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Posted by Arlington Promoted 434 days 19 hours ago 1622 views
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Consciousness arises after we make choices. Those choices are determined by laws of physics.
*Our consciousness explains why we choose but the ‘choosing’ is done by biochemical processes that we have no control over. Freewill should not be understood as an ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances. Rather, it is a hypothetical ability to have chosen differently if one had been differently psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or desires.
*Most would define freewill as the ability to choose between alternatives. There is no requirement that the alternatives be fair, weighted, or unlimited. Thus, even if your choice is between ‘good’ or ‘really good,’ there's still free choice involved and arguably freewill is present. Lack of freewill, then, is to provide no alternatives whatsoever. However, we cannot fully grasp how our thought processes are governed by laws of physics so we assume it’s real. We are obsessed with extremes because we can easily define them.
*Everything in the universe apparently must comply with laws of physics. Therefore, free choice must transcend matter; otherwise it’s causal and dependent like the orbit of a satellite. True randomness is purported by quantum theory but quantum effects apply only on an atomic scale; by the time you get as large as living cells, normal physics applies.
*We defend freewill so as to disassociate ourselves from those we hate and fear (or to identify ourselves with those we love and protect). The idea of humans merely being a collection of atoms that obey fundamental and deterministic rules, that no human was ever better or worse than another is frankly appalling. People are afraid of understanding the motivation behind out-group members because once you do understand, they are connected to you.
*Desires come from natural selection…Perhaps freewill can best be characterized as a mask. It captures our imagination leaving us with a sense of empowerment and mystique but does not grant us supernatural powers to overcome hereditary and environmental manipulation, no matter how undetectable.
“Human suffering has been caused because too many of us cannot grasp that words are only tools for our use, and that the mere presence in a dictionary of a word like ‘living’ does not mean it necessarily has to refer to something definite in the real world.” – Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (1976)
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