Who said consciousness is non-physical? Think of Spinoza's cogitans and extensa being one thing understood two ways. — Janus
I'm saying that the whole rest of the universe apart from our personal experience is demonstrably deterministic — Pseudonym
What evidence? — Pseudonym
The whole legal system is designed around intention and free will. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think we know our own actions better than we know "the whole rest of the universe". ... And, it is quite evident that we do not understand the rest of the universe very well, .... — Metaphysician Undercover
That we have the capacity to consciously prevent a caused physical action from occurring, until the desired time, indicates the existence of free will. — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't see how placing an individual in a hypnotic trance is relevant to the issue of conscious free will. That's like arguing that a person has no conscious free will within one's dreams. — Metaphysician Undercover
You're looking at it the wrong way. Between cogitans and extensa there is a parallelism; it is incoherent to talk of causation between the two because they are the same thing looked at in two incommensurably different ways. — Janus
But philosophy consists in words, so a philosophical discussion ought take words seriously — Banno
We use them at least in part, in combination with a desire, to provide explanations for behaviour. — Banno
Surely you can see how this is circular? The fact that we think we have free-will (and so have developed a legal system based on it) cannot possibly be used as evidence that we do have free-will, how on earth are you concluding that? — Pseudonym
I simply pointed out that your premise is wrong, the belief in determinism has not been prevalent for the last ten thousand years. — Metaphysician Undercover
Of course it has. How do you think we do anything? Any action you take at all is dependent on a belief in determinism, that actions have prior causes. — Pseudonym
I always try to maintain the attitude that I might fail, in any action which I take. This attitude inspires one to proceed with care and seriously consider all one's actions. — Metaphysician Undercover
Really, so when hitting a nail in with a hammer you "seriously consider" the possibility that the force from the hammer might not deterministically cause the nail to move if it hits. What do you seriously consider might be the alternative? That the nail simply move the opposite direction of its own accord? — Pseudonym
In each case the prior elements lead to the current state. — Pseudonym
The causes that operate in the extensa domain ars probablistic not deterministic. — Janus
The reasons that operate in the cogitans domain are influential, not dictatorial. — Janus
Randomness isn't free-will. — Pseudonym
You're claiming that the will causes it. I'm asking how, if you are not a dualist, does the will cause the cogitans to enter some other state what does it do to it? — Pseudonym
You've just admitted that the extensa's state is caused entirely and sufficiently by probabilistic prior causes, so how come it matches the cogitans, which is not? — Pseudonym
This still doesn't get you free-will. — Pseudonym
You're still falling into a conflation of domains. Of course acting for reasons is not random; but it is also not deterministic; I can choose which reasons to act or believe on account of. That freedom to choose is just what is meant by free will. — Janus
Ironically it seems to be you that is falling into a Cartesian dualism in imagining that cogitation and will are ontologically, as opposed to merely heuristically, separate. — Janus
Prior events are probablistically, not deterministically, related to subsequent events; that is a way we can understand what we think of as physical reality; it is merely a human understanding, that should not be reified into some ontological absolute. — Janus
at what point in the process do you tell your brain to choose vanilla, despite the fact that it registers a preference for chocolate? — Pseudonym
I don't understand the mechanism you're proposing at all. — Pseudonym
So you're suggesting now that states are not probabilistically determined by prior states, that this is only a "human understanding", so what does determine current states of the extensa then? — Pseudonym
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