So, what's the point? You want something that you won't get. The free will doesn't always get what it wants. We want some things we won't ever get. When we adjust to this, maybe we put our attention toward the desired objects which are more reachable. Nothing about "free will" says we have to get everything we desire.
If that must follow this as a matter of natural law how can there be free anything?
So again you're saying "free" can never be -- no "free" anything, by definition, so you're defining it out of existence.
But you can't just eliminate a word from the language and proclaim that this word can never be used in a true sentence, which is what you're proclaiming.
No. It's "free" if the "that" which follows is something which is wanted by the subject, and this subject is conscious and selects the "that" -- regardless what drove the selecting process.
If that's not what makes something "free," then what does? You can't just dictate that nothing ever anywhere in the universe was "free" or acted freely because any such thing is inherently impossible. There has to be at least a hypothetical possibility of something somewhere being free, depending on the facts.
Put in all the interveners you can muster. Not going to free up that from this ever.
Who needs to "free up" anything? If we want it and select it while being conscious, that's CHOOSING it freely regardless what predetermines the selecting.
In some cases we want the "that" and in other cases we don't want it. That it's predetermined is beside the point -- that doesn't mean it's contrary to our free will. If we wanted it and it happened and we were conscious and selected it -- then it was a free-will choice that was satisfied -- who cares what might have caused the selection? But if we wanted it not to happen and it happened anyway, then our free will was not satisfied, or it was frustrated by the reality. Both "free" and "not free" have to be real possibilities, which may or may not happen, depending on the facts.
Our selecting it can be one of the causes which determined the "that" -- regardless what may have caused the selecting it or our desire which led to the selecting. So our selecting per se does make a difference, as one of the causes.
Throw in all the intervening "causes" you can muster -- that does not erase the choosing and consciousness happening, even if the desiring and choosing etc. itself was driven by earlier causes.
"Free will" does not mean we must eradicate all causes and produce a result which had no causes making it happen. I.e., it does not mean our producing the result was not caused by anything.
Oh. It's psychology.
Call it what you want. Maybe something is "causing" the free will. So what? Free will or free choice is still real even if something prior is causing it. No matter whether you call it "psychology" or some other name.
Actually it isn't. Psychology is as derivative as is "free will".
Who cares if it's "derivative"? it doesn't matter if the cause of free will is also caused. Let's assume EVERYTHING is derived from something earlier -- psychology causing free will, but psychology also caused by something earlier still. So what? All of it is real. There's nothing delusional about it, or unreal, just because it's caused by something earlier. You can't just say everything caused by something earlier has to be unreal.
Believe me I know. I was trained as one of those. If you're going to have an argument with yourself you aren't talking about free will you are talking about individual uncertainty given the state of the way things are in your mind which isn't the condition of things are at time=0.
I plead guilty to not knowing what your cliché "time=0" means or its relevance to free will. Anything which happens earlier could be a cause of what happens later. That should be obvious, without the pseudo-technical jargon. If a "free choice" or consciousness of something was caused by something happening in the brain, that's fine. But if that brain impulse-cause itself was also caused by something earlier, then that earlier cause could even itself be an earlier conscious moment, which then could help cause the later brain impulse causing the later "free choice" or later consciousness.
So an earlier consciousness moment could itself cause a later brain impulse which in turn caused a later conscious moment and free choice, and there's no way to dictate what is the ULTIMATE ABSOLUTE CAUSE of everything else but which itself was not caused. And so the "free choice" is just as real as anything which happened in the causal chain, no matter how far back you try to trace the causes earlier and earlier.
Such earlier cause-tracing is irrelevant to anything (except that it's always fine for scientists to trace causes back and back further and further) -- it does not change the fact that a "free choice" happened, or "free will" happened in choosing to do this rather than that, as we normally assume in everyday practical decisions, and also in legal and business choices, where we say it was a "free" choice we made, or that we acted "freely" rather than being forced, and so assign responsibility onto individuals for their choices.
So every time you insert this "time=0" cliché, it's irrelevant to anything. It doesn't refute free will anymore than it refutes gravity or space or time or causality or pigeons or trees or whatever you think you're refuting by just tossing in this cliché over and over again.
Your consciousness is a near time history of what you believe, given what you can't know which is how things are at time t=0.
OK, let's assume that's what consciousness is. Fine, and when that's combined with a choice or selection process an individual does, to choose one option over another -- and especially when that consciousness happens earlier than the actual ACT selected (which is often the case) -- then that selection is a free choice or an act of free will by that person.
Why isn't that a FREE WILL act, as long as it happens along with consciousness and is not a subconscious motion done by muscle reflex?
We explicitly cannot have free will because we can't know the way things are at time=0.
Yes we can explicitly have free will, regardless what we don't know, as long as we know at the moment of an act that we're doing that act. You cannot dictate that no conscious moment ever precedes a later selected action. When one is conscious of the action at the time of the action (or prior) and selection of it, then it's a free-will act.
It's free will because the act chosen happened while we were conscious, regardless of your "time=0" cliché. If you can't explain what this cliché has to do with anything, then it's irrelevant. You need to advance beyond the pure semantics jargon level and explain your point in normal plain language, saying what it is about the timing and the causing which makes it unfree.
There are infinite time points going back farther and farther. There is no Absolute Ultimate Divinely-Established "time=0" point for each decision we make. Every earlier point where a cause happened was preceded by still earlier points, so this "time=0" cliché is incoherent empty jibber-jabber.
Ergo we can't know how things are thereafter as a matter of natural law.
But there is no One Absolute Ultimate "thereafter" which means anything. Natural law does not establish any such "time=0" Absolute Ultimate Supreme Starting Point as you imagine. Any particular act or time point is just as primary as any other, with none being the Absolute Original "time=0" Starting Point for anything else.
You are working in a subjective mode when you construct your 'free will' in your consciousness.
Call it "subjective" or any other term which makes you feel good. A choice (or selection) happens and there's consciousness along with it -- Bingo! that's
free will regardless whether it's "subjective" or other label you put on it.
A recent personal, mostly internal, status of your available information for inclusion in conscious experience from those wonderful fantasy subjective things you believe - another big meaningless subjective word to human understanding of material existence which you probably call reality - exist.
You can string out a long line of jibber-jabber jargon clichés thru 100 or 1000 Walls of Text (even longer than mine), but that still does not eliminate the reality of consciousness happening at time points which precede some later choices to act, and as long as that act happened simultaneously along with consciousness of it, that was a free-will act, or a free choice.
Doubling down on subjective explanation does not rise to the level of material evidence.
There's no need for "evidence" when all the facts are agreed to by everyone. You have never denied that "selections" are made by humans, so selection is a fact; and you've never denied that consciousness does exist in humans, and that it happens at various time points including times earlier than other points where action was selected and performed.
So your facts are the same as mine, meaning no "evidence" is needed. Humans do perform acts, which happen following a point of consciousness where the selection happened.
You have no "evidence" of anything, except maybe that something happens somewhere without the subject knowing about it, and so there is a non-conscious causal element somewhere. But that does not eliminate the consciousness elements also there which preceded an action which was selected. It's beside the point that some other elements happened at some point and were not known or were non-conscious. Unknown things happen -- so what? How can we possibly claim to be fully aware of everything in the universe going on?
That there are some unknowns in life does not refute free will. Of course there could be other non-conscious elements happening which also are part of the causal chain. That does not refute free choice or free will in those cases where we made a selection and we were conscious of making that selection -- regardless whatever else may have caused something or that we didn't know about.
It's OK to say that the "free" aspect of it is reduced if the knowledge or understanding or awareness is less, but that doesn't mean there is no free choice. More "aware" can mean more "free" and greater responsibility for one's choice. So there may be DEGREES of free choice, rather than just two black-and-white conditions of "free" and "unfree" choice.
Here's a clue. Replace all those words you use as reason with materially defined operations. If you have anything left, that is the starting point for providing empirical material argument.
How about the choice to get a COVID 19 vaccination. It's a free choice, or free-will choice. This "materially defined" operation began with information received about the need, and then making an appointment, then going to the location, and having the needle inserted.
But if I'm forced to be vaccinated and was unwilling, then much of the above still happened but it was not a free choice. That "free" choice required a desire plus consciousness of the selection = free will. But minus the desire or the consciousness of it = NOT free will.
If it's imposed by someone external, with a threat of reprisal of some kind, then it's not "free" but is forced. How does that not distinguish (using "materially defined operations") between an act done with free will vs. an act done contrary to free will?
Your only "starting point" or "materially defined operations" is your jargon by which you make "free will" an impossibility by definition or tautology, arguing that it's impossible because it's impossible.
Ah jeez. I just read your 'argument' to DBT. You didn't do anything except take your current position and justify it by adding uncertainty to where humans might have achieved free will.
Yes, it's the KNOWLEDGE which typically separates the human from the non-human animal. If the animal doesn't know what's happening, and it makes a response out of non-conscious impulse of some kind, then it's not free. So in some cases the same act by a human is a free choice but not by a non-human animal. However in other cases the act might also be free for an animal, if it knows what it's doing or is conscious of its selection. There's no need to absolutely rule out "free" acts also by animals.
Animals are behaving beings. If a modern construct is appended to such being there need evidence for that appending.
What's "modern" about an animal making a choice? We know (or our ancestors a million years ago knew) that a predator might "calculate" whether it's worth it to pursue a rabbit. We don't know for sure what the predator is thinking, but we have every indication that it can make short-term calculations, or predictions, and knows how fast that rabbit can run, or how much distance it must cover before finding it's safe place.
There's enough time in some cases for the predator to be conscious of what's happening and to take those facts into consideration. The non-human animal has a level of consciousness to be able to consider what it's choosing and what its prospects for success are.
We have "evidence" that the animal can choose just as we have "evidence" that humans make choices. We each know our own conscious decision-making better than we know someone else's, including another animal's decision-making. Just because we're less certain of it doesn't mean it isn't there. We're virtually certain that other humans make "free" choices, but probably even non-human animals make free choices too, in some cases -- being conscious of a selection they make and not being forced by someone.
No "modern construct" is needed to figure this out.
Coming up with a supreme being isn't going to get you to it. Since that is all that anyone has suggested as rationale then man has destroyed it by materially showing no being created man.
No one has "materially" shown that, but let's not change the subject. We know we have free will regardless whether there is a "supreme being" behind it all.
We don't need to know Ultimate Cause (or Causes) in order to recognize that free will exists, because we do make choices, regardless of the earlier causes or Ultimate Final Cause of it. That we make the choices is the only proof or "evidence" we need.
"Aware" is not an element of the time = 0 argument for determinism. There is no place to put aware between t = 0 and thereafter.
You cannot keep falling back on this "t=0" cliché. "Aware" is part of the reality we know. If we don't know "aware," then we don't know anything. If you claim there is no knowledge of anything and thus no science and no truth, then you cannot make statements or claims about anything, such as you're doing. If you banish "aware" from having any reality, then you are banishing every claim you yourself make, thus falsifying anything you're saying about "time=0" or about "aware" or about determinism or anything else.
Whatever comes thereafter is included in thereafter.
Free will is included as much as anything else is. The most you can be saying is that there is nothing included, anywhere -- no science, no facts, no evidence, nothing having any reality to it, including all your statements, and your computer screen, and this message board, and this topic -- it's all excluded as much as free will is. Because it's all "included in thereafter" as much as free will is and must be caused by something at "time=0" and so is no more real than free will.
Believe me including debunked beliefs doesn't make your argument any better.
Then why are you including them in your argument? All your beliefs are just as debunked as everyone else's.
Everything is "debunked" according to you, including anything you say about what makes an argument better, even anything you say about "debunked" beliefs. You can't name anything that is not "debunked" in your argument -- you've debunked all beliefs and all truths and all facts and all science. And you've debunked yourself and everyone you pretend to be saying this to, and everything anyone ever said or thought.
It just confirms you are trying to wedge a fiction into reality.
That's all you do, trying to wedge your debunked beliefs into reality, which obviously can't be done because there is no reality into which the fictions and debunked beliefs can be wedged. Your fictions and hallucinations of reality are no better than anyone else's. You can't verify anything you believe or show that somehow your fictions are real and someone else's are not.
Without our moments of consciousness (including memories) as our connection to reality, without all the facts/data our conscious moments accumulate for us, there's no reality for us to know or verify anything or judge between fact and fiction, as you're presuming to do, thinking you've confirmed anything.
Those moments of consciousness - train of consciousness stretching back (through quintillions of "t=0" moments) must be something real which can have causal impact on what we do later, regardless of other causal elements -- (there's millions of "causes" we don't know about) -- But if you debunk all the conscious stuff we know (because it's a product of "t=0"), then you've also debunked everything you claim to know, all the science or truth or fact you're preaching to others as if it was "the Real McCoy" but which is really just as "t=0" as everyone else's debunked beliefs.
"t=0" debunks everything you're saying just as much as it debunks anyone else's belief.
