There's no such thing as a loving God

There's no such thing as a loving God Mar 15, 2017 0:19:28 GMT

Quote

Post by general313 on Mar 15, 2017 0:19:28 GMT

Mar 14, 2017 20:36:19 GMT @miccee said:

You're actually asking for evidence that people don't choose what to think before thinking it? Well here is evidence that our decisions are made before we are aware of them:

www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11/n5/abs/nn.2112.html

www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/libet_experiments.html

Those are evidence that our decision making process involves subconscious components of the brain, but it doesn't say anything about free will.

See, that's just the thing. Just because it was always assumed that we have free will, and that vaguely defined term is what emotionally comforts you, that doesn't make it the most parsimonious explanation. 'Occams Razor' =/= orthodoxy. At best, free will is a God of the Gaps argument, and an emotional security blanket. There is nothing in human behaviour which cannot be explained by determinism. Firstly, nobody has even been able to explain how free will could work alongside deterministic causal factors, much less set out why it is a more apt explanation for human behaviour than determinism. How would you propose that free will (in the libertarian sense) actually works? Can you provide ANY sources which might explain how free will would work alongside causal factors (such as our genes, our experiences as we grew up, the biases and predilections that we did not consciously choose to have)?

And if you cannot explain what free will is and how it works, then how can you possibly claim that to be the simplest explanation for human behaviour?

For me, free will is not an emotional security blanket, it's just the simplest model for understanding how I consciously experience the world. I'm not uncomfortable with the idea that every decision I make is either predetermined or random, but I don't see any scientific experiments to confirm that that is the right model of reality. It's similar to the idea that consciousness is an illusion: there's no science experiment (thus far) to say one way or the other.

It could be compared to the heliocentric vs geocentric model of the solar system. The heliocentric model isn't strictly wrong, it's just a lot more complicated. The comparison is weak though, because scientific understanding of consciousness is still so lacking, compared to our understanding of solar system dynamics.

I can't explain what free will is, but I can't explain what consciousness is either. I just know that I experience it. I sure nobody else can explain it yet either, although I think it quite possible that science will make breakthroughs in the future. By the way, I'm not in the least a dualist, and I am quite sure that everything about the mind is a function of the (material) brain. I believe the evidence supports that view. For me the mystery is how a physical brain gives rise to consciousness and what nature of computer algorithm would/could produce it. In this, dualistic views don't explain anything, and in fact fail to explain why consciousness depends on a functioning brain.