Free Will: Excellent discussion (not) (Introduction)

by romansh , Thursday, February 26, 2015, 08:00 (3346 days ago) @ David Turell

Lieberman It is impossible to take a materialistic view of the universe (i.e. the view that there is nothing but physical material in the world, atoms bouncing off one another [delete in perfectly predictable patterns] and not come to the conclusion that free will is an illusion because your will must ultimately be caused by events in your physical brain which were caused by previous events in your brain, body, environment and so on. It makes no sense to talk about a will that is disconnected from causal chains of biological events.-So the rest of his argument will depend showing existence is somehow not materiel.-> Lieberman I am a neuroscientist and so 99% of the time I behave like a materialist, acknowledging that the mind is real but fully dependent on the brain. But we don't actually know this. We really don't. We assume our sense of will is a causal result of the neurochemical processes in our brain, but this is a leap of faith.-And it is an even bigger "leap of faith" to assume our will is not a result of cause effect. Whether my will is caused by the aggregate of quantum phenomena or a more classical universe it is likely caused. Now, if not, the author is appealing to some philosophical homunculus. If so, it is very much up to the author to provide some evidence for this position.-Now Lieberman claims the materialism is unfalsifiable. In a sense I agree. But then materialism is the bedrock of science. It is the basic axiom that science assumes so it can move forward.-We have debated the necessity of consciousness for free will in the past. I personally think this is where the whole debate comes unstuck. Until you can demonstrate to me that you are actually conscious this aspect is a red herring in the free will debate. Am I conscious now .... one more time.
http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Books/Tenzen/question1.htm-I will plough through the replies to this section of the thread.