My argument is that if the thoughts in my head were not caused by me, there would be no me to have them, — Pantagruel

That's a claim. There's no argument for that claim.

I think the short answer, in the context of this argument, is that there'd be no you. Without free will, there can be no attribution (of thoughts, experiences etc.) so there is no self. — Echarmion

We could say, "Without free will, there can be attribution (of thoughts, experiences, etc.), so there is a self."

Or in other words, that's not actually an argument for the position, it's just an arbitrary, unsupported claim. We could do the same thing in either direction.

It isn't a "claim" it's the definition of thinking. What you are proposing is absurd.
A reductio ad absurdum to be precise.

the definition of thinking. — Pantagruel

Per what source?

LIke I said, Descartes, the "father of modern philosophy"

Anyway, I'm sorry that you (that is the 'you' that is the cause of the rather repetitive objections appearing here) feel so strongly in disagreement. As I said, let us (as in 'me' and whichever 'you' it is that I am attempting to dialogue with) agree to disagree. [politely ends this particular conversation].

LIke I said, Descartes, the "father of modern philosophy" — Pantagruel

Where does Descartes say anything resembling, "I define 'thinking' as follows: if the thoughts in my head were not caused by me, there would be no me to have them"?

Also, I don't agree to disagree. I want to help you make your arguments (or "arguments" as the case may be) not a complete mess. I'm not agreeing to stop that effort.

You're going to have to go beyond 17th century philosophy to have a sensible conversation re free will. At least try engaging with critics who have.

What's wrong with 17th century philosophy exactly?

I didn't make a generalised evaluation of 17th century philosophy but a context-specific comment. The discussion won't be of any reasonable quality and may be closed if it goes on like this. Ball in your court.

Well, first, you assume that I haven't done any further reading, which I have. That fact that you would in any way denigrate the quality of a work based on it's age is, I think, very narrow-minded and suggests to me that perhaps you have not done as much reading as you might.

A few of the 'modern' books from my own library are listed below. Of course this isn't everything I have read on the subject:

Merleau-Ponty - Phenomenology of Perception
Chalmers - The Conscious Mind
Rorty - Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
Dennett - Consciousness Explained
Churchland - A Neurocomputational Perspective
- Matter and Consciousness
Searle: - Mind: A Brief Introduction
- Rediscovery of the Mind
Kornblith(ed) - Naturalizing Epistemology
Neumann - Origins and History of consciousness
Beakley(ed) Philosophy of Mind: Classical problems/Contemporary issues
Posner - Foundations of Cognitive Science
Varela - The Embodied Mind
Valentine - Conceptual Issues in Psychology
Fodor - The Modularity of Mind
Maturana - The Tree of Knowledge: Biological roots of human understanding

I'm not including Bergson, Huxley, Dewey, you know, anyone who might be too "old" for you....

I would suggest you close the topic. :)

What you have or haven't read isn't necessarily relevant to my original comment.



Ok. There's significant overlap with the other free will discussion anyway