Tani

if you choose(1) to have choices(2), then your choice(1) is a meta-choice of choice(2) because choice(2) is a direct consequence of choice(1). that is not a philosophical extreme, the problem is that it never answered the question: where does this freedom reside? when you say "if you can choose... then," your usage of the word "choose" already implies freedom, begging the question.

instead of having free choice, we have free control of choice? that poses the exact same problem as before. but let's look at how you differentiate it from randomness.

you said: for it to be random, the choice would have to be made fore you, and forced on you.

that's not a random choice, that's a predetermined choice with a random cause. randomness is not a force, it's a condition - you're rather describing what is determined after that randomness occurs, which is not what i was talking about. what i was talking about is that how do you tell that your act of choosing is not this randomness. you must be able to tell the difference since i really doubt people are ready to accept, for example, notion such as electrons having something in them that lets them "choose" where to go and the et cetera.

also, you do not perceive this "choice" before it is there, the most you can say is that you are aware of it when it actualizes in your mind. if you say this "choice" was not part of you before it actualizes, then you are saying it has an outside cause. but to argue for freewill, you can't accept this notion of outside causes at all. so, just how do "you" make a choice? has this choice ever a part of your consciousness before it actualizes? if this choice is always in you, then it is simply predetermined. if you were to say you have caused it in your consciousness on the fly, you'd be saying there is an outside cause but this outside cause is "you". what you'd be doing, though, is only seperating this "you" from your consciousness, making this identity even more elusive and starting the exact same excerise with this new "you" all over again. that is, instead of you having free choices, you now have a meta "you" that is in the higher level of the causal chain, exerting something, "control" in your last example, that chooses that choice for the "you" which exists at the lower level of the causal chain. this is an infinite regresss, but the point of it all is to find this choice determining factor rather than playing passer on. and this is why i'll ask you, this "you" that supposedly possesses the ultimate authority on making choices, to make a theorical pure choice, where such choice is not dictated by not only passion, but also reason. what this is meant to do is to allow us to drop the infinite regress by get straight to this "you," where you have access to, to make this pure choice and explain, first hand, how it is not randomness (and not predetermined, obviously) without resorting to pick up the infinite regress again.

spacer1

Very nice post, Tani.

As Wittgenstein asked:

Darth Dane

If I don't choose anything, no-one chooses anything, and then this conversation was meant to happen. Deja vu anyone?






DD - Love & Laughter

auto-da-fe

If I misunderstood anything you said let me know... but...

It appears that when you talk of the infinite regress of your consciousness, you are making a couple of assumtions. In the first part you talk about the outside forces influincing the choices for you, therefore limiting free will. However, I don't think that an outside force, regardless of the type, does limit free will, as your conscious cannot spontaneously decide something with no input. The input required to make the choices goes to the intelectual part of your concious (brain), which then uses logic and reason to determine which path to take. This is not limiting free will, as you can get equal information about each potential decision. And even if it is not equal (in my example, the person giving the test works for Pepsi, so he is biased in everything he says to you), this does not in and of itself limit free will, as you are still able to diseminate the information and deduce the best plan of action, or most appropriate choice, based on the information given. Once we establish that some outside input is required for the choice to even exist, then we can say that then we can move on to wether the choice was always there, and just manifested itself at the appropriate times, or wether it was a decision based on logic and reason, or emotions and passion.

Even decisions that are made with emotion, have a logical core. If I don't want to date for awhile, fearing I may get hurt, then that is a decision based on an emotion. However, there is a logical core that says the reason I don't want to get hurt is because it happened in the past, or the potential lover isn't trustworthy, or I have a small penis. What ever the reason, there is always a logical core to any emotion, actions or thoughts that have influenced your sub-concious in such a way that it produced a certain result (the feeling).

Here again, you have made an assumption that is, at best, debateable. Unless I have control over my enviornment, I cannot choose to have choices. Well, at least not in all situations. There are any number of choices that are influenced entirely by outside forces, giving you the opportunity to have choices. I understand what you mean by this passage, but I don't agree that an outside force, presenting differeing scenarios for you to choose from, equates either randomness, or destiny. The choices that are presendted to you have a certain amount of randomness to them, however, the actual choice itself is not random. The concious mind can (and does) weigh the information, and using logic (critical thinking) decides which scenario presented best fits your needs (or wants). For the choice to be random, your consciousness would have no choice in the matter, and although you may be given the information in the same matter, you never really had a choice to begin with. No that doesn't neccassarily equate to destiny, if the choice in and of itself can truly be expressed as a choice, then randomness is impossible, because for it to be random, there was never really a choice to begin with.

This is semantically true, however, not exactly what I meant. Your statement is true, but mine is as well. For there to be a choice to begin with, randomness is impossible. If something is random, that means you have no control of its direction. So the question becomes, is there a choice at all? As I was alluding to before, there are only meta choices. There are no other types of choices. We have no choice but to go forward, but we have free will to move left or right on the path. True free will requires omnipitence. Each path leads in one general direction, but never gets there the same way twice. There is just as much value in this type of free will, as there is in true free will. Since we have no choice but to go forward, that is not even viewed in our concious mind. Only our left and right choices are viewed as a choice. When the opportunity manifests itself (from an outside force) we can decide which way we want to go, along any number of paths, all going left or right at various angles (wow this is really taking this anaology to an extreme huh? sorry about that). My point is, if time exists (another discussion for another time), then we have no choice but to move forward in time. Our choices present themselves to us in the manner in which we move forward. You move forward in time in a completly uniquie way (your daily life), which, although may have similarities to others, was created through a vast series of choices you have made, do make, and will make. Each of these choices is where the human free will manifests itself. The universe (in some manner) will present you with choices, either conciously or sub-conciously, and you will use logic and reason (two requirements for free will) to make a choice that is appropriate to you.