VivaHedone

Even if there was some intangible 'soul', free will is still a logical impossibility. There will always be factors outside our control that determine the decision we come to. Our actions depend entirely on the structure of our brains, or, if you rather, souls. A perfectly logical being, for instance, would always make the decision that is logically right. Therefore he has no free will.

Even a god could have no free will. The Christian god would, if he exists, always take the right course of action, as he is benvolent and omniscient. His properties bind him to take this decision. Therefore he has no free will.

Clutch

Lob,

On the EoG forum, I have a thread in which I consider the prospects for straightforward psycho-physicalism to explain all the intuitive data about free will. (Ie, your beliefs and desires are neurological; and as long as you do what you want to do, you're free.) So far, nobody's given any reason to think otherwise.

Maybe the supplied framework will help you to express your ideas more directly.

Tercel

Something I am aware of having. Are you trying to say that you do not experience awareness of your awareness?

I perceive that I am making a rather basic observation.

That which I observe does not tally with my understanding of the laws of physics. I do not create "entirely new laws", I simply say that our current view is not sufficient to explain in principle, the observation.

You have a very strange understanding of "tangible". I've been in many arguments where I've thought the objections were stupid before, but this possibly takes the cake. You've even got a dictionary quote of what intangible means and you still don't get it.

Concrete is tangible. Computers are tangible. Food is tangible. Things which exist physically are tangible.
Love is not tangible. Ideas are not tangible. Maths is not tangible. Logic is not tangible. The laws of physics are not tangible.
You cannot give me a spoon full of love like you can water. You cannot point and say "there is maths" like you can a garbage heap.

Specially I am referring to the following defintions extracted from Dictionary.com:

tangible
-Discernible by the touch; palpable: a tangible roughness of the skin.
-Possible to touch.
-Perceptible to the touch; tactile; palpable.
perceptible by the senses especially the sense of touch; "skin with a tangible roughness" [ant: intangible]
-(of especially business assets) having physical substance and intrinsic monetary value ; "tangible property like real estate"; "tangible assets such as machinery" [ant: intangible]
-capable of being perceived by the senses or the mind; especially capable of being handled or touched or felt; "a barely palpable dust"; "felt sudden anger in a palpable wave"; "the air was warm and close--palpable as cotton" [syn: palpable] [ant: impalpable]
-having substance or material existence; perceptible to the senses; "a physical manifestation"; "surrounded by tangible objects" [syn: physical, touchable]

I'm saying you can't give me a spoon full of math, or touch a law of physics. They are non-physical, incorporeal entities not subject to direct sensory experience.
I wouldn't have thought such a basic statement necessitated you informing me that I had no understand of maths or physics.

Really? You'd think that as a computer scientist I would be deeply impressed by the truth of this were it the case.

BTW I sincerely hope the computer in front of me is not conscious 'cos I'm going to reset it if it starts being annoying, and would have no compunction about turning it off once I've finished with it. I hope you don't do that to people.

An unevidenced assertion. Quantum indeterminism is unpredictable and apparently random, but that in no way proves that events in "another reality" are not affecting the outcome here: That is precisely what some explanations posit.