Hey - I know of a few plants that are pretty good at dominating the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of a mere human being.

I agree that there is no way to prove that consciousness exists in an immaterial realm. That’s why I refer to the idea as my belief. But it can be easily shown that if free will is related to making choices – regardless of who makes the choices or where they are made - then free will is a logical impossibility.

only based on these aformentioned laws of thermodynamics..
but explain specifically, from a nonphysical standpoint, why one could not freely make decisions.
is consciousness from the nonphysical realm preventing this?
I'd like to see evidence of that.

Consciousness doesn’t prevent free will. Free will simply doesn’t exist. As I’ve said repeatedly, it is a logical impossibility.

Here’s what I said in post #262 :



There are two possibilities:

1 – A decision requires a cause. If a cause is required to produce an effect (in this case, the decision is the ultimate effect), then the decision is not free. It follows from the cause. It requires a cause. It cannot happen without a preceding cause. An immaterial consciousness that makes decisions on the basis of prior causes is not exercising free will.

2 – A decision does not require a cause. If a decision is made, but there is no prior reason for making the decision or process leading to the decision, then it isn’t a decision at all, but rather a random act. A causeless phenomenon is necessarily a random phenomenon. An immaterial consciousness engaged in random acts (regardless of how we define those “acts”) is not exercising free will.

there is absolutely no evidence to suggest the existence of an immaterial consciousness; we can also say that the human mind, which is inevitably linked to neural processes, is what we call 'consciousness'...an effect with a cause (the neurochemical processes, rooted in the laws of physics). an immaterial consciousness is also an impossibility, because it comes from a physical origin. again, there's no evidence to suggest otherwise, but plenty of evidence to suggest it (i.e. EEG, MRI, etc.)

Yes, I agree there is no evidence to suggest the existence of immaterial consciousness. I never said there was evidence. I said it was my belief.

We cannot prove that immaterial consciousness exists or doesn’t exist.
We can prove that free will defined in a way that relates it to choice does not exist.

So what’s your point?

If in non-physical time does not exist, or is permeable, or one is able to travel through time as we travel through space, then there is no past and no future, and everything exists in the Now and choices are free.

how can you prove the latter?
I already gave an example of how I can freely make a decision
(picking up a glass to drink from it).

nothing immaterial would prevent me from doing it.

if you can't show evidence for immaterial realm of consciousness, why do you keep bringing it up? it is clearly irrelevant, and an impossibility.



in theory, anyway. in practice, it clearly isn't the case.
but I can still freely make my own decisions within space-time, no one/thing is stopping me.

If a non-physical realm exists as you describe it, then the entire concept of choice becomes meaningless. And without choice, there is no will, free or otherwise.

It is an illusion that you "freely" make that decision.

What would "freely" mean? Suppose I gave you a free will test: I will say "Go!" in ten seconds, and at that point you either pick up a glass, or DON'T pick up a glass--your free choice.

First, it IS possible for you to make a perfectly random choice. You might, say, create the algorithm: I will look to my left, and if there's a green object in my field of view, I will pick up the glass, and I won't pick it up if there's no green object. If you really don't know what you will see, then the outcome will be "random."

OTHERWISE, your mind has certain specific, definable contents (if it EXISTS, it must be "one thing" and not "another thing." It's contents can be specified--if you have the means, of course). Those contents will work on "deciding" what you will do. To say the decision is "free" (in the way people TRULY MEAN by free will) is to assume that you can get OUT OF the physical nature of your brain and its contents, and then somehow "independently" (and I don't really even know what that MEANS, again, because the concept is based on an ILLUSION) "decide" whether to lift the glass or not.

It's not a free choice. If we could know the exact state of your mind and any relevant external stimuli in the ten seconds before "Go!" was announced, and the FORM of your mind, etc., then the outcome would be perfectly DETERMINANT--there is no "choice," there's only the illusion there's a choice.

AH! But you say "Oh yeah, if that's true then you could TELL ME which choice I"ll make! And then, dammit, I KNOW I could do the opposite." That's right, you could. I thought about this a long time ago, in thinking about free will. The fact is, that you can make the advance determination to "do the opposite of anything said." But that ain't "free will" it's just "contrariness." So you would go back to the original setup: would you DO what the prediction said, or do the opposite? And again, the result would depend on the CONTENTS OF YOUR BRAIN, and the deterministic processes that occurred during the ten second span. What else could it POSSIBLY depend on?




Something like that would better be called "individual will." Yes, you can impose your own PERSONAL stuff (personality, what you had for breakfast, etc., etc.) to come up with a response that is YOURS. But, it's YOURS because it is derived uniquely from your brain, but that derivation is DETERMINED by the contents of your brain and brain state, etc. It's not a "free" choice, it's just "your" choice.

there are no algorithms involved here, not sure why you even mentioned it. completely irrelevant.
it's NOTHING more than decision --> action. you, as a second-person point of view, can argue semantics all you want, but you DON'T KNOW, at all, the reasons behind my actions, or whether they were freely made or not. you can overanalyze the hell out of it, make all sorts of mathematical models, but they still won't describe the reasoning behind the choice made.

Sure. I don't know because nobody yet has the capacity to understand the precise functions of the brain the full gamut from the individual neuron to the colossal SYSTEM/NETWORK. But it's a physical mechanism; and there's absolutely no theoretical reason known or hypothesized that suggests it would work any differently from all other physical mechanisms: purely determinant.

Choosing between making a choice about which action to take or leaving up to the outcome of a random event would in itself be an act of free will... unless of course you simply don't believe in free will as a matter of faith, in which case there is no point in arguing about it.

No. Making that choice itself would be a process that ensues from the state of the brain making it (again, where ELSE could it come from?), and is completely determinant.

Again, because (as far as we know) these processes are carried out by the BRAIN, and the brain is a physical object, all events in the brain must ensue from determinant causes and processes. We have no knowledge, theory, or even hypotheses about physical objects functioning in any other way.

There's just no other way to think about it--other than assigning nearly "magical" properties to the brain. Of course our "egos" and "personalities" easily take on the illusion that "we" have "free choice."

again, you're going to have to show evidence that something else made the decision for me to complete an action. simply implying that it was determinant before I even conceived the thought
to complete the action isn't consistent. It wouldn't have happened if I didn't choose for it to happen. if that's an illusion, then ALL reality is an illusion.

That evidence doesn't necessarily suggest it. It merely proves that there's some kind of correlation. For example, if we take the TV as an analogy, just because the television and its circuitry are responsible for conveying the images and sounds does not mean that it is responsible for coming up with and producing those images. Likewise just because there's activity in the brain does not necessarily entail that the brain is responsible for producing consciousness. It may very well be a mediator for consciousness.

you couldn't even show a correlation for the latter theory.

I don't need to do advanced thinking on this topic. My reasoning is simply this:

1) We have excellent evidence that "we" are only our brains (and we have no evidence we are anything other than our brains).
2) All physical things in the universe change, act, and interact in a purely determinative manner. We know of no operation that can be performed on any physical system that would release it from determinative constraints.

Therefore "we" act based solely on a determinative basis; all of our actions, decisions, whatever, are "determined" by the physical state of our brain and how the outside world acts on that brain.

What we do know is that even the simplest decision --> action sequences are incredibly complex neurological processes. It seems simple because most of what’s happening is outside of your conscious awareness.

The simple choice to pick up a glass is a process beyond the comprehension of today’s researchers. But here’s what we do know: The desire to pick up a glass is an end-product of a complex neurological process, as is actually picking up a glass.

Why is this so hard to accept?

> Can you accept that atoms and molecules are subject to physical laws and are therefore not free?
> Can you accept that neurons, composed of atoms and molecules, are subject to physical laws and therefore not free?
> Can you accept that complex communities of neurons, composed of individual neurons, are subject to physical laws and therefore not free?
> Can you accept that complex organisms such as human beings, composed of many complex communities of cells, are subject to physical laws and therefore not free?

Where do you draw a line? And why?

this is still an argument of semantics, and I'm trying to meet on some common ground.
yes, I observe that these processes are all determinant, rooted in physical phenomena, including consciousness.

I still contend that decision making is something conceived by the self, call it ego or what have you, but sometimes has nothing to do with simple cause-effect or logic.
for example, why do sleep-walkers engage in behaviors that they are unconscious of?

astral projection is one of the few phenomena that I have no scientific explanation for, and I've observed it once, maybe twice in my life. it completely stumps me. I still think it is conveyed from a physical realm, the synaptic field.