Well once again the topic of free will most often comes up because of religious motivation

But this is demonstrably false - We can choose what we want. This doesn't mean we can choose anything, but who ever stated that? The fact that we can only make choices within reasonable measure does not mean we don't have free will. It just means we don't have unlimited options. We can still have free choice within those limited options, though. Can't we?

You just stated what I said previously. You have defined perimeters to what you are allowed to pick from and even within those perimeters you have distinct set of options. That by definition is not free, so how is my statement false? Demonstrably at that. I'm wondering here if you actually meant demonstrably or something else.

Free will has never meant unlimited choice, and I have no clue why you think it does.

It's demonstrably false that I cannot choose what I want to choose. I can demonstrate it to you quite easily (I'm doing it right now).

Well show me the example of neither choosing nor not choosing.

Well once again the topic of free will most often comes up because of religious motivation, so in this sense consequences are relevant. Why? Because it is by the very mentioning of free will that is to give credit to the whole process of choose or lose.

If consequences were irrelevant than we would always be confused why things happened after making choices. We don't behave that way, well most of us don't, some do I suppose. But anyways, a majority of us actually determine the result prior to making the choice and thus that effects the decision. Or maybe I am the only one who does that.

Free will has never meant unlimited choice, and I have no clue why you think it does.

It's demonstrably false that I cannot choose what I want to choose. I can demonstrate it to you quite easily (I'm doing it right now).

Unless you deny that all of us are able to do things because we want to, and not because we are forced to do them, and that we could have done something else if we had chosen to, what other proof would you require that we have free will?

Well once again the topic of free will most often comes up because of religious motivation, so in this sense consequences are relevant. Why? Because it is by the very mentioning of free will that is to give credit to the whole process of choose or lose.

If consequences were irrelevant than we would always be confused why things happened after making choices. We don't behave that way, well most of us don't, some do I suppose. But anyways, a majority of us actually determine the result prior to making the choice and thus that effects the decision. Or maybe I am the only one who does that.

Can you clarify one point, please. Bearing in mind your posts #166 and 170, would you say that "we could have done otherwise" is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of our acting of our own free will? So if we are forced to do something by fear of adverse consequences, we are not exercising free will, despite the fact that we could have chosen to incur such consequences?

result ? how can you determine a final result when the effects of anything go on and on ? and does not your way suggest that if you cannot determine result, you do not act ? Prediction is a thing we do lots of, but it does not have to be very specific in order for us to act.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Having faith that what you do, has effects ( makes changes ) . that's enough.

an agent with regulative control can, so to speak, regulate between different alternatives. An agent with guidance control guides or brings about her conduct even if she has no other alternatives to the course she takes.

Kringelbach goes even further. He suspects that confabulation is not just something people do when the system goes wrong. We may all do it routinely. Children need little encouragement to make up stories when asked to talk about something they know little about. Adults, too, can be persuaded to confabulate, as [Situationist contributor] Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and his colleague Richard Nisbett have shown. They laid out a display of four identical items of clothing and asked people to pick which they thought was the best quality. It is known that people tend to subconsciously prefer the rightmost object in a sequence if given no other choice criteria, and sure enough about four out of five participants did favour the garment on the right. Yet when asked why they made the choice they did, nobody gave position as a reason. It was always about the fineness of the weave, richer colour or superior texture. This suggests that while we may make our decisions subconsciously, we rationalise them in our consciousness, and the way we do so may be pure fiction, or confabulation.

More recent experiments by philosopher Lars Hall of Lund University in Sweden develop this idea further. People were shown pairs of cards with pictures of faces on them and asked to choose the most attractive. Unbeknown to the subject, the person showing the cards was a magician and routinely swapped the chosen card for the rejected one. The subject was then asked why they picked this face. Often the swap went completely unnoticed, and the subjects came up with elaborate explanations about hair colour, the look of the eyes or the assumed personality of the substituted face. Clearly people routinely confabulate under conditions where they cannot know why they made a particular choice. Might confabulation be as routine in justifying our everyday choices?

"For Dennett, free will consists in the ability of a person to control her conduct on the basis of rational considerations through means that arise from, or are subject to, critical self-evaluation, self-adjusting and self-monitoring. That is, free will involves responsiveness to reasons. "

If you hold that regulative control is necessary for free will, I think you have to conclude that we don't have free will. Guidance control sounds like what we've discussed--when you buy an ice cream cone, you weren't going to do otherwise, but that's because it's what you wanted. But how much guidance control to we really have?




How often do we confabulate?



How much is actually decided by the subconscious, with the conscious pretending it made the decision? It's extreme to say that it's all confabulation, but sometimes it is even when we think it isn't.

Sometimes we think we're responding to reasoning when we aren't--as in the case of people who claim an argument is logically valid because they agree with the conclusion.

If my subconscious made the decision (whatever that means) then I made the decision. It was my subconscious. And I consciously ratified the decision later, anyway. I don't understand the fuss.

I thought of that, but I don't agree. My subconscious isn't me. The conscious can veto impulses, but how does that work? That's more of an in depth scientific question I guess.

I thought of that, but I don't agree. My subconscious isn't me. The conscious can veto impulses, but how does that work? That's more of an in depth scientific question I guess.

My subconscious isn't me.

It isn't? Who is it then? An alien?

The whole free will question troubles me. Not the question itself, but rather the answer. What difference would it make?

We finally determine that the answer is "yes, we do have free will."
Great. Now we know, and we go about our day.

Or

We finally determine that the answer is "no, we do not have free will."
Great. Now we know, and we go about our day.

What would a definitive answer change, and why?

The same thing can be said about whether light is a wave or a particle.

But, in fact, some political views, like Left-Liberalism, are based on the view that free will is a dubious proposition. Which is why Liberalism holds that equality of outcome trumps equality of opportunity, merit should not be rewarded because people do not deserve what they merit. President Obama's, and the Left's social politics depends on this view that need trumps merit. A very large and popular book is an exposition of why need trumps merit, and equality of outcome trumps equality of opportunity because free will is probably false.
It is called, A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. It is a mainstay of Left-Academia (most of academia). As John Dewey said, "Ideas have consequences".

What would a definitive answer change, and why?