Thread: Do we really have a free will?

Ok, one quick last attempt from me and I'll quit.

Of course, just like the light from a light bulb, thoughts feelings and memories depend on the physical housing in order to exist - they require the opening and closing of the neural switches to create the patterns - the story. But thoughts and memories and feelings themselves are not physical things. Just as a story is not a physical thing. A book is, but not a story.

But really that has nothing to do with my main point.

My main point is just that if the influences are a part of me, then how is it not ME making the decisions? Once I've eaten and digested some food, and it's become part of the cells of my body, isn't it now a part of my body? Not something separate from it.

The part of me that makes decisions - the THINKING part of me - is not a physical thing. You can't hit it with a hammer.

And nobody understands how consciousness arises from matter! If I could explain THAT, then I'd have a Nobel prize!

Sageous - I'm sorry. I was being kind of an asshat, wasn't I?

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I'm not really trying to say thoughts transcend physicality. Of course, just like the light from a light bulb, they depend on the physical housing in order to exist But thoughts amd memories and feelings themselves are not physical things. They're qualia.

Right, and I made the point earlier that although there are plenty of things in the universe that seem to be more than physical, they are grounded in the material world. You don't seem to be arguing against the point that everything must have a material base in order to exist. But you keep saying that these things must be more than the some of their parts, which has implications you don't seem to be considering. If we look at the law of conservation of energy, it tells us that energy and matter can't be created or destroyed, only reused. You basically can't get more out than you put in. So to say that something can be more than the components that make it up, seems to violate some of the most fundamental laws of physics.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

My main point is just that if the influences are a part of me, then how is it not ME making the decisions?

I never made the claim that you don't make decisions. I've been saying all along that humans make choices. I was simply making the point that we can't realistically call our choices "free", since they are governed by factors we don't control. We might be the ones making the choices, but we're being forced into those choices by various forces that we can't fight against. There seems to be some inconsistency in what you have to say on this. On the one hand, you concede that there are countless influences that affect every decision we can make and that we have no way of escaping them, and on the other hand you say there are occasions when we can work around these influences and make free choices.

Originally Posted by Heavy Sleeper

Right, and I made the point earlier that although there are plenty of things in the universe that seem to be more than physical, they are grounded in the material world. You don't seem to be arguing against the point that everything must have a material base in order to exist. But you keep saying that these things must be more than the some of their parts, which has implications you don't seem to be considering. If we look at the law of conservation of energy, it tells us that energy and matter can't be created or destroyed, only reused. You basically can't get more out than you put in. So to say that something can be more than the components that make it up, seems to violate some of the most fundamental laws of physics.

I don't know why you keep using terms I never used like More than physical or Transcending the physical. All I've said is that thoughts are not physical, not that they're more.

"You basically can't get more out than you put in."

Since I haven't used words like more and transcend, this argument doesn't apply to anything I've said. I was not trying to say that the mental Self is some free-floating independent entity that can exist without a body or anything like that, or that it's anything more than thoughts memories and feeling etc.

Keep in mind, when I posted this it was to demonstrate that my influences become absorbed into my mind and become a part of my Self, therefore cannot be called influences anymore, but parts of me, just as the food I eat becomes part of my physical body and is no longer food. It's Me now.

Originally Posted by Heavy Sleeper

I never made the claim that you don't make decisions. I've been saying all along that humans make choices. I was simply making the point that we can't realistically call our choices "free", since they are governed by factors we don't control. We might be the ones making the choices, but we're being forced into those choices by various forces that we can't fight against. There seems to be some inconsistency in what you have to say on this. On the one hand, you concede that there are countless influences that affect every decision we can make and that we have no way of escaping them, and on the other hand you say there are occasions when we can work around these influences and make free choices.

Ok, it's clear that you're talking about what I call the hardcore definition of free will. Ive already said several times that I totally agree with you on that, but that that definition fails to describe anything that's relevant in reality, so I then went on to discuss this definition: "The ability to make choices free from external forces".

Those forces that are internal are a part of me, so there's nothing contradictory about being influenced by them. What I am is made up of those internal things, so how could I ever make a decision not influenced by them? The only meaningful way to discuss free will is using the definition I just posted, free of external forces. And obviously people frequently decide to do things against external forces, driven more by their internal forces.

I guess that's the gist of my argument, that sometimes the internal forces override the external.