To say that the universe must behave according to laws is simpy to say that the laws will continue to actually characterize the behavior of the universe - to believe that the universe actually 'obeys' any laws is, as you suggest, fallacious.

Agreed. I always smile when scientific-minded people tell me that correlation is not causation; not all correlation is causation, but all causation is nothing other than correlation of the highest degree.

Well put. Do you smile because they are making a questionable distinction? That's why I would smile. Of course, in a practical sense, their question is not silly. But the only difference between correlation and causation would seem to be in the conception of such

(also taking consensus and persuasion into consideration. The "insane"/"unscientific" are just the minority vote, etc.

No reasonable person would deny that what we typically call volition does in fact exist as an experience; I think of moving my hand, then my hand moves. We all experience that sort of event all the time. The issue is whether or not the mental state preceeding the action in fact caused the action.

You no doubt chose to eat oatmeal; you thought about various breakfast options and decided to eat oatmeal, then in fact did eat oatmeal. The question is whether you could in that instance have made another choice. I say that you couldn't have. The fact that you presently can imagine yourself choosing bacon and eggs instead of oatmeal does not prove that in fact you could have made that alternate choice. As I stated in 'Against Possibility,' that very conceptual act, i.e. imagining various scenarios - whether at the moment of the choice or later in reflection - is all there is to possibility. That is the only meaning which the word has. I can point out that x led to y led to z as an instance of necessity - that did in fact happen. There is nothing to which you can point that is an instance of possibility - except the imagining. The world consists of is, not can, nor should.

The same is true of volition - the word means nothing except as it refers to the experience called 'making a choice.'

You may be right, but have you any argument to show that I could not have done otherwise if I had chosen otherwise? Why should I not believe that if I had chosen Froot Loups that I could not have eaten Froot Loups instead of oatmeal? And what makes you think I could not have chosen to eat Froot Loups? What is the argument? No one forced me to choose oatmeal, after all. I was free to choose Froot Loups. I just did not. Did I have reason for not choosing Froot Loups. Yes, I did not feel like eating Froot Loups, and I did not want to eat that much sugar.

The argument I can come up with is that any human action is a sequence of necessary physical reactions. If you drop a cannonball from a tower, it has to fall down. It can not happen otherwise. Our decisions are the same, just more complicated. So whatever we 'do' had to happen, then our cerebral cortex deceives us to think that we actually wanted it.
What do you think? (I'm not trying to convince you, try to argue with me.)

It is physically necessary that the cannon ball falls down, since that it falls down follows from certain laws of nature,

When I do what I want to do, and am under not compulsion, I do what I do of my own free will.

But in this context, by 'free will' we mean that "you could not have decided otherwise". It is purely a question of what happens in your own head. And in that sense, we only think that we could have decided otherwise.

But why do you think I could not have decided otherwise? Why could I not have decided to have Fruit Loups instead of oatmeal? What would have stopped me from doing so?

I see, that sort of eternity.

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

-William Blake

From a cannonball falling down a tower to all the molecules in our heads interacting, where does 'choice' come from?

It's Fruit Loops. :bigsmile:

Nothing stops you, you just never had a choice in the first place. You imagine unless something stops you, you have free will. But it's the other way around. It's not the absence of free will that has to be explained, but the existence of it.

Hmm... let me say it this way. When you dream, you think can fly (or do other impossible things). At the time, it is quite obvious to you that you in fact can fly. But your brain deceives you. If you were in my dream, and you wanted to convince me that I can't fly, how would you do it? What argument would you give me, who so obviously feels that I can fly?

If free will is only an illusion then would I feel any different if I were "really" free? If not, then why would I care? That's like saying that my car is an illusion but I can still drive it to work everyday and take long trips across country in it too. So what if it's an illusion, it still gets me to where I need to go. I'd only be concerned that it were an illusion if I couldn't go anywhere in it.

But I was not dreaming when I chose otherwise. I did choose otherwise. That is exactly how anyone who speaks English would describe what I did. It is up to you to say why despite the fact that what I did was a clear case of choosing otherwise, it really was not. What did I do if I did not choose otherwise when I changed my choice from vanilla to butterscotch?

I asked you to convince me, who is dreaming, that I can't fly. What is your argument?

Let me ask the other way around: If we did not have free will, how would it feel like?

Try flapping your arms.

Tingly.

But it's in my dream, when I flap my arms I do feel like I fly. Thus it's obvious that I can fly. There is no good reason to say that flying is an illusion when it is clear that it is not.



We would think we have free will, but not actually have a choice, that's how it would feel like.

I asked you to convince me, who is dreaming, that I can't fly. What is your argument?

---------- Post added 04-20-2010 at 03:41 PM ----------

Let me ask the other way around: If we did not have free will, how would it feel like?

But what has any of that to do with it? Why should I have to convince you of anything? I just gave you an argument. Deal with it. If I did not have free will I would feel (I guess) that I was compelled to do things I did not want to do. Perhaps like an obsessive compulsive. I don't feel that way. Do you?