Is free-will an illusion?

If perfection is the criteria for rationality, and since any correlation we draw is always necessarily imperfect, it follows that all science is "magic" according to you. What a naive view of science you have.

Talking about in LOGICAL future LAWFUL explanations here the kids version that you may grasp on Bhomian mechanics as alternative to the nuts standard model on quantum mechanics.

There is a distinction between matters of fact and knowledge on matters of fact one is called Ontology and another Epistemology. Problems regarding what one knows has no bearing on what is true. You happen to think magic is true I don't. Both are believe systems.

Okay, so addiction is an argument against free will, fine. There are many arguments FOR it too. It's evidently not a clear-cut case.

I don't believe in ontology, period. The essence of things as they are is an area we can never enter, and thus there can be no knowledge of it, no useful discourse about it, no "logy". It remains to be proven that truths objectively exist out there, irrespective of our perception, and it will probably never get proven.

Well either what you said is the case or is not. Whatever is the case the case is true...

Well, since you have NOT proposed an objective criteria to differentiate magic from nature thus far, it follows that you probably can't, and that you have no way to differentiate magic from science objectively. Therefore your argument that you "don't do magic" is moot. It just means that you pick and chose which explanations to give credit to, in a subjective manner, like the rest of us. You have your preferences just like everybody, but you have no special anti-magic genes, sorry.

I said I depart from Descartes on the 2 substances thing. Ergo on "substance dualism". In fact and as often the case with your vids, i find myself in total agreement with Colin McGinn. If you agree with him, you agree with me.

He does NOT however propose a solution to the mind-body problem. He only recasts the question in his ( useful IMO) framework. It's not about the relation between two substances but about the relations between two "forms of matter", "matter" being defined (vacuously as he points out) as "all that exists"... In other words, the mind is something that exists as part of all the things that exists. But the whole question of how this mental "form of matter" happens to exist in the first place, supported by another form of matter (biological), of how it can "think", and how it appears to exert some control over biology, that question remains obviously unanswered. And pertinent to that old goal of philosophy: know yourself.

Well if you are now a monist, a one substance man, then you now have the problem how come this one substance has not the same rules across the board...how come can we escape our genetic and environmental "dictators" ?
How come our estate of affairs at any moment is free from the "atomic" or whatever it is one substance clock motions of causes and effects ? How can we in any situation do otherwise ? Note, one thing is contemplating hypothesis another is given the same exact conditions to the last atom we being "free" to chose otherwise ? (this includes the subject conditions)

I don't know. All I know is that denying the mind and agency leads to logical paradoxes galore. So let's agree with McGinn that it's one of the stuff that exists in this universe. From there, it follows that it can be the cause of other stuff, other phenomena, and that it can be caused be pre-existing conditions or phenomena. That causation is never perfectly deterministic in my view. Given that a high complexity in things tends to make them more unpredictable than simpler stuff, it seems reasonnable that we are a sort of "concentrate of unpredictability". Now of course you will tell me that you don't author your own randomness, and I would disagree. You can also tell me that we don't own our logical reasonning and I would once again disagree. We ARE our thoughts, our logic, our ideas. That's us, that's what we are made of. Whether we can control our inspiration, our ideas, or our train of thoughts, is not relevant. We are "free" precisely because we are partly determined by our own chance and our own thinking, and our own choices.

To follow once own law is freedom, in the sense that it is freedom from somebody or something else's law. And therefore the mind's capacity to follow its own route and imagine all sorts of stuff and plan ahead and discipline itself somewhat to do the planned stuff, based on its own reasoning, that capacity is what I call freedom. Obedience to once own laws.

Well I have been debating all along what some call "premium freedom" not the common sense usage of not being constrained by somebody else actions. What I don't buy is the premium freedom idea either with determinism or with indeterminism and chance. And unfortunately when scientists ask people on what they mean with free will it is demonstrated most people do really believe they have that sort of premium free will which is magic by definition. No top scientist in this bloody world defends that kind of premium free will. The best case scenario some have done for free will can be seen in soft determinism. Check that if you haven't yet.

Good point

Certainly not. What would we be disagreeing about if it was clear cut?



For me it is one of the more convincing arguments, but of course I see many others. Given my line of work let me ask you this...would you say that a child chooses to have autism?

It's a weak argument, since many people manage to fight off their addiction. Inconclusive, therefore.

For autism, i don't know much about it. Could be a choice in some cases. Could be genetic too.

No idea what a premium freedom is. Never heard the term.

by the way, there's no such thing as an epiphenomenon. That's magic thinking to assume that some stuff have no consequence at all on anything else, ever, as if our mind lived in some netherworld or parallel universe. Ridiculous idea.

Yes I know about "soft determinism" or "compatibilism". Mine is a similar outlook except I dispose of the determinist aspect, which i see as a non-necessary hypothesis.

I'm not going to play the shift-the-argument game with you, so I'm moving on from the scratch ticket example that you rightly accepted.



The age of diagnosis is typically 2.5. Because the symptoms were expressed so close in time to when children receive certain childhood vaccinations led to suspicions of certain vaccines being implicated as a cause; which was refuted many years ago, but some still challenge. So, would you make the argument that a two and a half year old chooses to be autistic? Flapping their arms, Spinning in circles, avoiding eye contact, not speaking or stopping using words, banging their heads repeatedly on objects? These are some common symptoms for many children who carry the diagnosis. If it was a choice, how would they come to know about it at 2? Are there meetings? Is there slick video programming produced by autism promoters that they've been watching and imitating? I would think that it was immediately apparent, requiring no explanation at all, that these children absolutely do not choose autism. Now, we've got an even bigger problem in rational thought if you can't get behind this.

The experiencing of "red" is an epiphenomena raised from the exact specific unique conditions of the subject interacting with the world. That which leads to the experience is in your brain but its not the phenomena. Just as a result is the outcome of a mathematical operation but is not the operation. There is nothing magical in causes leading to consequences, outcomes. The world is what it is.

You might wish to reflect upon the fact that many people DO manage to get rid of their addiction. That is a strong argument in favor of "free will".


Why did you ask the question then? What were you trying to achieve with your question?

By the way, just because you think something is obvious, does not mean it is actually obvious. You could be wrong. I'm sure it has happened to you already.

Things that seem "immediately apparent, requiring no explanation at all" are generally a priori judgements, uncionscious assumptions or cliches that people are unaware of, or too scared to review critically. It is always a good idea to explore and test these things. Most of the times they are based on naive preconceptions that do not stand up to even the shallowest review. You have no evidence that there was never any element of choice in each and every autism case in the history of mankind. Some people diagnosed as mildly autistic are fine this way.

The experiencing of "red" is a "qualia". Don't mix up your definitions. We already have Brian for that.


An idea which is pure magical thinking and flies in the face of the principle of action and reaction: to all action, there is a reaction. Therefore if A can affect B, B can affect A.

You try so hard to wiggle out of the questions. These responses sound extremely silly. You agree that some people can't break their addiction and have no explanation how this can be the case if a person has "free choice", agency, free will; but are so affected by your belief system that cannot resist throwing in the example that there are people who overcome their addiction, and then, because it's consistent with your belief system say, forget about the addicted, the proof of free will is in the ones who are not (which, by the way, is not evidence of free will) . Then you say there may be some legitimate cases of autism, though you say that you don't know anything about autism, but continue on to say that there are mild forms of autism that some people probably choose. These descriptions of choices for addiction or to HAVE A DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY are incoherent to the point of defying believability. Please talk to some parents of young children with autism, and as the child bangs his head on the floor, look that parent in the eye and tell her that her 2 year old son is just choosing to be autistic.