A Sense of Free Will: the consciousness quagmire (Introduction)

by romansh ⌂ @, Sunday, August 30, 2015, 19:14 (3154 days ago) @ romansh

When I first started playing the free will game on the AgnosticWeb, here a few years ago I wanted to define free will in terms similar to something like ... the ability to act or make choices independently of the environment. You and dhw insisted on putting in a consciousness component. I understand why, but this definitely causes a quagmire of confusion.-In fact my definition has a lower standard for meeting the free will requirement. We could meet it either consciously or not. So several years later we still play the same dance around what is or is not consciousness. -The question remains is our will independent of cause? This applies to our unconscious and our supposedly conscious wills. Does consciousness suspend the laws of physics? In the sense that the laws of physics no longer describe brain activity and the brain/mind is an independent agent.-If this is what believers of free will believe, then the ball is firmly in their court to demonstrate corroborating evidence.


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