Things that exist in reality are always better than the things that only exist in our imaginations. — Harjas

Look at how animals behave. They're driven by what could be called emotions or, perhaps better, base desires. They're behavior consists of feeding and mating. Everything animals do can be reduced to the two activities I've mentioned. One might say that animals exercise choice in the type of food or mate but these two are modulated through the senses which are nothing more than chemical receptors. We don't attribute free will to an ameba whose activities are entirely controlled through chemicals do we? So, animals, clearly, lack freedom of will. Their choices are determined through signals that have never enter the light of consciousness.

Humans are animals too. If so then how can it be that we should be so different, invested as it were, with free will? We do engage in mating and feeding and in that we're the same as animals - driven by visual cues, taste, smell, etc.

Point to note is mating and feeding are pro-life i.e. preserves, nurtures, and propagates life. We engage in mating and feeding to prolong life or to bring new life into the world. So far so good.

However, humans have a distinct ability, not found in animals - we can do things that are detrimental to life. We can harm ourselves or choose a course in our lives that is painful and dangerous. This type of behavior is absent in animals. Does this mean we truly have free will? After all we can do something that is not driven by our base instincts. Surely this must mean something! — TheMadFool

No, that's not quite what I'm saying. The theory is that conciousness is the effect of the brain monitoring the stimuli it has received from all the different sources and expecting them to be coherent. That expectation is the sensation that we are one entity, aware of all our actions and responses. The evidence pretty clearly shows that we are not. Scientists can tell you 'you' are going to move your arm before you actually decide to move your arm, it's pretty irrefutable, it doesn't matter how hard it is for anyone to understand or get how such a thing might have evolved. 'You' are not in charge. — Pseudonym

According to known physics, the brain is a universal computing device. All such devices are equivalent. So, the program running on your brain (or any other universal computer) is the entity that creates consciousness as a feature. Consciousness, and free-will are software features, not hardware features.

Playing chess, is no more a feature of the computer hardware than consciousness is a feature of the brain. — tom

Yes, I agree. But you then have the tension between body and consciousness which this leads to improbable situation. This was subject of another thread. Please see the link in OP for further discussion.
— bahman

Why, when there is such a straight forward resolution? — tom

I cannot resolve the problem which stated in this thread and the other thread if I accept that the mind is byproduct of brain activity.
— bahman

The mind is a byproduct of brain activity in the same way playing Go is a byproduct of computer activity. — tom

It does seem utterly wasteful and counter-evolutionary to claim that consciousness and free-will are illusions. For this to work in evolutionary terms, then consciousness and the awareness of free-will must have a physical effect, which means that the illusions must be causal. — tom

So, we have certain illusions, that must be caused by something physical, that must cause something physical, that must render the illuded fitter for survival. Very odd indeed! — tom

Perhaps illusion is the wrong descriptor? — tom

i think what is most interesting about this is, who is making decisions? if every decision that is made is just a product of sub conscious that's very odd because everything that you have done up until this point has been chosen by something that you're not even aware of. — David Solman

the sub conscious is what acts first but it acts without your contribution and so what does this mean for us? are we even able to make a choice? does the brain create the illusion that we're making the decisions when in fact we play no part at all? and more importantly, who is pulling the strings? if all this true then what about the bigger picture, the population of the entire world experiences the same as i do and all of those decisions made by everyone to bring us to this point in human evolution has just been a product of zero conscious thought? — David Solman

is everyone is just riding a train to experience what our inner conscious feels is the right and wrong way to act? — David Solman

Sounds frightening. Sorry you had to experience that. :( — CasKev

One of the leading theories is that consciousness is simply the brain's model of all the competing stimuli-respone actions going on that it uses to keep track of everything.

The advantage of being able to 'watch over' these responses is (rather ironically) that illusory stimuli can be more easily identified as such because they do not concur with other stimuli. The only way the brain can do this (so goes the theory) is to 'expect' all received stimuli to concur. That feeling is what we describe as consciousness. — Pseudonym

Did you happen to capture any 'demon semen'? Sorry, couldn't resist! — CasKev

I continue to exist because I can't bear the thought of causing unwanted suffering in others, even though I would likely not be around to witness it. I also fear the result of a failed suicide attempt, ending up with an even worse set of circumstances (partial brain damage, paralyzation). — CasKev

That’s the post I was referring to. — Abdul

Its quite simple, our bodies do not follow our conscious decision. Our bodies follow the subconscious instruction, then we construct an illusion that we consciously instructed it. There's no mystery about the correlation. It correlates perfectly because the brain is making it up ten seconds after the event. It has all the benefit of hindsight to get the feeling exactly right. — Pseudonym

How do we 'know' this? When we see a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat it seems as if it has appeared from nowhere but that's definitely not the case. Just because it seems to us that we decide where our hand goes, doesn't mean we do. — Pseudonym

Brain scans have consistently been able to identify the neural instructions to move a hand as much as ten seconds before the subject actually 'intends' to do so. — Pseudonym

The monist argument is that free-will and consciousness are 'illlusions' that emerge from materialism, so your issue is simply that you hold to a dualist philosophy, and of course that is incompatible with materialism which is a monist philosophy. — Pseudonym

I am also interested in the phenomenon of guilt, but I think we should first learn more about it. Your question seems too simplistic to me. I started another thread where I hope people who know more on the subject will shed some light on what often plagues many of us. — Dalibor

What if the being can be both temporal and atemporal? Can there be such a thing? The temporal side of the being would be allowed to communicate with what the atemporal side knows and thus the knowledge is shared being both sides. This would give the atemporal (Jesus, for example) the same exact knowledge as a God that is not subject to time. — Abdul

The typical idea towards this, is a block universe "viewed from the outside" if you will.
As per above, I don't think this can be coherent if it includes "outside of time" observed by a mind.
Might not have to be atemporal, though, at least not necessarily, though the block universe usually includes all of time. — jorndoe

Might be more interesting if you had visions (plural) of someone/something entirely unknown to you, that you could then later verify/falsify independently. Make a statistic out of it. — jorndoe

If you slapped me in a dream, would you then expect me to have a bruise the next day in real life...? They're different kinds of experiences (from memory, I think it was Searle that had some good points on this stuff). — jorndoe

For someone so offended by those who claim something is simply 'true' when it is, in fact, a belief. You seem remarkably certain that consciousness is a real thing and not, for example, an illusion, as neurologists like Bruce Hood believe. — Pseudonym

Far from your overstated claim that materialism is impossible, all you're saying is that materialism is incompatible with a dualistic understanding of free-will. Well, no ever said it wasn't. — Pseudonym

It seems to me that without a dieus ex machina argument, consciousness must have evolved from matter, that consciousness must be a potential state of matter as configured by nature in its evolution over the eons. Matter must contain within itself the configuration potential to become spiritual, as a potential state of its being. I don't think there is logical alternative...or else how does the spiritual arise in the universe. — Cavacava

No.

You are trying to hard to make a case for determinism/materialism. Insignificant > 0. Electrons aren't even particles. — Rich

Now it's getting ridiculous. Zero support for this statement. But it's part for the course. If one is willing to make up a myth like Determinism why not call the Schrodinger equation deterministic. It's all an illusion anyway.

Nice talking to you. — Rich

I don't know what that feeling is.
If I have done something wrong, it is not because I knew it was wrong at the time. Had I know it would cause me negative feelings then I would not have done it.
Thus things that I accept that I have done wrong were not done intentionally. Guilt is not a valid response. Fixing the problem, such as explaining what has happened, or re-doing something and putting it right is how you deal with it. I cannot see how regrets or guilt would help. — charleton

Because it will prevent you from doing it again. — Purple Pond

So if we somehow find out what god knows we are going to do we are free to change the future? That would mean that god did not know the future. — Sir2u

The existence of a god that knows everything that is going to happen means that there is no free will.
if he knows your future from the day you are born then nothing can be changed, you have no decisions to take. — Sir2u

First, it tells you where the electric (not necessarily a particle) may probably be. Nothing is definite until it is observed. — Rich

Second, predicting the probability that an electron may be is a far, far, far .... cry from explaining the evolution of everything in the universe. Determinists have to really get a hold on their proclamations. — Rich

Suppose x is defined as atemporal, “outside of time”. Well, then there can be no time at which x exists. And there can be no duration involved, x cannot change, or be subject to causation, cannot interact, and would be rather inert. — jorndoe

If indeed god did actually tell them the future then he told them what WOULD happen not what COULD happen. There was no way they were allowed to change the future. — Sir2u

The only equations defining particle movements are the QM equations. They relate only to the evolutionary path of electrons and are probabilistic (indeterminate events). Now how does this explain how all matter evolves in all manner? They don't even explain electrons! They just predict!! — Rich

The only equations defining particle movements are the QM equations. They relate only to the evolutionary path of electrons and are probabilistic (indeterminate events). Now how does this explain how all matter evolves in all manner? They don't even explain electrons! They just predict!![
/quote]

That is correct. You have a Schrodinger equation which gives the evolution of the probability function. The probability function tells you where body is. So you have something which is moving based on laws of nature, body. — Rich

So what is it that you really have against "materialism"? — Harry Hindu

So what is it that you really have against "materialism"? — Harry Hindu