Theism is not the only alternative to materialism

[Venom]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

Paul I ask you, if choice is just an useful illusion, how did it evolve via natural selection? How can the notion of conscious choice (i.e. freewill) be a useful evolutionary advantage, if it is an illusion?

As Paul said, what is free will? What do you mean by that? And how can you prove "it" exists (whatever that is)?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Could you define free will before this conversation goes much further?

~~ Paul

You and other materialists are never satisfied with any definition.

I would like to point out 2 things here.

1) Free will does not mean unpredictability. A wife may know her husband inside out and be able to predict the vast majority of his behaviour under most circumstances. Are we to maintain that as she grew to know him more and more, and hence could predict his behaviour more and more, that his free will steadily diminished? Clearly this would be absurd (I might write another blog entry on this).

2) Free will does not mean that our behaviour cannot be described by physical laws. Mental causation could exist i.e it is our consciousness rather than any physical events which has an influence with some of our behaviour. Nevertheless physical laws could describe our freely chosen behaviour.

Free will simply means that our consciousness has some influence, at least sometimes, on our behaviour. That's all.

Now you can tell me whether the free will I advocate is libertarian, or compatibilist, because I have absolutely no idea. I don't understand these terms nor do I understand determinism, nor have I ever understood any attempted definition of these terms.

I've therefore pleaded with you and other materialists not to therefore use these terms, but I simply continually get ignored. Materialists seem to delight in trying to spread as much confusion as possible.

[bertvan]

Free will is incompatible with materialism. Materialists can argue that volition is an illusion or they can refuse to define it.

Questions about Materialis

http:/30145.myauthorsite.com/

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by bertvan

Free will is incompatible with materialism.

Well we must have free will (as I have proved on my blog). Therefore if materialism is incompatible with free will then materialism is necessarily false.

[DysonSphere]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

1) Free will does not mean unpredictability. A wife may know her husband inside out and be able to predict the vast majority of his behaviour under most circumstances. Are we to maintain that as she grew to know him more and more, and hence could predict his behaviour more and more, that his free will steadily diminished? Clearly this would be absurd (I might write another blog entry on this).

2) Free will does not mean that our behaviour cannot be described by physical laws. Mental causation could exist i.e it is our consciousness rather than any physical events which has an influence with some of our behaviour. Nevertheless physical laws could describe our freely chosen behaviour.

If consciousness is beyond the realm of physics (which I believe it is), then behavior, if it is the result of mental causation, cannot not be predicted by physical cause and effect laws.

Therefore, free-will as you define it, cannot be predicted by physical cause and effect relations, which clearly is not the case.

Because of the fact that mental states are so closely correlated with biological states, by knowing the biological state you can know the mental effect and vis versa.

In other words, awareness is outside the realm of physical cause and effect relations but behavior is not, because behavior can be predicted in terms of the brain alone.

This is why Buddha believed there is no enduring self (beside the "self" that resides outside of death and rebirth ie nirvana)

I believe that physical events are mental events, so I make no dichotomy that would allow for such a definition of free-will. In the state of nirvana all things occur at once, so cause and effect is an illusion anyway.

I equivocate free-will with the faculty of reason. I believe this is a more practical understanding of the term.

Reason allows the self to anticipate, the greater the ability to anticipate cause and effect relations the more freedom the self has to prevent a cause and effect relation from happening.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by DysonSphere

If consciousness is beyond the realm of physics (which I believe it is), then behavior, if it is the result of mental causation, cannot not be predicted by physical cause and effect laws.

Do you mean "cannot" rather than "cannot not"?

Anyway this might not be true should mental and physical causation be one and the same thing.

Therefore, free-will as you define it, cannot be predicted by physical cause and effect relations, which clearly is not the case.

So you are saying that our behaviour can be predicted by a complete knowledge of the relevant physical facts. Yes I would deny that, although it is not clear to me that my post you quote entails such a denial. Not sure what this has to do with what I said.

Because of the fact that mental states are so closely correlated with biological states, by knowing the biological state you can know the mental effect and vis versa.

Well that certainly doesn't justify the hypothesis that our behaviour can be entirely predicted from "physical cause and effect relations". You would have to suppose that mental states always follow physical states and deny that physical states ever follow mental states. This however is unintelligible as I have proved in my blog.

In other words, awareness is outside the realm of physical cause and effect relations but behavior is not, because behavior can be predicted in terms of the brain alone.

No this cannot possibly be the case I'm afraid. I have a proof demonstrating otherwise. And besides, I bet you don't have any arguments which support this.

This is why Buddha believed there is no enduring self (beside the "self" that resides outside of death and rebirth ie nirvana)

I have absolutely no idea what the issue of mental causation, or free will, has to do with an enduring self. And if the Buddha believed this, then he is being inconsistent. Either there is an enduring self, or there isn't. If there isn't, then they can be no enduring self outside of death either. However just because there is no enduring self doesn't mean reincarnation isn't possible.

I believe that physical events are mental events, so I make no dichotomy that would allow for such a definition of free-will. In the state of nirvana all things occur at once, so cause and effect is an illusion anyway.

I have no idea what this means.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I have no idea what the average person means by free will. Do you know? Is it like what the average person means by energy or quantum?


Is this definition compatible with determinism and randomness?

~~ Paul

That sounds amusing, but is actually nonsense! The average person knows nothing about quantum mechanics, and uses energy in its more traditional way (science pinched the word and gave it a rather different meaning). Conversely, they have direct experiential knowledge of free will.

I suspect that free will is not compatible with determinism with or without randomness, but that is not the point, asking for a precise definition of a term like this is either an unfair put-down (because actually nobody can give a satisfactory definition) or invites a spurious definition followed by an equally spurious discussion.

Consider for example Bertvan's definition:

"I define free will as the ability to evaluate available information and make unpredictable, fallible, subjective choices based upon that evaluation."

I guess that could be satisfied by any old computer system with some sort of data input - say a mouse - and a true random number generator. Obviously he does not wish to include that (I presume) as an example of something with free will, but people find it so hard to refuse a request for a definition!

I think that to make a stab at discussing these things, you really have to accept the folk meanings of terms like 'free will', consciousness, etc.

David

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Venom

As Paul said, what is free will? What do you mean by that? And how can you prove "it" exists (whatever that is)?

By freewill I mean conscious choice. As for evidence, since freewill is experienced by everyone, even those who deny they have freewill, it is already empirical

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by DysonSphere

If consciousness is beyond the realm of physics (which I believe it is),

It is perhaps only outside the realm of current understanding of physics.

This is why Buddha believed there is no enduring self (beside the "self" that resides outside of death and rebirth ie nirvana)

This sounds like 'oneness', a single universal consciousness? Idealism?

I am not convinced by any religious interpretation I have read. To me eastern religion has a problem in that the concept of 'oneness' is contrary to evolution that requires interaction between separate things. A sense of 'one', means little without a sense of 'two' or 'nothing'.

If our consciousness becomes 'one' surely that means loss of freewill and individuality? Yet these are surely two key elements of our current consciousness? 'One' with nothing to interact with means evolution stops? And therefore nothing ever had purpose, just like materialism? .... It seems more coherent to hypothesize that not just physical bodies evolve but individualized minds may be evolving invisibly to our material senses (as suggested in the NDE) The physical brain evolved to filter out that which reduces individuality forcing the splitting (birth) of a new individualized consciousness from a prior one (as suggested by reincarnation with memories of past being filtered out by brain too)

However both Eastern and Western religions keep enforcing the concept that a single perfect mind called God created all lifeforms. Yet in nature we see the evolution from ruthless world of creatures committing murder against fellow creatures in order to survive. Does that sound he work of perfect all knowing universal creator?

Religions are not keen on the opposite concept of lifeforms evolving God (for want of a non religious term). In this model, the end result still very much resembles God of religion, however just like the internet may appear one day appear all wise and all knowing, it was not preplanned by an all knowing or single ntelligence, it evolved, yet it would appear too advanced to those unaware of how it occurred. I am not convinced a claim of universal consciousness is necessarily just that, perhaps it is just a wider consciousness, a greater telepathy etc. than when normally shut down by physical brain filtering.

But hey I could be wrong

IMHO since it is not proven long term memory or tacit memory are stored in brain, there is no reason yet to assume loss of individuality upon brain death... or that is the ultimate destination of evolution is necessarily towards one single consciousness.

[Larry Boy]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

Well we must have free will (as I have proved on my blog).

Interesting argument there, Ian. But I guess that a materialist could say that since consciousness is caused by physical events, so is your belief that you're conscious.