit? How does that work?

You haven't explained a thing. You just make statements.

 

[untermensche]

What is truth?

We are in a philosophy forum.

Is it possible for a mind to have a truth without that mind having the freedom to make judgements?

A judgement is a decision whether or not an idea is sound or unsound.

What would truth mean to something that did not the freedom to make judgements?

I am talking about the lack of intellectual freedom and the implications of that position.

Not talking about souls.

Unfortunately there is not a mind at this board that cares about the implications of an unfree mind.

 

[fromderinside]

And again, Untermensche, some thing is made of nothing because the one thinging can't accept she has attributes designed to produce outcomes of which she is aware using systems she has for communicating, sensing, responding, and decision making. The brain is the primary structure her kind has evolved, mostly over the past eight million years, to accomplish these outcomes.

I don't blame her really. After all those who originally tried to move beyond "cognito ....." made the same mistake as Descartes by attributed things for capabilities and activities.

Thinking, experiencing, being aware and conscious, are all serious capabilities, The thing they aren't is things.

 

[DBT]

What is truth?

We are in a philosophy forum.

Is it possible for a mind to have a truth without that mind having the freedom to make judgements?

A judgement is a decision whether or not an idea is sound or unsound.

What would truth mean to something that did not the freedom to make judgements?

I am talking about the lack of intellectual freedom and the implications of that position.

Not talking about souls.

Unfortunately there is not a mind at this board that cares about the implications of an unfree mind.

You reject science, make vague references to non material things, souls/no souls, quantum fluctuations or whatever, but cannot offer even a rudimentary explanation for your beliefs.

 

[fromderinside]

What is truth?

We are in a philosophy forum.

Is it possible for a mind to have a truth without that mind having the freedom to make judgements?

....

You reject science, make vague references to non material things, souls/no souls, quantum fluctuations or whatever, but cannot offer even a rudimentary explanation for your beliefs.

We agree we are at a philosophy forum. No philosophy would be coherent without accounting for what we know. References to science falls under "what we know". A good philosophy need be informed by what we know to be meaningful.

A philosophy that 'creates' categories for capabilities is self referential with no justification for being so. One can explain such as mind as a capability without referring to self. We know to what we perceive, attend, sense, experience, identify as self and consciousness, are capabilities produced through brain processes and their interactions with the world and one's body.

We do so by characterizing those processes with observable, therefore testable, material data via experiment, developing material theory through a procedure known as the scientific method. The scientific method is the tool system of understanding building developed by philosophers for such endeavor.

IOW your complaints are not warranted.

 

[untermensche]

An unfree entity has no clue what anything is.

Nothing an unfree entity says has any meaning.

It s just something they are forced to say.

Only something with free will knows something.

Knowing is an act of the will.

Knowing is a process carried out by a means. Will is not the means.

Third rate nonsense.

 

[untermensche]

What is truth?

We are in a philosophy forum.

Is it possible for a mind to have a truth without that mind having the freedom to make judgements?

A judgement is a decision whether or not an idea is sound or unsound.

What would truth mean to something that did not the freedom to make judgements?

I am talking about the lack of intellectual freedom and the implications of that position.

Not talking about souls.

Unfortunately there is not a mind at this board that cares about the implications of an unfree mind.

You reject science, make vague references to non material things, souls/no souls, quantum fluctuations or whatever, but cannot offer even a rudimentary explanation for your beliefs.

You have no science.

You have subjective guesses about the timing of invisible events.

From this you make absurd claims.

You have no ability to think philosophically.

You have no clue what is necessary to have a valid opinion.

Freedom!

 

[untermensche]

We agree we are at a philosophy forum. No philosophy would be coherent without accounting for what we know. References to science falls under "what we know". A good philosophy need be informed by what we know to be meaningful....

To "know" requires the freedom to accept some ideas and reject other ideas.

You can't "know" anything is true unless you have the absolute freedom to say "That is not true".

But all we "know" for certain are our experiences.

All else is speculation of the mind.

 

[DBT]

What is truth?

We are in a philosophy forum.

Is it possible for a mind to have a truth without that mind having the freedom to make judgements?

A judgement is a decision whether or not an idea is sound or unsound.

What would truth mean to something that did not the freedom to make judgements?

I am talking about the lack of intellectual freedom and the implications of that position.

Not talking about souls.

Unfortunately there is not a mind at this board that cares about the implications of an unfree mind.

You reject science, make vague references to non material things, souls/no souls, quantum fluctuations or whatever, but cannot offer even a rudimentary explanation for your beliefs.

You have no science.

You have subjective guesses about the timing of invisible events.

From this you make absurd claims.

You have no ability to think philosophically.

You have no clue what is necessary to have a valid opinion.

Freedom!

It has nothing to do with me. You reject science. You reject the work of those who work in the field.

You are not qualified, yet you flippantly dismiss anything that goes against your unsupported beliefs,

Worse, you have no explanation or working model of mind, decision making or 'free will' - you just make unfounded declarations.