Making Sense of Free Will and the Self

[@donseesyourshaydim7529]

I'm digging your channel. I'm learning things.

[@beyondourpale]

As is typical with these issues, each person just redefines what they mean by free will as you've done here. "one's ignorance or one's professed ignorance on any matter is not proof that one is not creative or creatively generating choices or as I say has free will" Here you're basically redefining it such that your definition of creativity covers free will. But I don't think this engages with what Sam is trying to highlight here. The capacity of creativity, to create new knowledge ultimately comes from thoughts appearing outwith or within. But if one can only see thoughts arrive (just pop up pre-formed) with no way to catch pre-thoughts, then we are just subject to the limits of whatever arises. Therefore ignorance of this process is highly relevant. The brain is pumping out these thoughts but people think 'they' are actually thinking those thoughts. It's the realisation that thoughts are coming from the same brain but not the part that feels like one's self. The free will argument revolves around the difference in phenomenology of choices feeling free and the laws of physics. In any moment we could only have thought what we did or done what we had done. It's a vast potential state space, but clearly limited in that moment by all the usual suspects. Stacking moments together doesn't get around those inherent limitations. Even when it leads to creative outcomes.

[@nodesignlaws]

>In any moment we could only have thought what we did or done what we had done. I suspect there are good arguments against this (I don't have any just yet! :D )

[@beyondourpale]

@@nodesignlaws This is the crux of the issue for me that I always seem to come back to. I'm also on the lookout for those arguments to get my free will back🤞

[@hd1080pal]

Freewill our software ability to overcome the inertia of the laws of physics.

[@neoliberal_af]

Sam Harris should start with philosophy basics first before going straight into determinism, just like his friend Sapolsky.

[@nrght]

what are the basics?

[@hermesofreason]

First

[@filmikathe1491]

Lol