RG1 wrote:SpheresOfBalance wrote:But wait, I can send this or not...
I choose to send it...
My will was free to do as it wanted, I was free to will it, let it be done.
Before you claim that your free-will sent this or not, let me ask, did you have a reason for sending this?
If yes, then this choice was determined by your reason (not by you).
If no, then I ask, why did you send it? What caused you to send it?
Was it your 'conscious' self that chose to send this or your 'unconscious' self?
Free-will implies that you had some conscious control in making this choice.
If you sent this consciously (knowingly) then you would have a memory of doing so.
If no memory exists, then the choice was not consciously made, therefore was not via free-will.
If you have a 'reason' for sending this, then it was that reason (not you or your free-will) that determined your choice.
But then, you may argue that it was your free-will that 'chose' your reason.
If so, then let me ask, did you have a reason for choosing this reason?
As you can see, all paths ultimately end up leading to our 'unconscious' selves actually making our choices, not our conscious selves that we associate with having the power of free-will.
Wikipedia:
UNCONSCIOUS MIND:
"The unconscious mind (or the unconscious) consists of the processes in the mind that occur automatically and are not available to introspection, and include thought processes, memory, affect, and motivation.[1] The term was
coined by the 18th century German
romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the
poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The
concept was developed and
popularized by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Empirical evidence
suggests that unconscious phenomena include repressed feelings, automatic skills, subliminal perceptions, thoughts, habits, and automatic reactions,[1] and
possibly also complexes, hidden phobias and desires. In psychoanalytic
theory, unconscious processes are
understood to be expressed in dreams in a symbolical form, as well as in slips of the tongue and jokes. Thus the unconscious mind
can be seen as the source of dreams and automatic thoughts (those that appear without any
apparent cause), the repository of forgotten memories (that
may still be accessible to consciousness at some later time), and the locus of implicit knowledge (the things that we have learned so well that we do them without thinking).
It has been
argued that consciousness is influenced by other parts of the mind. These include unconsciousness as a personal habit, being unaware, and intuition. Terms related to semi-consciousness include: awakening, implicit memory, subliminal messages, trances, hypnagogia, and hypnosis. While sleep, sleep walking, dreaming, delirium, and comas
may signal the presence of unconscious processes, these processes are not the unconscious mind itself, but rather symptoms.
"Some critics have
doubted the existence of the unconscious.[2][3][4]"
"Controversy
The
notion that the unconscious mind exists at all has been disputed.
Franz Brentano rejected the concept of the unconscious in his 1874 book Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, although his rejection followed largely from his definitions of consciousness and unconsciousness.[22]
Jean-Paul Sartre offers a critique of Freud's theory of the unconscious in Being and Nothingness, based on the claim that consciousness is essentially self-conscious. Sartre also argues that Freud's theory of repression is internally flawed. Philosopher Thomas Baldwin argues that Sartre's argument is based on a misunderstanding of Freud.[2]
Erich Fromm contends that, "The term 'the unconscious' is actually a mystification (even though one might use it for reasons of convenience, as I am guilty of doing in these pages).
There is no such thing as the unconscious; there are only experiences of which we are aware, and others of which we are not aware, that is, of which we are unconscious. If I hate a man because I am afraid of him, and if I am aware of my hate but not of my fear, we may say that my hate is conscious and that my fear is unconscious; still my fear does not lie in that mysterious place: 'the' unconscious."[23]
John Searle has offered a critique of the Freudian unconscious. He contends that the very notion of a collection of "thoughts" that exist in a privileged region of the mind such that they are in principle never accessible to conscious awareness,
is incoherent. This is not to imply that there are not "nonconscious" processes that form the basis of much of conscious life. Rather, Searle simply claims that to posit the existence of something that is like a "thought" in every way except for the fact that no one can ever be aware of it (can never, indeed, "think" it) is an
incoherent concept. To speak of "something" as a "thought" either implies that it is being thought by a thinker or that it could be thought by a thinker. Processes that are not causally related to the phenomenon called thinking are more appropriately called the nonconscious processes of the brain.[24]
Other critics of the Freudian unconscious include David Stannard,[3] Richard Webster,[4] Ethan Watters,[25] and Richard Ofshe.[26]
David Holmes[27] examined sixty years of research about the Freudian concept of "repression", and concluded that there is no positive evidence for this concept. Given the lack of evidence of many Freudian hypotheses, some scientific researchers proposed the existence of unconscious mechanisms that are very different from the Freudian ones. They speak of a "cognitive unconscious" (John Kihlstrom),[28][29] an "adaptive unconscious" (Timothy Wilson),[30] or a "dumb unconscious" (Loftus & Klinger),[31] which executes automatic processes but lacks the complex mechanisms of repression and symbolic return of the repressed.
In modern cognitive psychology, many researchers have sought to strip the notion of the unconscious from its Freudian heritage, and alternative terms such as "implicit" or "automatic" have come into currency. These traditions emphasize the degree to which cognitive processing happens outside the scope of cognitive awareness, and show that things we are unaware of can nonetheless influence other cognitive processes as well as behavior.[32][33][34][35][36] Active research traditions related to the unconscious include implicit memory (see priming, implicit attitudes), and nonconscious acquisition of knowledge (see Lewicki, see also the section on cognitive perspective, below)."
2. ^ a b Thomas Baldwin (1995). Ted Honderich. ed. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 792. ISBN 0-19-866132-0.
3. ^ a b See "The Problem of Logic", Chapter 3 of Shrinking History: On Freud and the Failure of Psychohistory, published by Oxford University Press, 1980
4. ^ a b See "Exploring the Unconscious: Self-Analysis and Oedipus", Chapter 11 of Why Freud Was Wrong: Sin, Science and Psychoanalysis, published by The Orwell Press, 2005
Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, for establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.[1] It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art, and is normally considered to be a definitive characteristic of human nature.[2] The concept of reason is sometimes referred to as rationality and sometimes as discursive reason, in opposition to intuitive reason.[3]
REASON:
"Reason or "reasoning" is associated with
thinking, cognition, and intellect. Reason, like habit or intuition, is one of the ways by which thinking comes from one idea to a related idea. For example, it is the means by which rational beings understand themselves to think about cause and effect, truth and falsehood, and what is good or bad.
In contrast to reason as an abstract noun, a reason is a consideration which explains or justifies some event, phenomenon or behaviour.[4] The ways in which human beings reason through argument are the subject of inquiries in the field of logic.
Reason is closely identified with the ability to self-consciously change beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and institutions, and therefore with the capacity for freedom and self-determination.[5]
Psychologists and cognitive scientists have attempted to study and explain how people reason, e.g. which cognitive and neural processes are engaged, and how cultural factors affect the inferences that people draw. The field of automated reasoning studies how reasoning may or may not be modeled computationally. Animal psychology considers the controversial question of whether animals can reason."
WILL:
Will, in philosophy, refers to a property of the mind, and an
attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called “willing” or “voluntary” and sometimes pejoratively “willful” or “at will”. In general,
"will" does not refer to one particular or most preferred desire but rather to the general capacity to have such desires and act decisively based on them, according to whatever criteria the willing agent applies. The will is in turn important within philosophy because a person's will is one of the most distinct parts of their mind, along with reason and understanding. It is one of the things which makes a person who they are, and it is especially important in ethics, because it is the part which determines whether people act, at least when they act deliberately.
FREE WILL:
"Free will is the ability of agents to make choices unconstrained by certain factors. Factors of historical concern have included metaphysical constraints (for example, logical, nomological, or theological determinism), physical constraints (for example, chains or imprisonment), social constraints (for example, threat of punishment or censure), and mental constraints (for example, compulsions or phobias, neurological disorders, or genetic predispositions). The principle of free will has religious, legal, ethical, and scientific implications.[1] For example, in the religious realm, free will implies that individual will and choices can coexist with an omnipotent divinity. In the law, it affects considerations of punishment and rehabilitation. In ethics, it may hold implications for whether individuals can be held morally accountable for their actions. In science, neuroscientific findings regarding free will may suggest different ways of predicting human behavior.
A simplified taxonomy of philosophical positions regarding free will and determinism.
This important issue has been widely debated throughout history, including not only whether free will exists but even how to define the concept. Historically, the constraint of dominant concern has been determinism of some variety (such as logical, nomological, or theological), so the most prominent common positions are named for the relation they hold to exist between free will and determinism. Those who define free will as freedom from determinism are called incompatibilists, as they hold determinism to be incompatible with free will. The two main incompatibilist positions are metaphysical libertarianism, the claim that determinism is false and thus free will is at least possible; and hard determinism, the claim that determinism is true and thus free will is not possible. Hard incompatibilism furthermore posits that indeterminism is likewise incompatible with free will, and thus either way free will is not possible.
Those who define free will otherwise, without reference to determinism, are called compatibilists, because they hold determinism to be compatible with free will. Some compatibilists hold even that determinism is necessary for free will, arguing that
choice involves preference for one course of action over another, a process that requires some sense of how choices will turn out.[2][3] Compatibilists thus consider the debate between libertarians and hard determinists over free will vs determinism a false dilemma.[4] Different compatibilists offer very different definitions of free will even means, taking different types of constraints to be relevant to the issue; but because all agree that determinism is not the relevant concern, they are traditionally grouped together under this common name."
Now that that's out of the way, you were saying what, with certainty?"
Like I've said in the past, free will falls within the constraints of the physical, mental, knowledge and oppression, so obviously, time is of essence. We are all, not created, exactly equal; one mans fears, are not necessarily, another's. Some are more aware of themselves than others. All abilities are therefore relative between men. While you may believe that you do not have free will, I believe otherwise, I'm a compatibilist.
