free will and causuality

You offer no 'refutation', or even a rational argument, but post an emotional appeal that I go find evidence in support of your assertion in order to refute myself. That isn't even phil 101, yet. If you wish to refute something, gather your evidence, arrange your data, prepare your supportive foundation and merely step in and kikass! But, what you have here offered resembles philosophy (critical thought), how?
You betcha. Right away..
Don't go away, I'll be right back with my self refutation.
Be patient,
really,
I'll be right back...

No, it's not an emotional appeal it's a relation of fact. Appeal to authority is only a fallacy in syllogistic logic, which I was not engaged in.

It is a cognitive fallacy. It is not philosophy. It is not thoughtful. It has no logical or rational weight. You were engaged in no logic with that fallacy.
nameless out

You're right in that I was not engaged in any logical discourse when appealing to the authority of Libet: it's the difference between what is called propositional knowledge, or descriptive knowledge, and deductive reasoning. In this case, deductive reasoning is useless to me as I am not working in the field of neurobiology - I do not have the resources to gather premises from which to infer a conclusion.

The philosopher knows his limitations. In that light, my claim was thoughtful. But then again, you're already "out", so I assume you'll miss all of this.

... and the specific elements of authority you choose to appeal to also makes a difference - appealing to Libet's science is one thing (e.g., Libet's experiments have been independently verified); appealing to Libet's philosophy is quite another (e.g., Libet's interpretation of his experimental results) ...

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So, as I understand it, the Original Post claimed that there can be no free will, given that all things arise from their precursors, which all decay. This leads me to question the motivation, and, the existence, of a possible soul. The definition, then, is that the Soul is immutable, and that it is truly in charge and makes all the decisions, which the mind then acts out.

I find this slightly disagreeable, for the reason that "immutable" connotes unchanging, and anything unchanging is incapable of responding to change. In fact, I do not see how this immutable soul would be able to make rational, free decisions and choices and still remain "Us". Especially since, in order to do so it would have to be remarkably complex and thus, more similiar to a causality based brain than a simple, immutable soul.

I doubt whether any soul could exist at all and still be responsible for the myriad functionings of the brain and ultimately body. Not only is there no evidence for such a thing, but how would such a thing work? Of what would it be made of? Can we really say that the soul is immaterial, when logically it is impossible for the immaterial to affect the material?

This conclusion, however, has a strange twist. You see, for us to have free will, there has to be an "us" that possesses the trait of free will. Now, our brains, and our bodies, are causally directed, yes. But where in our brains and our bodies is there something that ultimately denotes "I"?

In other words, the lack of a soul does more than give us no chance at acquiring free will, but it also reveals that there would be no "us" in the first place, yes?

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Allthough for free will to exist, it doesnt mean necessarily (I bet I spelt that wrong) that every choice we make is a result of free will, or that it controls all of the mind and the body. If there is only one choice we have that is totally freely will, and the rest is a result of that choice plus determinstic factors, that would still mean have free will. (I suppose that is a logical tautology actually, but I've wrote it now so I'll post it :whistling:)

Of course there is freedom. Isn't it obvious enough? What makes us rational beings if we are not free? is that merely a capacity to know things deeper than other animals but still is doomed to be determined? Our transmutative power over matter or use of it shows the existence of an intellect, which after having sufficient knowledge of things and situations, freedom acts as the consequential agent of the intellect for its actuality.