It's meaningful to talk about free will. — icosahedron
Answering the Sam Harris objection about predicting our choices before we become aware of them. — icosahedron
From a 3rd person perspective the body, feelings, mind, thoughts, actions are just "happening" — Yohan
Except that isn't the case.[/quote]Except that isn't the case. You read the above, you thought about it, you referred to past thoughts and experiences, decided what you wanted to convey, thought about it, worded it in what you thought we be an efficacious way again based on past experience, and posted the above. There is a distinct process A > B > C > D in what you did that involved weighing up alternatives and choosing relative to your frame of reference, i.e. based on your experience and reasoning capabilities, whittled down all possibilities to one without external bias. — Kenosha Kid
You can't actually excape the first person perspective. — Yohan
This is more explicit but still not explicit enough. What is the reasoning behind the inference from atoms not having free will to the brain and the mind not having one? There are many properties which parts of the object do not posess yet the object posesses. Think about a digital image of a dog. The image is composed of bits, 0s and 1s. None of the bits have the property of portraying dog. Is it reasonable to infer that the image itself does not portray a dog? Of course not. So there must be something different in the case of the brain and the atoms. As we already discussed, the burden of proof is on the objector to bring about the explicit contradiction. If there is one, it's well hidden. — icosahedron
The brain is a container full of chemicals. When the brain goes from state A to state B those chemicals just act according to the laws that govern chemical reactions whether deterministic or random. So how is this different from any other bowl of chemicals? — flaco
So we generally want one of these descriptions to "win" and be the "real" description — Mijin
We have to take responsibility for the consequences of our decisions. — flaco
If you are suggesting that we have to let the conclusions of free-will and no-free-will coexist, then I'm in agreement. — flaco
Perhaps, logically, the concept of free will is garbage. But I get this very strong feeling that I am making decisions. — flaco
1. It's possible to talk and reason about a concept without having a precise, rigorous definition of the concept. — icosahedron
2. It's meaningful to talk about free will. — icosahedron
People understand what is meant by free will, which is why they are able to have meaningful discussions about it. — icosahedron
In grade school you have probably reasoned about numbers like 1,2,3, and how they interact. Did the teacher provide you with a definition of these numbers? No. You intuitively understood what they meant from examples. — icosahedron
If some fact or statement is immediately perceived to be true then it's reasonable to believe the statement unless you have a valid reason to doubt your perception. — icosahedron
In this argument we have already achieved something that I've never seena anyone else arguing for free will achieve before, at least not explicitly. We have completely turned the tables of the argument. We made it so that the burden of proof is on the objector of free will to give a valid reason to doubt my perception of free will. — icosahedron
5. There is no rational reason to prefer determinism over indeterminism. — icosahedron
Quantum mechanics does NOT show that the universe is indeterministic, but it does destroy all hope to prove determinism through laws of physics. — icosahedron
6. Answer to the objection "But determinism does not give you free will. It only gives you randomness, and free will cannot arise from randomness, nothing about randomness is free, it's just random." — icosahedron
7. Answering the Sam Harris objection about predicting our choices before we become aware of them. — icosahedron
A: The aim is to show that if one feels that one has free will, then it is rational for them to believe they have free will. Indeed, the argument will show that it is more rational to believe one has free will than the opposite. — icosahedron
Free will may be defined as the ability of a person to choose, the ability to have control over their future. — icosahedron
I regularly spend time thinking about how to improve my own future which would make no sense in a worldview where I am not able to influence my own future (for example, in a worldview where everything is already predetermined). — icosahedron
5. There is no rational reason to prefer determinism over indeterminism. — icosahedron
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