Goober

So what? The point is that just thinking you can do something does not prove that you can. If we could re-run the same situation where a person had to chose between turning left or right over and over again, what would we observe? If there was no free will, the person may consider to turn left or right but would always turn left, because the outcome will have been predetermined. If there was free will, they would consider both options and then either turn left or right, there would be no determinism in the outcome. But we cannot re-run the same situation over and over, every situation is unique because we could never control all the variables. We can only view the choice once. In both scenarios we see the same thing; the person thinks, and turns down a road. We cannot tell just by observing it once whether or not the person had free will. So we cannot use it as evidence that we have free will.

If we have no free will, it does not automatically mean we do not think we have free will.

How do you know its 'just truth'? You test it.

No, the outcome is dependent on your brain, much like the final velocities of two rocks colliding is dependent by their shapes, masses, and initial velocities.

And the final behaviour of the electron is unpredictable within certain parameters. You know it will end up somewhere on the screen, but the exact postion is not determined. It is not linear. Perhaps it is MORE linear, but your definition said nothing about how linear something's movement had to be to to qualify as an object with a soul or without a soul. Hence your definition is flawed.

Firstly, your definiton says nothing about unknowns and how many an object must have to qualify to have a soul. So I will say it again: your definition is flawed.

Let me get this straight. We have free will because of 'unknowns' within our brain. An electron does not have as many unknowns, therefore it does not have a free will and hence a soul. We have unknowns, so we have a soul. But what are unknowns? You can't say the unknowns in our brain are a product of the soul, because that would be circular. The unknowns in our brain are due to the soul, and we have a soul because we have unknowns.

Therefore the 'unknowns' that give us free will and deny it to electrons are due to something physical, unless you want to postulate a seperate, indepentant metaphysical entity that gives our brains 'unknowns', which would be stupid. Therefore our possession of free will is due to some physical cause. But your definition requires that our possesion of free will is not due physical causes. Therefore your definition is wrong.

Gurdur

You've simply ignored my point about self-awareness feedback loops and self-reinforcement.
A sophisticated theological model would look pretty much like a sophisticated neuropsychological model, and point out that self-awareness --- and self-reinforcement-based changes in one's own behaviour, including changes in more automatic behavioural patterns --- simply takes time, and is long-term rather than sudden short-term changes.

IOW, your argument may be fine for catching people like yguy, but it's not a scientific argument, since it ignores the further scientific evidence, and it's a trivialization of the whole problem.

Or IOW, it's agitprop, not much more.

Jesse

Gurdur:
You've simply ignored my point about self-awareness feedback loops and self-reinforcement.
A sophisticated theological model would look pretty much like a sophisticated neuropsychological model, and point out that self-awareness --- and self-reinforcement-based changes in one's own behaviour, including changes in more automatic behavioural patterns --- simply takes time, and is long-term rather than sudden short-term changes.

IOW, your argument may be fine for catching people like yguy, but it's not a scientific argument, since it ignores the further scientific evidence, and it's a trivialization of the whole problem.

Or IOW, it's agitprop, not much more.

This is a long thread--can you point out the posts where you made this argument? Did you discuss in detail what a "sophisticated theological model" would actually look like?

Certainly in terms of neuropsychology "choices" are not instantaneous things, if that's the main point you're making here. But it seems to me that for free-will believers, there would have to be a definite instant of choice. If God played history over from a certain point with exactly the same initial conditions, belief in free will suggests that people would be able to make different choices, so there'd have to be an exact moment where the new history diverged from the original one.

Gurdur

Try this page.

In great detail ? No, of course not; otherwise we'ld have at least a 10-page paper, wouldn't we now ?
I simply made the point as shortly as possible. On this page. Five posts above.

Why ? seems like naive reductionism to me.
That would of course depend on your definition of change; while the basic thrust of your statement seems on the whole correct to me, I fail to see its relevance, unless you're making an analogy between social historical change and change inside one brain.

I apologize, I accidentally edited your post when I meant to reply, but I've gone back and restored it now--Jesse

Jesse

Gurdur:
Try this page.

Whoops, sorry about that, I must have missed your post when I responded immediately to yguy's.

Gurdur:
In great detail ? No, of course not; otherwise we'ld have at least a 10-page paper, wouldn't we now ?
I simply made the point as shortly as possible. On this page. Five posts above.

Your earlier post discusses choice and awareness from the perspective of neuroscience, and I agree with your analysis since I'm not a believer in an immaterial soul. But for someone who does believe in a soul that is responsible for our choices, I don't see how how they could agree with your point of view on choice and awareness, and that post of yours doesn't really address the issue what a better theological model would look like, even briefly.

Jesse:
Certainly in terms of neuropsychology "choices" are not instantaneous things, if that's the main point you're making here. But it seems to me that for free-will believers, there would have to be a definite instant of choice.

Gurdur:
Why ? seems like naive reductionism to me.

Usually I see the word "reductionism" associated with a purely materialistic view of the mind, but obviously you're not using it in this sense here--what do you mean by "reductionism" in this context?

Jesse:
If God played history over from a certain point with exactly the same initial conditions, belief in free will suggests that people would be able to make different choices, so there'd have to be an exact moment where the new history diverged from the original one.

Gurdur:
That would of course depend on your definition of change; while the basic thrust of your statement seems on the whole correct to me, I fail to see its relevance, unless you're making an analogy between social historical change and change inside one brain.

By "history" I didn't mean history of societies over hundreds of years, I meant something more like the history of an individual making a choice. Let's say I choose whether to have peanut butter or ham in my sandwitch today, and I end up choosing peanut butter. The metaphysical freedom position implies that if God replayed history from a moment before I had decided which to eat to the moment when I was actually eating the sandwich, I might have made a different choice even if the conditions at the starting point were exactly identical. So again, it seems to me there'd have to be a definite moment when the two histories diverged, which presumably would be the moment when my soul intervened and made a different choice.

Normal

Yes, I never argued this. Thinking you can fly does not mean you can.

My argument is there is nothing stopping me from turning right. I am as physically capable of turning the wheel left as I am physically capable of turning the wheel right. The only thing separating those two outcomes is the choice I make.

Ay, there's the rub.

I don't know it's just truth, but my point is that everything that is not falsifiable is not necessarily an illogical belief.

Yes and we can predict the final velocities quite nicely with physics. Show me where we have predicted the behavior of the brain so we can predict what choices a person will make.

No, my definition said for something to have a soul it must have a choice. Does an electron have a choice? Do you think it "considers" each slit and then picks one? No, it's behavior is not decision-based, it's random.

Ok, maybe unknowns was a bad word to use, but the point is I didn't mean complexity as in structured complexity, I meant complexity as in, well, complicated.

This paragraph is full of straw man and non sequiturs.

1. We have free will because of unknowns within our brain

I never said this, I said life was complex. Never did I equate unknowns to the brain, or said we have free will because of the unknowns. I said what separates life from electrons was complexity, you extrapolated the rest from no where, therefore it's a straw man.

2. An electron does not have as many unknowns, therefore it does not have a free will and hence a soul.

I attributed free will solely to living things. Unless you want to change the argument and say electrons are living, in which you'd have to show me electrons have the basic properties of life (ie. that they can die).

3. We have unknowns, so we have a soul.

This simply does not follow. I don't know the tempature of the earth's core, therefore the earth's core has an unknown, therefore the earth's core has a soul? It doesn't follow, and I never made this argument.

4. You can't say the unknowns in our brain are a product of the soul, because that would be circular.

I have no idea why you are saying this. All I meant was life was more complicated then an electron, and we should only attribute free will to living things.

5. The unknowns in our brain are due to the soul, and we have a soul because we have unknowns.

Again, I never made this argument.

My original definition had nothing to do with unknowns, so attacking "unknowns" will give you nothing against my definition.

Ok, here is my point again: electrons might have "random behavior", but they do not have "free will". Free will is a property of living things, and it entails the ability to make a choice. The behavior of electrons is random. The behavior of humans is based on thought, reason, and choice. So can you please stop using straw man tactics?

Normal

Why even bring up the carosaul study then? If the fact that the conscious experience of making a choice and actually making that choice doesn't line up is sufficent prove against free will, you could of simply used the fact that people involuntarily touching their face when they lie shows a lack of free will, and your argument would be just as strong.

Even as it stands, there may be a function of the brain that acts as I said, and is only in action when the visual consciousness is concentrating to a certain degree, ie. looking at pictures.

You have not sufficiently proven that every choice is predetermined in any way, and again, it seems like you're trying to say "the soul is controlling my actions".

Whatever the soul chose would already be in your consciousness or in your memory. Your twisting my definition of soul so that it has it's own memory, and it's own consciousness, and it's own brain, pretty much. I never claimed it had any of these things, all I claimed it does is makes choices.

But then again, your conscious experience will end with your brain right?

Jesse

Normal:
Why even bring up the carosaul study then? If the fact that the conscious experience of making a choice and actually making that choice doesn't line up is sufficent prove against free will, you could of simply used the fact that people involuntarily touching their face when they lie shows a lack of free will, and your argument would be just as strong.

No, there's no need for a free-will believer to believe that every tic of the body is an act of free will, so your example would only be a problem if the touching of the face happened before the person had the experience of choosing to lie instead of tell the truth.

Jesse:
It's the same problem either way, because if the soul has already made the choice when you have the experience of multiple options, your sensation of multiple options at that moment is an illusion. At that moment, despite your sensation of considering multiple options, your soul has already predetermined the option that you will have the experience of "choosing".

Normal:
You have not sufficiently proven that every choice is predetermined in any way, and again, it seems like you're trying to say "the soul is controlling my actions".

I haven't been trying to "prove" anything, I'm just pointing to the cognitive carousel as a piece of evidence that our sensation of making a choice to act happens at a point when our brain has already determined what action to take next. If true, I think this would mean that our experience of making a choice at a particular moment or of having multiple options up until that moment is an illusion, which would in turn weaken the introspective argument for free will.

Jesse:
Perhaps "planned" was a bad word, but the point is that the soul could conceivably have already chosen each word in the speech hours before you got up and had the conscious experience of choosing the words in the speech. This is just an extension of the idea that it could have chosen the words a few seconds or fractions of a second before you consciously experienced choosing them.

Normal:
Whatever the soul chose would already be in your consciousness or in your memory.

Why? You seem to have no problem with the idea that a choice won't enter your consciousness/memory until a few fractions of a second after the soul already chose, so there is nothing fundamentally different about a case where the choice doesn't enter your consciousness/memory until hours after the soul makes the choice, even though in both cases it feels like you're making the choice at the instant it comes into your mind.

Normal:
Your twisting my definition of soul so that it has it's own memory, and it's own consciousness, and it's own brain, pretty much. I never claimed it had any of these things, all I claimed it does is makes choices.

I never said the soul had its own memory or brain, I don't see where you're getting that from anything I wrote. As for consciousness, most believers in the soul would say that the brain is not really conscious on its own, that it just processes information for the soul to "view", that our own conscious self is really our soul--do you disagree with this idea? If the soul wasn't the part of us that is actually aware, then its choices would be "blind", it seems to me.

If the soul is indeed the center of awareness, the issue of time delays boils down to, does the soul have direct self-awareness of its own choices at the moment it makes them, or does it only become aware of them after the choices cause a change in the brain? Does the soul have awareness of anything besides information that's physically recorded in the brain? Most theists would say that it does, I think--for example, most would probably say that if God wants to communicate with a soul He does so directly rather than by manipulating the physical state of the brain. Many would also say that the soul has direct insight into some sort of realm of platonic truths, and that this is at least partially the basis for things like moral intuitions or mathematical understanding. And many would say the soul has some degree of direct self-awareness, rather than just being indirectly aware of itself when it perceives a change in the brain that was caused by one of its choices.

Jesse:
If what is happening with the soul is distinct from what is happening with my conscious experience, then I would tend to identify the "self" with experience rather than the soul. For example, I'd rather have the conscious experience of being in heaven while my soul is "really" roasting in hell than vice versa.

Normal:
But then again, your conscious experience will end with your brain right?

Not necessarily--I think it's the causal pattern that's important rather than the physical matter that makes up the brain, so if the same pattern occurs somewhere or somewhen else in the universe one's consciousness might continue in the new substrate even though the original brain died. However, this is off-topic, since I don't believe in a supernatural soul and that's the main topic of discussion here.

Wyz_sub10

My definition - Logic is a tool employed by people. People, who are tangible, physical entities are the "doers".

Your definition - Soul is a force which acts on its own. The soul, which is an intagible, metaphysical force (but not really a force) is a "doer".

I'll leave it to anyone following this to decide whether the two are analogous.

Again, I have no problem leaving this definition alone. But you state that logic and soul are analagous. Whatever questions can be answered with re: to demonstrating 'logic', should be answerable in demonstrated 'soul'.

If that is not the case, then the two are not analogous and your argument fails.

If you feel that "process", which can be defined using rules formulae, is as ambiguous or undefinied as "driver", for which there are no rules or formulae (or description or how the end results are obtained), then that is your evaluation.

I have conceded that "logic" has no physical quantity, but one can point to the rules and outline the process or applying logic. One can point to the physical entities applying logic.

Your definition of soul is completely paradoxical - it is intangible, yet it is a force. It cannot be defined in physical terms, yet it acts on a physical body.

Soul, by your definition, is not a abstract process applied, but a driver of its own process.

I fail to see the similarity between 'soul' and 'logic'.

How, then, can you speculate on the existence of a soul if it is immeasureable and undefinible?

I do not have the same problem in demonstrating the existence of logic.

...but to the point, we are not discussing the existence, per se. My original concern was with your analogy between soul and logic.

That's a good analogy, I will admit. It still remains, however, that a change in neurology does affect one's ability to make choices - a cause and effect realtionships can be established without the need for a superfluous driver. (If you could demonstrate how a change in the soul can affect free will, the there would be a competing example).



People make coices based on alternatives. They consider the alternatives that will best satisfy a pervailing need. I choose to eat because my body let's my brain know it needs food. I choose to eat pizza because my tongue tells my brain that it prefers that to broccoli.

I'm not sure what the soul does in this case. I must have a lousy, undisciplined soul because it drives me to eat more junk than I should. (At least I know it's not my fault)

Okay, but I can't be responsible for what others claim and how others respond to those claims. As I said earlier, I'm not a neurologist and graciously concede that I cannot describe the process to the detail.

I don't see how this explains anything - "it chooses by choosing" is all you are saying here.

Hmmmm....I thougth I had done that a number of times.

But considering the original point was simply the analogy between 'logic' and 'soul', I think I've demonstrated sufficient differences between the two to refute your claim that one is as intangible as the other.

If I have not, then the court of popular opinion here will conclude as much.

Normal

Your dissection of analogous arguments is very Hume-like, I'll give you that.

My intention was not to prove that logic and soul were equal, only that they were similar in certain respects that make them hard to define.

1. Logic and soul are both immeasurable and indefinable, in the physical sense, other then the vague terms “process” and “driver”. “Driver” has a physical background associated with it, but you should disregard that aspect of its definition, as it makes no sense to apply physical properties to a metaphysical force. Just as if I called logic a “driver” towards truth, you would still understand what I meant, but would not ask silly questions like “well what does the driver look like?”

2. We have no proof of logic; in the same way we have no proof of souls. All we have are evidence of their existence through a process (that can only be seen through humans). We can prove logic through the process of applying the rules of logic and empirically observing that they are correct. We can prove souls through the process of making decisions and empirically observing we had free will to choose a number of possible choices.

As far as I’m concerned the similarities end there and there is no need to stretch the analogy any further. Those similarities are enough for both your proof of logic and my proof of souls to be concrete (unless of course you have a problem with free will).

Yes, but I don’t see how the analogy fails here either. There’s a cause and effect relationship between a lightning storm and the operation of a plane as well, does that mean the pilot is superfluous? If it’s possible to override the circuitry with electricity and make the plane turn left when the pilot wants to turn right, that means the pilot is superfluous? The point is that neurology is the study of the plane, not the pilot.

This is along the lines of saying, “the soul doesn’t control me, I control myself”. If you look at my definition again (the one with the 3 points), having free will necessitates the existence of a soul.

The soul is necessarily not fictious if free will exists.

Unprovable force? Unprovable task? The mere act of you choosing a choice is proving the existence of the force AND the task. The “unprovable way” is a question only god would presumably be able to answer.

I still disagree.