Attempt at reconciling free will and determinism

I really don't even know what "god" means. But it seems to me that "reason" did not suddenly arises out of mindless atoms crashing into each other in the void. It must come from some other source than blind, accidental collisions of raw matter. You could knock billiard balls around on a pool table for eternity, and they would never just start moving around on their own initiative.

I don't expect some rock to just "suddenly" get smart and start walking around and talking. Even a big-ass pile of rocks. Chemical reactions, gravitational forces, nuclear forces, etc., as we know them, cannot produce "reason" and/or organization which suddenly "liberates" them from mechanical actions and reactions so that they can start doing meaningful and purposeful things which defy those laws.

Once you get life, these "pieces of matter" no longer simply "respond" to external forces. Their activities are "directed" toward particular ends which are not accidental or random.

Don't ask me where "reason" and purpose came from, because I don't even pretend to have a clue about that.

I find it contradictory when you say you don't even understand what reasoning IS but it CANT be as simple as smashing two atoms together.

The thing is, cognitive reasoning ability happened over a long gradual process. It didn't just spring up out of no where. Its a series of parts that have been building since life started.

I see it as chemistry. If you understand chemistry its really nothing special.

If you think this is all easily explained by simple, mechanical chemical reactions, then you're really just showing that you don't think much. You are simply reciting the pre-supposed tenets of a metaphysical, quasi-religious faith, not any kind of empirically "proven" science.

We do not have traits "because they are advantageous."

Quote:

We do not have traits "because they are advantageous."

Yes we do. It's called a Darwinian advantage. Yours must be a misunderstanding.

Therefore, if a trait is universal in a species, it must bring some sort of evolutionary advantage, or the trait would not have been selected. By and large, that rule works.

And do you really think that such a belief is genetically determined to begin with?

.Since cultures are all very different and many cultures are actively repressing this sense of agency, the only possible origin for it is genetic.

i don't have time for a long, laborious discussion with a contrarian mind...

You are born with a sense of euclidian space but you can chose to disbelieve it, and go for Riemann instead. Similarly you are born with a sence of agency but you can disbelieve it as an "illusion". You can also change the color of you hair, although you DO have genes coding for your natural hair color.

You can also change the color of you hair, although you DO have genes coding for your natural hair color.

The question of what possible Darwinian advantage a sense of agency would have if it was illusionary, is a question targetted at those who think that agency is an illusion that was imprinted in us by evolution.

I don't understand your problem with my statement. What's so hard to understand in the concept of "advantage"? You can survive and procreate with just one testicule, but having two provides an advantage, in case you lose the other one...

Once you grasp the basics of random change and natural selection it is easy to use it as a universal tool that can accomplish anything, no matter how 'inconceivable' it might seem. That fact traps many a fine mind into not considering any other possible mechanism. But once you are able to look at the full gestalt of existence it kind of falls apart.

I well remember how the synthetic theory beguiled me with its unifying power when I was a graduate student in the mid-1960’s. Since then I have been watching it slowly unravel as a universal description of evolution. The molecular assault came first, followed quickly by renewed attention to unorthodox theories of speciation and by challenges at the level of macroevolution itself. I have been reluctant to admit it — since beguiling is often forever — but if Mayr’s characterization of the synthetic theory is accurate, then that theory, as a general proposition, is effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy.