Is free-will an illusion?

You're pulling a "brain in a vat"? That's kids' play.

Let's assume I am some mad scientist who want to study fatuity and dunceness, and so I put your brain in a vat to do just that. I feed your brain with some virtual reality from a computer, but in fact you're just a brain in a vat. That virtual reality is your reality. To use your own words, it's your "true illusion". You can't get out of it, wake up and see the vat. So forget about the vat. It's not part of your reality, it's only part of mine... Just deal with your reality and forget about the vat.

In any case, that's a different subject that the thread's. The issue we were discussing is logic. I repeat that there's nothing else than human logic. Even the idea of some world's logic is part of human thoughts, produced by some Homo sapiens bodies. Whether the bodies are "virtual" or "real" (whatever that means) is a totally irrelevant issue. These bodies constitute our reality. We can no more deny them than we can deny our thoughts.

If human minds are fake, then the logic produced by said minds is probably unreliable. There's no way out of it. Reason cannot reason against reason. Minds cannot reason against minds. Otherwise, everything collapses, including your little human logic and the theories it cooked up...

And if you are happy with "experiencing" alone, then don't speak of anything else. Don't speak about logic, or Logic.

Of course I can reason against minds or any perceptual "object" what I cannot reason against is Logic Maths and Patterns nor the Experiencing...
If I was a computer subroutine, a bot, my so called brain n self are just a projection of the program....now the EXPERIENCING is undeniable Ollie.
Either you get it or you dont, this is not hard to grasp. I am sure 90% of the readers got the point.

One thing you did got right Reason cannot reason against itself but calling it "human" is decoration. It states nothing.

Most people stick with attacking the mind concept n let the brain alone, but I am bold and can go further...
Lets think of virtual machines, a program which mimics a machine within a machine...on this regard who is to say the brain as we perceive it is not one ? If you screw up with the brain it stops working all right but that doesnt entail the brain is an ultimate reality..for all we know and for the sake of playing Devil's advocate, the brain might well be a virtual machine !

Calling it human is calling it as it is. Thought is never disembodied or universal. It is by nature a product of living organisms. And knowing that is very important to understand thought, as something that people do, with all the frailties of that, not as something that is revealed or given to us by some god.

Stay at the level of "experiencing" if you are afraid to go any further, but don't say that those going further are wrong. There is no way your experiencing can get to that conclusion. In fact, there is no way any "experiencing" can make ANY conclusion, because "experiencing" means that you just live through a limited, punctual experience and you don't know that it means anything...

Read above. I am not calling it anything I am playing Devil's advocate and firming the ground on where we should stop. Descartes for his day n age was great but the fact of the matter is he got it wrong...His cogito ergum sum is incomplete.

You're still trying to find analytic holes in a 17th century aphorism. Gime a break.

If Descartes had been English, you would hail him as a genius but since he was French then it follows he must have got it wrong... And the worse thing is, it's not only you. The way I see it, the entire "analytic philosophy" project is basically about proving "continental philosophers" wrong by way of mindless casuistry. It's a form of petty philosophic nationalism, and it's boring to death.

Keep trying to debate Descartes if that entertains you. I'd rather benefit from his wisdom.

You are French all right n silly proud....instead of looking at the crystal clear point I've made you went to debate my lack of Love for French superfluous and superficial culture...
....you want to change subject and talk about that ? You lost a war against the English 2-3 decades ago because you culture is not predicated in actual substance but with appearances...For instance its absolutely distasteful to "faire la bise"...while it seems a silly small little cultural meme it goes along way to show how French are obsessed with looks instead of substance...same goes with movies and its drama and all the social culture about faking it.
Unfortunately since I was born n live in Portugal and Portuguese followed to the letter your silly cultural trend I have to put up with it everyday ! Specially with the older generations... they are pathetic !

Rather put up with the kitsch loud neon blaze Hollywood Americans then put up with French...having a choice I prefer German and Japanese ! Yes I am honest and open about my cultural bias ! Hidden or wide visible we all have "tribes" !

...oh by the way, Darwinism is a lovely bitch ! It extincts non working models !

But that's the thing: your point is very unclear, and the reason you clinch to it is quite likely due to your biases. It's not like you actually disagree with Descartes -- you DO think that you exist, as a thinking entity distinct from other ones, such as ME for instance. Otherwise you wouldn't constantly personalize the debate. You just pretend that the cogito argument doesn't cut it because you hate the idea that a Frenchman came up with such a crisp, elegant killer argument.

Just an example of why it's important to situate thought: to analyse its biases.

You do really believe that ****...look I am not a cave man, all human beings are more or less donkeys and I am not excluding myself from the pack...my cultural prejudices weigh very little in my intellectual judgements...

...on topic, I cannot place "myself" anywhere other then experiencing...I don't have a freaking clue about "materialism" nor about "consciousness" or "selfs"...if I have to wage a bet, I believe in maths even with the Godel incompleteness fraking up my search for a perfect meta Biology model...

Well then, don't use personal pronouns or any other markers of identity... "Portuguese experiencing" makes no sense. Either you believe that you are a human being, or you doubt it. If the latter, try and speak as a pure experience or shut up.

What am I forbidden of using distinct operational layers of languaging now ?
Don't shot from the hip cowboy...

If a concept is dubious, it should not be used. As simple as that.

Mate...where do I start..have you seen me use any dubious concept in philosophical arguments about the ultimate nature of reality ?
...frack...my all point has been to avoid them...hence why I carefully use the coinage "experiencing" instead of grounding my arguments in more subjective concepts like the "I" or "consciousness"...by the way, where did I spoke of Portuguese experiencing eh ? Our tete a tete about cultural differences and my likes and dislikes was a side note not a statement about free will nor first order reality...did you get that at least ?

Well yeah... I've just seen you use the concepts of "you" and "me", which are dubious is your book.


I haven't been introduced with the concept of "order of reality", not as you seem to use it. Would that be somewhat germane to Popper's 3 worlds or Descartes' 2 substances? Me meself and I - who have the luxury of believing in ourselves - speak of "planes of existence".

...oh dear Lord...I let our audience make a judgement about context on that, later Olly !

I'll let the "audience" judge who is coherent and who isn't... Ciao ciao.

An integrated experience does not an "I" make...
One needs to distinguish integrated experiencing from subjective concepts like "I".